The Origin of Capitalism in England, 1400–1600Incorporating original archival research and a series of critiques of recent accounts of economic development in pre-modern England, in The Origin of Capitalism in England, 1400-1600, Spencer Dimmock has produced a challenging and multi-layered account of a historical rupture in English feudal society which led to the first sustained transition to agrarian capitalism and consequent industrial revolution. Genuinely integrating political, social and economic themes, Spencer Dimmock views capitalism broadly as a form of society rather than narrowly as an economic system. He firmly locates its beginnings with conflicting social agencies in a closely defined historical context rather than with evolutionary and transhistorical commercial developments, and will thus stimulate a thorough reappraisal of current orthodoxies on the transition to capitalism. |
Contents
Introduction | 1 |
Part One A Defence of Robert Brenner
| 9 |
Chapter 1 Robert Brenners Thesis on the Transition from Feudalism to Capitalism
| 11 |
Chapter 2 The Prime Mover of Economic and Social Development
| 34 |
Chapter 3 Feudalism Serfdom and ExtraEconomic Surplus Extraction
| 65 |
Chapter 4 Class Conflict and the Crisis of Feudalism
| 73 |
Chapter 5 Insecure Property and the Origin of Capitalism
| 88 |
Chapter 6 The Rise of Capitalist Yeomen and a Capitalist Aristocracy
| 105 |
Chapter 9 Economy and Society in Late Medieval Lydd and Ιts Region
| 237 |
Chapter 10 Engrossment Enclosure and Resistance in the Fifteenth Century
| 272 |
Chapter 11 An Emerging Capitalist SocialProperty Structure
| 301 |
Chapter 12 Engrossment Enclosure and Resistance in the Sixteenth Century
| 331 |
The Festival of St George
| 350 |
Conclusion | 363 |
Appendix | 368 |
References | 382 |
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Common terms and phrases
accumulation acres agrarian capitalism agriculture Andrew Bate bailiff Battle Abbey Black Death Brenner Brenner’s thesis Campbell capitalist capitalist farmers capitalist social-property changes chapter Cinque Ports common copyhold court critique customary Davidson decline demesne demographic Dengemarsh depopulation Dyer earlier economic EKAC England English lords engrossment and enclosure Epstein Europe eviction expropriation extra-economic farms feudal crisis feudal social-property relations feudalism to capitalism fifteenth century fourteenth century France freehold French gentry Godfrey historians holdings increasing increasingly John jurats Kent labour productivity land late fifteenth late medieval leasehold leases lordship Lydd parish Lydd’s manor Marx Marx’s organisation origin of capitalism orthodox Marxists peasantry political population productive forces rebellion recognised relationship rents revolution Romney Marsh seigneurial serfdom seventeenth century sheep social social-property relations society Souls College subsistence tenants tenure thirteenth century Thomas tion town transition from feudalism transition to capitalism village villein wage wage labour Weald widow PRC Wrightson yeomen