Sixteenth-century Enclosure And Private Property Rights

The enclosure is an important event in English history which continued from the 16th century to the 19th century,lasted for three or four hundred years.In such a long period,the sixteenth-century enclosure is not only the important initial stage of the whole enclosure of England,but also the beginning of private property rights which England has established.In medieval England,the land property rights were not under the private property rights,but under the 'seisin' of the tenure and the common rights of open field system.They were a kind of mixed property rights which relationship is very vague.The land holder did not have the exclusive ownership.Under such mixed property rights,although the peasants have the 'seisin',they were restricted by the open field system.The growth of individual strength of the English peasants and the development of the economy and society were the basic premise of the sixteenth-century enclosure.Before the enclosure,the English peasants have already experienced relatively full development.They were free,and their life was relatively rich.Some peasants have accumulated considerable movable and immovable property,became yeoman and had a certain social position.With the growth of individual strength of the peasants,they were eager to break up the open field system and established a kind of new land property rights.These peasants promoted the reformation of land property rights.Among them,the yeoman played a leading role.Through the sixteenth-century enclosure,the peasants had eliminated the common rights and strengthened the 'seisin'.Except the peasants,the lords were also took part in the enclosure.The sixteenth-century enclosure put a huge impact on traditional property rights which promoted the transition to private property rights.The revolution of the land property rights made some small peasants lost their production and living materials.They became vagrants who were unstable social groups.The vagrants who lost their land because of enclosure were easily became the main strength of anti-enclosure uprisings.The vagrants and the uprisings which were caused by the enclosure was the most serious social problem in the 16th century.Aimed at these social problems,the Tudor government sent several commissions to investigate the enclosure and enacted a series of anti-enclosure acts.However,the yeoman and gentry had very strong political and economic strength against the government's intervention.Under their resist,the intervention of the government did not play its effect.On the contrary,it had prompted the government to admit the legality of the enclosure,which means the recognization of the private property rights by the government.The sixteenth-century enclosure started the progress of clarification of property rights.The lords were out of the deriect production field and became landlords who were living on rent.The farmers and the landlords formed a kind of new contractual relationship.At the same time,some small peasants became labours under the effect of the enclosure.The labours and the farmers formed an employment relationship of capitalism.From then on,the 'landlord-farmer-labour' tertiary structure of the agricultural production of capitalism has formed.The self-sufficiency dominant mode of production was replaced by the capitalist farms.With the changes of the mode of production,great changes have taken place in people's life style.The medieval England rural traditional life system was broken and the occupations of the villagers have changed.The community life style gradually disappeared and the capitalist system established step by step.On the whole,the sixteenth-century enclosure was a movement of land property rights reformation.