The agrarian changes which attracted attention from the latter part of the fifteenth century to the accession of Elizabeth, and again, to a less degree, at intervals between 1558 and 1660, are a watershed in economic history, separating mediæval from modern England as decisively as did, in other departments of national life, the Reformation and the Tudor monarchy. For the controversial questions surrounding their causes and consequences we must refer the student to the list of books given below. All that can be attempted here is to notice the special points upon which the following documents throw light. In arranging the documents in this section it seemed best not to group them in strict chronological order, but to place together those relating to similar aspects of the subject. Documents 1 to 6 illustrate the status and tenure of different classes of landholders. By the beginning of the sixteenth century personal villeinage has almost disappeared; only one document therefore (No. 1) is given to it. Nor has it seemed necessary to print documents referring specially to the freeholders who, compared with other classes of tenants, were little affected by the agrarian changes. On the other hand, the position of the customary tenants, and of the lessees who farmed manorial demesnes, raises important questions. Documents 2 to 4 illustrate manorial customs and the way in which cases between lords and copyholders turned upon them (Nos 3 and 4). Without entering into controversial questions with regard to copyhold tenure one may say (_a_) that it is customary or villein tenure to which the courts from the beginning of the fifteenth century, first the court of Chancery--before which both these cases come--and then the Common Law courts, have given protection, (_b_) that what the Courts do is to enforce manorial customs, which vary from place to place. It is, therefore, essential for a tenant who wants, _e.g._, to be protected against eviction (No. 3), or against loss of profitable rights (No. 4) to show that the lord is committing a breach of the custom. Hence the dispute (No. 3) as to whether the land at issue is customary land or part of the lord's demesnes. If it is the former the tenants are likely to be protected by the Courts: if it is the latter, they are not. The position of the capitalist farmer, who played so large a part in the rural economy of the sixteenth century, is illustrated by documents 5 and 6. No. 5 is specially interesting as showing how the earlier practice of dividing up the demesne lands among numerous small tenants was replaced by that of leasing them in a block to one large farmer. Documents 7 to 12 illustrate certain points which have already been mentioned, _e.g._, the importance of manorial customs (Nos. 8, 10 and 12). But their peculiar interest consists in the light which they throw on the grievances of the peasants. They suffer from enclosing (Nos. 7, 8, 10, 11), from excessive fines (Nos. 8, 9, 10, 12), and from rack