Commoners: Common Right, Enclosure and Social Change in England, 1700-1820This is a paperback edition of one of the most important and original contributions to English rural history published in the past generation. Winner of the Whitfield Prize of the Royal Historical Society in 1994, Commoners challenges the view that England had no peasantry or that it had disappeared before industrialization: rather it shows that common right and petty landholding shaped social relations in English villages, and that their loss at enclosure sharpened social antagonisms and imprinted on popular culture a pervasive sense of loss. |
Contents
The question of value | 15 |
SURVIVAL | 53 |
Who had common right? | 55 |
Threats before enclosure | 81 |
Ordering the commons | 110 |
Enforcing the orders | 134 |
The uses of waste | 158 |
DECLINE | 185 |
Resisting enclosure | 259 |
CONCLUSION | 295 |
Making freeman of the slave | 297 |
Using the Land Tax | 331 |
Acreage equivalents | 342 |
Correcting and editing the Land Tax | 344 |
Landholding estimates | 345 |
Bibliography | 346 |
Other editions - View all
Commoners: Common Right, Enclosure and Social Change in England, 1700-1820 J. M. Neeson No preview available - 1993 |
Common terms and phrases
acreage acres Agriculture animals appear argued argument Award better Bill Book Burton Latimer cattle cent Chapter claimed common pasture common right common-field cost cottage County court critics decline depended described disappearance early economy eighteenth century enclosed enclosure Act England English evidence example families farmers farms fences fields five forest four grazing half History holdings horses House included interest John jury labourers Land Tax landholders landless landlords landowners later less lived Lord loss lost manors means Midland Northampton Northamptonshire Northants occupiers open-field opposition orders owner-occupiers owners paid parishes Parliamentary Enclosure pasture peasant peasantry petition poor population Present Raunds reason Records regulation rented resistance returns shared sheep social Society stints tenants third Thomas tithe took View villages wage waste West Haddon wood Young
Popular passages
Page 5 - These paths are stopt — the rude philistines thrall Is laid upon them and destroyed them all Each little tyrant with his little sign Shows where man claims earth glows no more divine On paths to freedom and to childhood dear A board sticks up to notice 'no road here...
Page 6 - no road here' And on the tree with ivy overhung The hated sign by vulgar taste is hung* As tho' the very birds should learn to know When they go there they must no further go...
References to this book
Bibliographic information
| Title | Commoners: Common Right, Enclosure and Social Change in England, 1700-1820 Past and Present Publications, ISSN 1754-792X |
| Author | J. M. Neeson |
| Edition | illustrated, reprint, revised |
| Publisher | Cambridge University Press, 1993 |
| ISBN | 0521567742, 9780521567749 |
| Length | 382 pages |
| Subjects | › › › History / Europe / Great Britain / General History / Modern / General |
| Export Citation | BiBTeX EndNote RefMan |