Figure 1.--In sharp contrast to the American family farm, huge areas of Britain's farm land was part of manorial estates. Local communities were often dominated by lords of the manor. Actual farm labor was conducted by cottagers, the modern evolution of the medieval peasantry. The boy here about 1910, is presumably the son of a cottager. The estate was in Tesdale.

We know a great deal about the English economy which until the 19th century, like other countries including the Britain United States, was primarily based on agriculture. Britain tried to impose this system in America during the colonial era which would be a factor in the American Revolution. England was the first country where the economy first turned away from agriculture because of the development of capitalism and the the Industrial Revolution began (mid-18th century). Throughout history for millennia, economies were dominated by agriculture. And the vast proportion of people made their livelihood through agriculture. One often ignored topic during the long history of agriculture is who owned the land. This of course meant who received the wealth created by the land. Land has always conferred wealth and power, and no time more than when agriculture was the principal generator of wealth. To many people today, especially academia, is obsessed by slavery. But relatively few people have been enslaved. Most of humanity over time has suffered and has their economic prospects limited by various forms of a landed peasantry. Britan was no exception.

Stone Age

Briton was populated during the Stone Age for several millennia before the arrival of the Celts. This began with the arrival of hunter gatherer peoples. This means the people who create Stone Hedge. These are the people who introduced agriculture to what is now England (5000-4500 BC). It took two millennia for farming to become established throughout all of what would become England. Wheat and barley were the major crop and grown in small plots near the family home. This suggests an early level of private land ownership, although information on these early farming people are limited. Sheep, goat,s and cattle were imported from mainland Europe. Pigs were domesticated from wild boar already found in the forests. There is evidence of agricultural and hunter-gatherer groups meeting and trading with in the early part of this process. 【Pearson, pp. 17-19.】.

Celtic Era

We have found information on Celtic farming, but not much on land ownership patterns. Land ownership patterns varied across the Celtic world in general and even within. One historian writes, "... its Celtic owners, it is almost certain that the soil was held by groups and not by individuals." 【Curtler, p. 1.】 We think individual land ownership was more well established than this suggests. We see other references to freemen hving the right to own land. We also see some references to cooperative farming practices which may have included operative efforts such as plowing. One sources describes Celtic communities as rural and agrarian with a distinct hierarchy, at the top of which were kings or queens or an aristocratic group, and their kinsfolk whose wealth was based on land ownership. Kinship groups were very important. And in Celtic society, ones neighbors were likely to be relatives which some what fudged land holdings. Celtic society was basically rural with clusters of houses widely scattered across the countryside. The Celts practiced partial hesitance which meant that land holdings could be divided over time. There were slaves, but we are not sure as to the prevalence. They do not seem t have been a major part of the work force. The idea of 'the commons' seems more of Anglo-Saxon medieval development. Marginal non-owned fields may have been seen as tribal lands used for grazing. This may explain the prevalence of cattle raiding.

Roman Era (1st -5th Centuries)

We know that the Romans created large estates with slaves and coloui (free landless workers) cultivating the fields. The ruins of great, luxurious villas have been found. But this was mostly along the more heavily Romanized southern coast. In most of Britain the land was still held mostly by the Celtic tribes which the Romans heavily taxed.

Anglo-Saxon Era (5th-11th Century)

We have some limited information limited information n land shipowner practices in the Anglo-Saxon era. There was no centralized systems with many caried local variations, what might be called the Teutonic system. The Anglo-Saxons began as free landowners, although he concept of private property was at first somewhat hazy. The land was doled out into strips, basic patterns that can still be still seen in some aerial photography of the countryside. The land was doled out in acre allotments to each farmer. A typical family allotment was 120 acres, parceled out in acre strips, many of which were not contiguous but mixed up with the allotments of other families. This was done to ensure that each family got a fair allotment of good and poor land. The intention was apparently to put families on an equal footing. 【Vinogradoff, Villecnagp. p. 257.】 This was the beginning of individual ownership and ties to the land. There was cooperation in matters in working the fields, but no communistic division of the harvest. One author writes, "At the opening of Anglo-Saxon history absolute ownership of land in severalty was established and becoming the rule." 【Stubbs, pp. 36ff.】 What might be called the meadow land reverted to community ownership. This was the origin of what became known as The Commons. As early as 700, laws appear concerning the regulation of the Commons. 【Curtler, pp. 4-5.】 Changes gradually occurred in the land owning pattern as the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms began to organize. Along with Christianization, the kings began donating land to the Church as did individuals. The Church along with the growth of monasteries gradually became important land holders. Overtime the 'kindred' community groups of the original Anglo-Saxon invaders broke down and the central authority of kings and thegns (barons) firmly moved toward a Feudal System, this was a process well in place before the Norman invasion. Landlordship was thus well established and England basically 'carved into territorial lordships'. 【Vinogradoff, English Soctety p. 345.】 ’+ ' Vinogradoff, English Soctety, p. 345.The Teutonic System was different than than the Norman or Continental Feudalism to follow. Along with many regional differences. Unlike the primogeniture system in Frances, there was equal partition of the estate of a deceased among the heirs, primarily male heirs.. But as on the Continent, the actual labor was largely conducted by landless peasants constituting the bulk of the population in various degrees of serfdom, owing money or labor rents.

