Commoners: common right, enclosure and social change in England, 1700-1820

Abstract

This book, first published in 1993, provides a social history of the smallest landholders and users of commons in 18th and 19th century English villages, and a reassessment of English rural history during the period. For much of the 18th and early 19th centuries, all occupiers of common-field land and many cottagers shared common grazing over common fields and wastes. This book describes some of these villages. It looks at entitlement to commons, the co-operative regulation of common fields and pastures, and the harvests taken from uncultivated common waste. It suggests why and where common right survived until enclosure, and it reviews the debate on the social implications of common right and the public policy issues at the heart of paraliamentary enclosure. It also describes a vigorous opposition to enclosure and a significant decline of small landholders when common lands were enclosed. -Publisher