ABSTRACT
In the claylands of Lindsey enclosure was taking place most noticeably on the sandy soils which had been used for rabbit warrens and poor sheep grazing which were perpetually exposed to flooding, and so were best used for cattle feeding. To get the land into better heart or to put it to more productive use than before seems to have been the motive behind much of the enclosure activity in the Lincolnshire claylands in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. In short, most clayland peasants seem to have grown little themselves, but bought enough to occupy the family in spinning and weaving for the home. For the most part the improvements in husbandry in the claylands of Lincolnshire in the seventeenth century were of an unspectacular kind. The only exception was the claylands where cropping changed little. The most revolutionary was that wrought by enclosure.
