[PEN-L:11619] Re: UK agricultural revolution

["Ricardo Duchesne" <RDUCHESN@xxxxxxxx>]

.  The question is:
> Is it not true that the enclosure movement was going on
> at least as early as the Elizabethan period in the 1500s
> in England?  Somehow I remember reading something
> to that effect somewhere, but I don't remember where.
>      Now, I am quite certain that even if it had started that
> far back, if not even earlier, that it picked up substantially
> in the 1700s.

According to Wordie, who, I think, has written the best paper on
this: England, in 1500, was "at most 45% enclosed", and, in 1600, it
was "at most 47% enclosed". "But it was at least 75% enclosed by 1760.
Which means that between 1500-1600, "a maximun of 2% of England was
enclosed." Now, while I have yet to read Wordie's article
carefully (EHR, 1983), this set of facts run directly against
Brenner's claim that capitalist relations were firmly established in
the 16th century by enclosing landlords. (See Wood, 1999,
pp.52-3,  for an attempt to re-interprete Brenner in such a way that
the obvious role of middling farmers is somehow acknowledge without
really acknowledging it - in true Woodian style).