The problems caused by the illegal erection of ‘cottages’ on common land were explicitly recognised in 1589 when an act entitled ‘An act against erecting and maintaining cottages’ was passed. This stipulated that:

For the avoiding of the great inconveniencies which are found by experience to grow by the erecting and building of great numbers and multitude of cottages, which are daily more and more increased in many parts of this realm, be it enacted … that … no person shall within this realm … make, build and erect, or cause to be made, built or erected, any manner of cottage for habitation or dwelling, nor convert or ordain any building or housing made or hereafter to be made or used as a cottage for habitation or dwelling, unless the same person do assign and lay to the same cottage or building four acres of ground at the least, to be accounted according to the statute or ordinance De terris mensurandis being his or her own freehold and inheritance lying near to the said cottage, to be continually occupied and manured therewith so long as the same cottage shall be inhabited; upon pain that every such offender shall forfeit, to (the Queen) … £10 of lawful money of England for every such offence.

Exemption from the Act could be obtained by petition to the Quarter Sessions on grounds of poverty, provided the permission of the manorial lord was given. Lodgers (described as ‘inmates’) and the subdivision of houses were not allowed. This was qualified by an act passed in 1601 entitled ‘An act for the relief of the poor’ (usually referred to as the Poor Law Act) which gave churchwardens and overseers authority to build cottages on ‘waste and common’ for the use of the poor, with permission of the manorial lord:

It shall and may be lawful for the said churchwardens and overseers … by the leave of the lord or lords of the manor, whereof any waste or common within their parish is or shall be parcel … according to any order to be set down by the justices of the peace of the said county at their general Quarter Sessions … to erect, build and set up in fit and convenient places of habitation, in such waste or common, at the general charges of the parish … convenient houses of dwelling for the said impotent poor.

A comparison of manorial records with the records of Quarter Sessions suggests that the majority of cases of illegal cottage building were dealt with by the manorial courts. Faced with an illegally erected cottage the manorial court might fine the cottager and order him or her to pull it down or grant the cottager licence to continue the cottage. Cottages that were licensed by the lord became either copyhold or leasehold properties; in other words their inhabitants became legitimate tenants of the manor, paying an annual rent and subject to manorial custom. Those indicted before the Quarter Sessions received similar treatment: they could be fined and ordered to pull the cottage down, or they could be given a licence, with the consent of the manorial lord, and allowed to continue it. Licenses could be granted for a set period of time or in perpetuity. Evidence from both types of source material suggests that by the late 17th century the rate of illegal cottage building had declined markedly.