It was more complicated than that, and people lived off the difference. The "king" cared about 'the big stuff', and cared little about low-value land that would

It was more complicated than that, and people lived off the difference. The "king" cared about 'the big stuff', and cared little about low-value land that wouldn't produce reliable taxable yields. In particular, villages often had a commons area of land ill-suited for farming, which was used for grazing/as pasture, and the village council would allow the village people to let some of their animals graze there. During the industrial revolution in britain (or, leading up to it), these common areas were suddenly Elon Musked into private ownership and blocked off (enclosures), barring the poorer people from using them as earlier, to benefit some wealthy few. Variations of this happened across europe. I believe America also saw some conflicts between people wanting to use land area for cattle ('cowboys', or rather, the people above cowboys), and farmers, who did not want roaming cattle near their fields.