Enclosure in historiography is the process of destruction of communal agricultural farms in Europe. Most often, this term is used in relation to England New time.
To understand what fencing is, you needtravel back to the Tudor era. At this time, cloth industry was rapidly developing in England. Wool prices grew, which, in turn, attached great economic importance to animal husbandry, in particular, great attention was paid to pasture grazing. A serious struggle unfolded around this resource.
Rich landowners lords began to buypastures from poor peasants. These domains were leased to farmers. Single farms declined. Most of the English land was distributed between the nobility, the church and the state.
The then English peasants coulddivided into two groups. The first are freeholders, or so-called free owners. They did not know what fencing was. Their relationship with the lords was as follows. The peasants paid a small rent for their land plots and could dispose of them as they wanted. This group was in the most comfortable conditions for the then agrarian class. At the same time, the freehold was very small. They constituted a very small part of the rural population of England.
The situation with the second peasant was quite different.interlayers. Such plowmen were called copigolders. This class was formed in the XIV century, after serfdom was abolished in England. The process of enclosing is associated with them.
Copigolders owned their site only onlifelong rights. This meant that the peasant had to coordinate with the Lord Landlord the conditions of his inheritance to future generations. The same applies to any transactions with the land. In fact, such peasants (and there were most of them) became dependent on lords. In addition, each copyholder paid a cash rent for his plot.
Since the wool in the country began to go up, the lordsbegan to massively inflate rental prices. This contributed to the massive impoverishment of the peasants. They were in debt and became bankrupt. The traditional system of coexistence in the village was soon broken. It happened in the XVI century.
As payment for the debts of the peasants were selectedtheir own allotments. This process was the beginning of capitalist restructuring in the countryside. The expropriated land plots were fenced off from the previous owners (this is where the name of the concept we are considering goes).
Зачастую крестьянин мог потерять вообще всю the land that he had before. Such people became wage laborers for the same lords. What is fencing for most of them? This is a process of impoverishment. This phenomenon also has a popular term-synonym for “pauperization”. The poor became beggars and vagrants. This was the consequences of enclosing.
Also this process was aggravated by the incident.English reformation. The royal power was in conflict with the Pope. Henry VIII announced that his own Church would now operate in his country. At the same time, the confiscation of land belonging to monasteries and other religious institutions took place. Nadezhda passed to the state. Many peasants lived on them. Most of them were left without land - here they also enclosed it. The conflict associated with these processes led to numerous peasant uprisings throughout the country.
Residents of the northern provinces differed especiallyby poverty. This border region had an underdeveloped infrastructure. Many peasants went to serve in the militia in return for paying the usual land tax. Capitalist changes and enclosures reached this region last. The epicenter of these processes was Central and South-East England. Here the conflict between the lords and the peasants was traced particularly clearly.
In the south-west of the country, the traditional communal waylasted longer. There were woolen manufactories, many pastures. Copyholds in these provinces were stable compared with other regions of the country.
Какие последствия для крестьян имели огораживания in the West? Here they were almost invisible. Lords tried to increase their holdings by increasing the cost of rent. This method was secretive and not as effective as direct expropriation.
Что такое огораживание?This is also an impetus for the development of large-scale industry. This sector of the economy in England was less developed than in other rich countries. For example, in Holland, the number of factories, mills and other innovative farms was large compared to the neighboring island. When the big landowners of England accumulated large capital through fencing, their money went to the development of industry. Due to this, the gap between England and Holland in the XVIII century was successfully overcome.
