This article will highlight the importance of the common law, enclosure, and the abolition of common rights in changing the ownership of land, all of which helped to transform England into the first capitalist country. This unique social metamorphosis, which included the complete abolition of the peasantry, also accounts for why England, and no other country in Europe, experienced a thorough Industrial Revolution in the first half of the nineteenth century.
Allen, Sir C. K.1964. Law in the making. 7th ed.Oxford, UK: Clarendon.
2.
Annuaire statistique de la France 1966: Résumé rétrospectif. 1966. Soixante-Douzième Volume, Nouvelle Série No. 14. Paris: Ministère de L’économie et des Finances.
3.
Aston, T. H., and C. H. E. Philpin, eds. 1985. The Brenner debate: Agrarian class structure and economic development in pre-industrial Europe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
4.
Ault, W. O.1965. Open-field husbandry and the village community: A study of agrarian by-laws in medieval England. Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, New Series, 55 (7): 5-102.
5.
Beckett, J. V.1983. The debate over farm sizes in eighteenth and nineteenth century England. Agricultural History57: 308-325.
6.
Berg, M., and P. Hudson. 1992. Rehabilitating the industrial revolution. Economic History Review45: 24-50.
7.
Berman, H. J.1983. Law and revolution: The formation of the Western legal tradition. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
8.
Birrell, J.1987. Common rights in the medieval forest: Disputes and conflicts in the thirteenth century. Past and Present117: 22-49.
9.
Bonfield, L.1989. The nature of customary law in the manor courts of medieval England. Comparative Studies in Society and History31: 514-534.
10.
Braudel, F.[1979] 1992. The wheels of commerce. Vol. 2, Civilization and capitalism, 15th-18th century. Los Angeles: University of California Press.
11.
Brenner, R.1978. Dobb on the transition from feudalism to capitalism. Cambridge Journal of Economics2: 121-140.
12.
Butlin, R. A.1961. Some terms used in agrarian history: A glossary. Agricultural History Review9: 98-104.
13.
Chirot, D.1985. The rise of the West. American Sociological Review50: 181-195.
14.
Clay, C.1985. Landlords and estate management in England. In The agrarian history of England and Wales, vol. 5, pt. 2, 1640-1750, ed. J. Thirsk, 119-251. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
15.
Coleman, D. C.1977. The economy of England 1450-1750. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
16.
Comninel, G. C.2000. English feudalism and the origins of capitalism. Journal of Peasant Studies27 (4): 1-53.
17.
Crafts, N. F. R.1985. Industrial revolution in England and France: Some thoughts on the question “why was England first?” In The economics of the industrial revolution, ed. J. Mokyr, 119-131. Totowa, NJ: Rowman and Allanheld.
18.
Everitt, A.1967. Farm labourers. In The agrarian history of England and Wales, vol. 4, 1500-1640, ed. J. Thirsk, 396-465. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
19.
Gregson, N.1989. Tawney revisited: Custom and the emergence of capitalist class relations in north-east Cumbria, 1600-1830. Economic History Review42: 18-42.
20.
Gülap, H.1981. Frank and Wallerstein revisited: A contribution to Brenner’s critique. Journal of Contemporary Asia11: 169-188.
21.
Hilton, R. H.1975. The English peasantry in the later middle ages. Oxford, UK: Clarendon.
22.
Hilton, R. H., ed. 1978. The transition from feudalism to capitalism. London: Verso.
23.
Hobsbawm, E., and G. Rudé. 1968. Captain swing: A social history of the great English agricultural uprising of 1830. London: Norton.
24.
Humphries, J.1990. Enclosures, common rights, and women: The proletarianization of families in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Journal of Economic History50: 17-42.
25.
Kerridge, E.1973. The farmers of old England. London: Allen & Unwin.
26.
Komlos, J.1989. Thinking about the industrial revolution. Journal of European Economic History18: 191-206.
27.
Kosminsky, E. A.1955. The evolution of feudal rent in England from the xi to the xvth centuries. Past and Present7: 12-36.
28.
Lachmann, R.1987. From manor to market: Structural change in England, 1536-1640. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.
29.
Landes, D. S.1998. The wealth and poverty of nations: Why some are so rich and some so poor. New York: Norton.
30.
Lazonick, W.1974. Karl Marx and enclosures in England. Review of Radical Political Economics6 (2): 1-59.
31.
McCloskey, D. N.1981. The industrial revolution 1780-1860: A survey. In The economic history of Britain since 1700, vol. 1, 1700-1860, ed. R. Floud and D. McCloskey, 103-127. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
32.
Mitchell, B. R.1988. British historical statistics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
33.
Mokyr, J.1993.Editor’s introduction: The new economic history and the industrial revolution. In The British industrial revolution, ed. J. Mokyr, 1-131. Boulder, CO: Westview.
34.
O’Brien, P.1982. European economic development: The contribution of the periphery. Economic History Review35: 1-18.
35.
Patriquin, L.2001. The historical uniqueness of the Clinton welfare reforms: A new level of social misery?Journal of Sociology and Social Welfare28 (3): 71-94.
36.
Plucknett, T. F. T.1956. A concise history of the common law. 5th ed.London: Butterworth.
37.
Polanyi, K.[1944] 1957. The great transformation: The political and economic origins of our time. Boston: Beacon.
38.
Porter, R.1990. English society in the eighteenth century. Rev. ed.Harmondsworth, UK: Penguin.
39.
Postan, M. M.1973. The medieval economy and society: An economic history of Britain, 1100-1500. Los Angeles: University of California Press.
40.
Report of the royal commission on common land, 1955-1958. 1958. London: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office.
41.
Searle, C. E.1986. Custom, class conflict and agrarian capitalism: The Cumbrian customary economy in the eighteenth century. Past and Present110: 106-133.
42.
Seipp, D. J.1994. The concept of property in the early common law. Law and History Review12: 29-91.
43.
Sharp, B.1988. Common rights, charities and the disorderly poor. In Reviving the English revolution: Reflections and elaborations on the work of Christopher Hill, ed. G. Eley and W. Hunt, 107-137. London: Verso.
44.
Simpson, A. W. B.1961. An introduction to the history of the land law. London: Oxford University Press.
45.
Snooks, G. D.1994. New perspectives on the industrial revolution. In Was the industrial revolution necessary?, ed. G. D. Snooks, 1-26. London: Routledge.
46.
Tawney, R. H.[1912] 1967. The agrarian problem in the sixteenth century. New York: Harper & Row.
47.
Thirsk, J.1964. The common fields. Past and Present29: 3-25.
48.
Thirsk, J.1967. Enclosing and engrossing. In The agrarian history of England and Wales, vol. 4, 1500-1640, ed. J. Thirsk, 200-255. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
49.
Thompson, E. P.[1963] 1968. The making of the English working class. Harmondsworth, UK: Penguin.
50.
Thompson, E. P.1976. The grid of inheritance: A comment. In Family and inheritance: Rural society in Western Europe, 1200-1800, ed. J. Goody, J. Thirsk, and E. P. Thompson, 328-360. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
51.
Thompson, E. P.1993. Customs in common. New York: New Press.
52.
Wallerstein, I.1979. The capitalist world-economy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
53.
Weber, M.[1904-5] 1992. The Protestant ethic and the spirit of capitalism. London: Routledge.
54.
Wolf, E. R.[1982] 1997. Europe and the people without history. Los Angeles: University of California Press.
55.
Wood, E. M.1991. The pristine culture of capitalism: A historical essay on old regimes and modern states. London: Verso.
56.
Wood, E. M.1999. The origin of capitalism. New York: Monthly Review Press.
