Provides for a new interpretation of the agrarian economy in late Tudor
and early modern Britain.
This volume revisits a classic book by a famous historian: R.H. Tawney's
Agrarian Problem in the Sixteenth Century (1912). Tawney's Agrarian
Problem surveyed landlord-tenant relations in England between 1440 and
1660, the period of emergent capitalism and rapidly changing property
relations that stands between the end of serfdom and the more firmly
capitalist system of the eighteenth century. This transition period is
widely recognised as crucial to Britain's long term economic
development, laying the foundation for the Industrial Revolution of the
eighteenth century. Remarkably, Tawney's book has remained the standard
text on landlord-tenant relations for over a century.
Here, Tawney's book is re-evaluated by leading experts in agrarian and
legal history, taking its themes as a departure point to provide for a
new interpretation of the agrarian economy in late Tudor and early
modern Britain. The introduction looks at how Tawney's Agrarian Problem
was written, its place in the historiography of agrarian England and the
current state of research. Survey chapters examine the late medieval
period, a comparison with Scotland, and Tawney's conception of
capitalism, whilst the remaining chapters focus on four issues that were
central to Tawney's arguments: enclosure disputes, the security of
customary tenure; the conversion of customarytenure to leasehold; and
other landlord strategies to raise revenues. The balance of power
between landlords and tenants determined how the wealth of agrarian
England was divided in this crucial period of economic development -
this book reveals how this struggle was played out.
JANE WHITTLE is professor of rural history at Exeter University.
Contributors: Christopher Brooks, Christopher Dyer, Heather Falvey,
Harold Garrett-Goodyear, Julian Goodare, Elizabeth Griffiths, Jennifer
Holt, Briony McDonagh, Jean Morrin, David Ormrod, William D. Shannon,
Jane Whittle, Andy Wood. Foreword by Keith Wrightson