Viking Invasions (9th Century)

The Vikings first appeared as fearsome raiders (late-8th century). This continued for some time, bu the Vikings became coming in larger numbers and with family. They began settling down and farming. Over time they destroyed most of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms until stopped by Alfred the Great of Wesex at the Battle of Edington (878). While we think of Vikings as raiders and marauders, when they began settling down, there were changes in landscape and society with long term impacts. Most notable was reestablishment of a Roman phenomenon - the 'town'. The Romans had brought urban settlement to Britain, but this had largely collapsed during the Roman-Saxon era. The growth of towns required changes in agriculture needed to supply food to the towns. The danegeld collected to pay off the Vikings gradually became a fixed land tax. It was collected by the local lord. As the lord paid the geld, the land essentially became his. In this way the free farmers of the early Anglo-Saxon villages gradually becomes the ‘villanus’ described in the Domesday Book. 【Curtler, p. 6.】 The land of England more or less ‘carved into territorial lordships'.

Middle-Medieval Era (1066-15th Centuries)

The Feudal System was all about land ownership. Since the Norman Conquest (11th century), land in England had remained concentrated in the hands of an extraordinarily small elite. This was a process begun in Anglo-Saxon times. William the Conqueror upon seizing control of England (1066), declared all land to be the property of the Crown. This was a formal start of the English law of real property and the creation of a centralized system. William began the standardization of England's feudal rules. He parceled it out to the Norman barons and the Church, keeping a sizeable estate for the monarchy. The Domesday Book compiled about 20 years later, provided a record of land ownership in England. It would be the only such record compiled for the next 800 years. The term 'Manor House' which would play such an important role in English agriculture and land ownership came in with the Norman invasion 【Maitland. p. 110.】, but actually already existed in Anglo-Saxon England. 【Vinogradoff, English Society, p. 339.】 Under the Normans and ensuing Plantagenets, farm land was expanded. The fens were drained, forests were cleared. This helped to sustain a rising population until (14th century). The Black Death reached Britain from the Continent (1349). This and subsequent outbreaks resulted in a population decline. Historians estimate that one-third of the population perished in just 2 years (1349-50). Without peasants to work the land, substantial areas of farmland was abandoned. This began to undermine the Feudal System. Without peasants to work the land, he land had no value. This impacted changed the relationship between the aristocracy (land owners) and the peasantry began demanding more than a subsistence existence. The monarch responded by treasures such as limiting wages. Any actual resistance like the Peasants' Revolt was mercilessly suppressed (1381). At the same time, Europe experienced a series of poor harvests beginning with the Great Famine (1315-17). The English population did not recover and reach 1300 until about 1500-1600.

Henry VIII: Dissolution of the Monasteries (16th Century)

King Henry VIII (r1509-47) for mostly personal marriage reasons decided to close down the country's monasteries. This was of great economic importance because the Church had acquired vast land holdings. Henry's legacy primarily focuses on the Reformation, but there were important changes in land ownership. The Monasteries were not just religious bodies, they were important centers of power, education, economic activity, and wealth. The Church, meaning its monasteries, abbeys, and convents, controlled vast agricultural estates and had very powerful economic influence, rivaling that of the state. Church was a state within a state. The Church maintained its own separate courts and clerics were subject to canon law rather than the civil courts. The Church owned significantly more land than the crown. Estimates vary, but it reached somewhere between a third and a fourth of the country's arable (agricultural) land. This percentage of the land had steadily grown over time. The major reason the Western (Roman Catholic) Church adopted celibacy was to ensure that land donated to the Church stayed with he Church. People took religion very seriously at the time. And elderly people often decided to ensure their entry into heaven by donating land to the Church. This inevitably meant that over time Church lands grew. The closure of the monasteries and sale of the church lands was immensely profitable to Henry. It also meant a very important shit in land ownership. By the time of Queen Elizabeth (r1558-1603), church lands were reduced to only about 4 percent of the country's arable land. And most of the church lands wee sold to private buyers in the gentry or merchant classes, rather than the aristocracy.

