THE ORIGIN OF RENT.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XVI, Issue 135, 8 June 1881, Page 4

THE ORIGIN OF RENT.

It may bo interesting to many of our readers to know the origin of the payment of rent (or land, and tbe time at which it commenced. In 1350, agriculture as carried on under tbe feudal system of villeinoge or Berviie tenure by which laborers were- bound to the coil amJ transferable with it from ens owner to onother, received a severe check owinn: to the pestilence known ns the " black death," whiuh had carried off well-nigh half thd population of England in the preceding year. Libor being scarce, the villeins, or laborers, hoped to. improve their position by obtaining daily wages for their daily work, but the rate of wages was fixed by Parliament at too low a tcile to admit of any amelioration of their wretched condition, and things went on in tbe old way until 1381, when the imposition of a poll tnx in addition to the other griev»ncfin provoked the insurreofion under Jack Cade and Watt Tyler. When this was quelled the abolition of villeinage was again brought before Parliament, which refused to sanction it by direct legislation. A few landowners, however, began at thin period to take money payments from those who held land under them, instead of personal suit and service, and thus arose tbe ayetem of tenant farming which is still in vogue, and which may be considered to have been in operation in Eugland for exactly five hundred yecrs. — Lacd.