ABSTRACT
The process of enclosures thus illustrates the limits to the security obtained by copyholders. The aim of the measure may also have been financial, because the Crown was empowered to distrain for half of the profits resulting from the enclosure; it was not, however, an easy way to raise money, so it is unlikely to have been the only reason for the act. Depopulation from plague was a very real factor in the long term, and while it might not destroy a village immediately, it could weaken it as a social and economic unit. The main areas of depopulation and enclosure in the Midlands were not on their itinerary, and in Kent, where the peasant community was free; it may well have been the peasantry who wished to consolidate their holdings. The other shires which the Bohemians visited, namely Berkshire, Hampshire and Wiltshire, were also in fact ones which were comparatively little affected by enclosures.
