ABSTRACT
This chapter provides the extent and timing of the changes and with identifying where the increased population was accommodated, both as between the different types of village, those that enclosed and those that retained their open fields, and within the town itself. The population of the compound parish of Broughton Ashley, enclosed in the early seventeenth century, appears to have been more typical of the "open village" economy, or rather of the Hinckley area, and it has here been classified as an open-field parish. Although there are insufficient records to demonstrate the extent of poverty, an examination of charitable bequests in the sixteenth-century wills of inhabitants serves as a reminder of the kind of regular provision made for the poor of each parish. Joseph Lee was able to report, with satisfaction, that there are not above twelve persons, men, women and children, that do, or at least can, pretend to poverty'.
