AGRARIAN AGITATION IN MID-SIXTEENTH-CENTURY NORFOLK: A PETITION OF 1553

Abstract

Much recent work has confirmed Norfolk's reputation as one of the earliest areas of England to adopt the practices of agrarian capitalism. As a response to the high levels of market orientation achieved there, relations between gentry and tenants, and latterly farmers and labourers, were coloured by a degree of hostility and violence rarely encountered elsewhere. In this article is printed an elaborate petition, which may confidently be dated to 1553, addressed to the queen and seeking legislation to restrain the economic activities of the Norfolk gentry. The petition shows a continuing tradition of agrarian agitation after the failure of Kett's revolt (1549); it offers an extended critique of the gentry's rapaciousness (which differs in emphasis from Kett's articles); outlines the difficulties the tenants faced at their hands, and reveals their capacity to organize and petition. A commentary places it in the larger context of mid-sixteenth-century agitations and attempts to identify the locality from which it arose.