Fencing in historiography is the process of destruction of communal agricultural holdings in Europe. Most often this term is used in relation to England of New time.
England Agriculture in the 16th Century
To understand what enclosure is, you need to go back to the Tudor era. At this time, the cloth industry was booming in England. Prices for wool increased, which, in turn, attached great economic importance to livestock, in particular, great attention was paid to pastures for grazing. A serious struggle has unfolded around this resource.
Wealthy landowners-lords began to buy pastures from poor peasants. These domains are leased to farmers. Single households fell into decay. Most of the English land was distributed between the nobility, the church and the state.
Freeholders
The then English peasants could be divided into two groups. The first are freeholders, or the so-called free owners. They did not know what enclosure. Their relationship with the Lords was as follows. The peasants paid a small rent for their land and could dispose of them as they wanted. This group was in the most comfortable conditions for the then agricultural estate. At the same time, there were very few free holders. They made up a very small part of the rural population of England.
Copy holders
The situation was different for the second peasant layer. Such plowmen were called copyholders. This class was formed in the XIV century, after serfdom was abolished in England. It is with them that the enclosure process is associated.
Copyholders owned their land only for life. This meant that the peasant had to coordinate with the landlord the conditions of his inheritance to future generations. The same was true for any land transactions. In fact, such peasants (and there were most) became dependent on the Lords. In addition, each copyholder paid a rent for his plot.
As the wool in the country began to rise in price, the Lords began to overestimate rental prices en masse. This contributed to the mass impoverishment of the peasants. They were in debt and went bankrupt. The traditional coexistence system in the village was soon broken. This happened in the 16th century.
The impoverishment of the peasantry
As a payment for the debts of the peasants, their own plots were selected. This process marked the beginning of capitalist perestroika in the countryside. The expropriated plots were fenced off from the previous owners (this is where the name of the concept under consideration came from).
Often, the peasant could lose all the land that he had before. Such people became wage laborers at the same Lords. What is enclosure for most of them? This is a process of impoverishment. This phenomenon also has a popular synonym term, pauperization. The poor became beggars and tramps. This was the effect of the enclosure.
Also, this process was aggravated by the 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, confiscation of lands belonging to monasteries and other religious institutions took place. Allotments passed to the state. Many peasants lived on them. Most of them were left without land - here it was also enclosed. The conflict associated with these processes led to numerous peasant uprisings throughout the country.
Economic development after enclosure
The inhabitants of the northern provinces were particularly poor. This border region had an underdeveloped infrastructure. Many peasants left to serve in the militia in return for paying the usual land tax. Last year, capitalist changes and enclosures reached this region. The epicenter of these processes became Central and Southeast England. Here, the conflict between the Lords and the peasants was particularly clear.
In the south-west of the country, the traditional communal way of life lasted longer. There were woolen manufactories, many pastures. The colony holdings in these provinces were stable compared to other regions of the country.
What consequences for the peasants had enclosures in the west? Here they were almost invisible. The Lords tried to increase their allotments by increasing the cost of rent. This method was secretive and not as effective as direct expropriation.
What is enclosure? It 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 large landowners of England accumulated a lot of capital through fencing, their money went to the development of industry. Thanks to this, the gap between England and Holland in the 18th century was successfully bridged.