There is much we still do not know about the relationship between land, population and famine in
early modern England. In his classic work on Famine in Tudor and Stuart England, Andrew Appleby
presented a broadly Malthusian picture in which population growth in the upland north-west was
accompanied by the subdivision of peasant holdings and the expansion of cultivation at the margins
of sustainability. This article questions the uniformity of this picture. Evidence from the Barony of
Kendal in Westmorland suggests that tenant numbers had peaked by about 1560, while manor courts
successfully controlled enclosure and the subdivision of holdings. Indeed, evidence from the early
seventeenth century suggests that rather than forming a famine-prone mass, customary tenants in the
area enjoyed at least some prosperity. At the same time, however, the period from the late sixteenth to
the early seventeenth century saw the development of a large population of subtenants, and it was this
group that suffered most from famine in 1623.
