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Exclusion Crises: Poverty, Migration and Parochial Responsibility in English Rural Communities, c. 1560–1660

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  31 October 2008

Steve Hindle
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Extract

‘Community’ is ubiquitous in the historiography of early modern England. Although the term is almost universally employed and appealed to, however, its meaning remains controversial, and its use by historians much criticised. Part of the difficulty lies in the fact that the very concept of ‘community’ is not the creation of modern social scientists: its origins lie in traditional notions of communitas, that quality of oneness claimed by mediaeval associations of various kinds. Consequently, modern historians and sociologists tend to agree only on two issues: first, that ‘community’ implies geographical propinquity, common ties, and focused interaction between and amongst its members; and second, that these characteristics have generally undergone a historical process of decline or disintegration. Rather vaguely-defined as this common ground is, it is sufficiently clear to render modern users of the term vulnerable in turn to two criticisms in particular. It is argued, first, that the mythic status of community begs both historical and sociological questions, relying merely on untested assumptions; and, second, that the strongly emotive overtones and inherent value judgements of such a nostalgic term introduce confusing elements of normative prescription to social-historical analysis. From this perspective, community is not only an elusive concept but also a flawed ideal, and calls for its abandonment have increased.

Type
Research Article
Information
Rural History , Volume 7 , Issue 2 , October 1996 , pp. 125 - 149
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1996

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90. Hertfordshire County Records V, p. 34.

91. HRO D/P 110/5/1, analysed in Bennet, Martyn (ed.), A Nottinghamshire Village in War and Peace: The Accounts of the Constables of Upton 1640–1666 (Thoroton Society Record Series 39 [for 1990 and 1991], Nottingham, 1995). p. xxvii.Google Scholar

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