It has already been noticed that the City was surrounded by ecclesiastical manors in the time of Domesday, and this was still the case at the beginning of the sixteenth century. It would appear from the following extract that the practice of enclosure, which at this time was being extensively adopted in many parts of England, was being attempted in the neighbourhood of London itself, greatly to the disgust of the Londoners, who naturally resented the proposed restrictions on their accustomed liberty.
Before this time the towns about London as Islington, Hoxton, Shoreditch and other, had so enclosed the common fields with hedges and ditches, that neither the young men of the city might shoot, nor the ancient persons might walk for their pleasure in the fields except either their bows and arrows were broken or taken away, or the honest and substantial persons arrested or indited, saying that no Londoner should go out of the city but in the highways. This saying sore grieved the Londoners, and suddenly this year a great number of the city assembled themselves in a morning, and a turner in a fool's coat came crying in the city, Shovels and spades, and so many people followed that it was wonder, and within a short space all the hedges about the towns were cast down, and the ditches filled, and every thing made plain, the workmen were so diligent. The King's Council hearing of this assembly came to the Gray Friars, and sent for the mayor and the council of the city to know the cause, which declared to them the nusiance done to the Citizens, and their commodities and liberties taken from them, though they would not yet the commonalty and young persons which were dampnified by the nusiance would pluck up and remedy the same. And when the King's council had heard the answer, they dissimuled the matter and commanded the Mayor to see that no other thing were attempted, and to call home the citizens, which when they had done their enterprise, came home before the King's council and the Mayor departed without any more harm doing, and so after, the fields were never hedged.