Enclosing the Commons (12th-19th Centuries)

The Commons in England once covered some 30 percent of the agricultural land in England. It was used for grazing and subsistence by landless commoners. These rights were based on English Common Law dating back to Anglo-Saxon times. And far as we can tell was at first not questioned by William when he and the Norman knights conquered England. The same situation existed in much of the Continent. Before enclosure, a great deal of English and European farmland consisted of numerous, widely dispersed strips which were controlled by individual farmers (mostly aristocrats), but only during the growing season and until crops were harvested. After the harvest, the land was considered to be part of the commons and could be used by the community for grazing livestock or for other purposes. The process of enclosing the commons meant building a hedge or some kind of fence around previously open land to prevent grazing and other uses by the wider non-land owning community. This process began to a limited extent in England (12th century). We are not entirely sure why, but probably relates to the importance of the English wool trade. We see a rapid expansion of English enclosures (1450–1640). This of course included lands obtained from King Henry VIII's Dissolution of of the monasteries. The primary purpose was to increase the amount of full-time pasturage available to manorial lords which meant in part more wool could be produced. Thee were many enclosures reported (1750-1860), and is this final instance the concern was primarily agricultural efficiency. This lead to finally completing the enclosure of the commons (turn-of-the 20th century).

Civil War (1642-51)

The Civil War and Commonwealth had a huge impact on the monarchy. Parliament and the Royalists began the War rather evenly matched with the Royalists having somewhat of an edge. In the end Parliament prevailed, largely because of the support of the gentry--a class immense expanded by the land sold from the Dissolution of the Monasteries. A good example is Oliver Cromwell himself. The execution of King Charles I was just the beginning of England's transformation (1649). The House of Lords were abolished as was the medieval Star Chamber, which had been the King's Privy Council. Royal estates totaling some 10 percent of the agricultural land in England were sold off, again primarily to the gentry. Major land owners supporting Charles also lost their land. Radical ideas were circulating. One group was the Diggers they were religious and political dissidents in England, associated with an early form of agrarian socialism. They conceived small, egalitarian rural communities. They saw validation in the Acts of the Apostles (4:32), which describes a religious community of who "had all things in common" questioning the validity of private property. They declared the Earth to be a "common treasury for all." Gerrard Winstanley and William Everard, amongst many others, became known as the True Levelers (1649). They split from the Levelers, and eventually became known as Diggers because they attempted to farm on common land. This was far too radical for the 17th century, The real winners the gentry. The gentry meant a class of people with substantial, but not vast land holdings. This was a process begun with the Dissolution of the Monasteries. It meant that the gentry not only controlled increasingly large areas of land, but was beginning to dominate Parliament. This did not change with the Restoration of the Monarchy and the return of King Charles II (1660).

Industrial Revolution (19th century)

The Industrial Revolution began in England (mid-18th century). It was possible because of a workforce created by Enclosure of the Commons. This meant a substantial landless work created by the enclosure of the commons. Until the Industrial Revolution, land was the primary source of wealth in England and the world in general. Great fortunes were made in the Industrial Revolution. his meant that the land-holding aristocracy was no longer the the holder's of most of England's wealth. This came to a major show down early in Queen Victoria's reign--the Corn Law controversy. The land owning aristocracy wanted high corn (grain) prices. The new industrial class wanted low corn prices so their workers could survive on low wages. Interestingly, however, the land still had great prestige. So most of the newly rich industrialists sought to purchase country estates.

Land Reform (late-19th century)

The Victorians’ compiled the 'Second Domesday'. The Return of Owners of Land, revealed that 4,000 lords and gents owned half of the agricultural land in England. This resulted in calls for land reform. Land reformers promoted legislation to create a statutory right to an allotment for growing food. This began the creation of the first County Farms to help small holders with farming. The first council houses were also built.

Sources

Curtler, W.H.R, A Short History of English Agriculture (Claredion Press: Oxford, 1909).

Maitland, Fredericc William. Domesday Book and Beyond (Cambruidge Universuty Press: 1897).

Person, Michael Parker. Bronze Age Britain (B.T. Batsford:2005).

Stone, David and Rebecca Boyd. "The far-reaching effects the Vikings had when they settled down," RTÉ Brainstorm (2021).

Stubbs, William. Constitutional History.

Vinogradoff, Paul. English Society in the Eleventh Century (1908).

Vinogradoff, Paul. Villecnage in England (Claredion Press: Oxford, 1892).

Created: 5:38 AM 9/20/2024
Last updated: 3:26 AM 3/1/2025