PARLIAMENTARY ENCLOSURE AND THE EMERGENCE OF AN ENGLISH AGRICULTURAL PROLETARIAT

Abstract

It has often been argued that parliamentary enclosure decisively increased the wage dependence of English agricultural laborers, primarily by extinguishing their rights to keep cows on common land. Yet the extent to which laborers had in fact enjoyed common pasture rights has never been demonstrated. This article fills that gap, by documenting the extent of laborers' common rights for ten settlements in the south and east Midlands. It finds that most laborers in these villages did not have common rights prior to enclosure and cannot, therefore, have been proletarianized by their loss.