TY - JOUR
T1 - Impediments to expropriation
T2 - Peasant property rights in medieval England and Marcher Wales
AU - Schofield, Phillipp R.
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
Copyright © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press.
PY - 2021/10/21
Y1 - 2021/10/21
N2 - In this paper, an attempt will be made to discuss the likely context for pre-plague indications of expropriation and its limits. There is plentiful evidence of an active land market in medieval villages by the end of the thirteenth century, and most likely for some time earlier. Fluctuation in the rate of buying and selling coincided with difficult harvest years and suggests a link between impecunious peasant sellers and wealthier peasant buyers. There is also some association between the selling of land and pre-existing indebtedness. In a period of partial commercial and market development, the extent to which exchange of land or of moveables proceeded to a significant structural redistribution of land and resources was constrained, and even in those parts of the country where an early peasant land market was well-established, significant adjustment is not evident. Instead, impediments to expropriation, such as seigneurial control of peasant land and limited capacity for extensive capital accumulation, acted as constraints on significant accumulation and redistribution. That said, there is limited suggestion in our sources of a redistribution of property rights associable with inequality of dealing and the advantage of wealthier landholders and creditors. In exploring this last point, particular use is made of the court records for the Welsh marcher lordship of Dyffryn Clwyd.
AB - In this paper, an attempt will be made to discuss the likely context for pre-plague indications of expropriation and its limits. There is plentiful evidence of an active land market in medieval villages by the end of the thirteenth century, and most likely for some time earlier. Fluctuation in the rate of buying and selling coincided with difficult harvest years and suggests a link between impecunious peasant sellers and wealthier peasant buyers. There is also some association between the selling of land and pre-existing indebtedness. In a period of partial commercial and market development, the extent to which exchange of land or of moveables proceeded to a significant structural redistribution of land and resources was constrained, and even in those parts of the country where an early peasant land market was well-established, significant adjustment is not evident. Instead, impediments to expropriation, such as seigneurial control of peasant land and limited capacity for extensive capital accumulation, acted as constraints on significant accumulation and redistribution. That said, there is limited suggestion in our sources of a redistribution of property rights associable with inequality of dealing and the advantage of wealthier landholders and creditors. In exploring this last point, particular use is made of the court records for the Welsh marcher lordship of Dyffryn Clwyd.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85118312262&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1017/S0268416021000151
DO - 10.1017/S0268416021000151
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85118312262
SN - 0268-4160
VL - 36
SP - 211
EP - 232
JO - Continuity and Change
JF - Continuity and Change
IS - 2
ER -