Precarious Property and Political Power: Land Tenure, Law, and the Changing Character of Social Power in England, 1640-1690

In seventeenth-century England, a person’s degree of political power and community standing were determined, to a surprising degree, by the amount of land that they held, but the legal mechanisms that reinforced this system became destabilized during the period of 1640 to 1690. Parliamentary reforms, radical activism, colonialism, and an increasingly commercialized land market disrupted the traditional emphasis on land tenure as the foundation of a person’s social power. This research project will investigate instances between 1640 and 1690 when the legal mechanisms and social structures regulating land tenures altered noticeably, such as controversial reforms proposed during Civil War, the redistribution of lands based on political allegiance, the abolition of medieval tenures, the gradual abandonment of manor courts, and the implementation of land tenure in colonies in America. The evidence and arguments will focus on the day-to-day experiences of ordinary landholders in order to understand how people coped with seeing the connection between their property and their political power eroded as a result of these events. This project will improve institutional collaborations between Canada and the UK and will lead to innovative insights into the seventeenth-century roots of modern tools such as leases and mortgages.

Faculty Supervisor:

Ken MacMillan

Student:

Partner:

Goldsmiths, University of London

Discipline:

Sociology

Sector:

Other; Social Innovation; Public Service, Policy, and Governance

University:

University of Calgary

Program: