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Albion

@caedmonofwhitby

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Stolen Land: Enclosure in Tudor England
In Henry VIII's reign John Palmer bought a former monastic manor. 'Being a man of great power', he grabbed their copyhold pastures from several tenants and enclosed them to make a park. And 'through like power took ... all their commons and made of them fishponds' for his private use. He also seized houses, grounds, lands, tenements and orchards, pulling down houses and driving some of the occupants 'out of the said lordship by force and violence.' Lands which he had given them in alleged compensation were of inferior quality; and anyway were not his to give. The unfortunate tenants ('very poor men... and in great fear of their lives' as well as of their property’) dare not return home into their country' without the King's 'most gracious speedy remedy' in Star Chamber.

from Liberty and The Law by Christopher Hill

#english culture#england#english landscape#english history#enclosure#tudor england#peasants#land grab#henry viii#16th century#class war
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Enclosure

…in the 1770s most of the land consisted of the remains of the three big fields, the common haymeadows and a series of closes, paddocks, orchards and gardens dotted around the village which had come down over time for common use; and also the common waste, the pasture and rough lands on the very edge of the parish. In 1779 this patchwork system, with its scores of field names going back to their medieval and Viking ancestors, was still part of the common mental world picture of the villagers. But with the sanction of the state, by parliamentary Act, these common lands were now to be fenced off and divided, with deeds and titles awarded to private owners, ending the centuries-old traditional common rights…
…The subsequent erection of fences and cultivation of hedges to demarcate individual plots would change the appearance of the surrounding country for ever, shaping today’s patchwork field system which we now think of as archetypal English countryside.

from The Story of England by Michael Wood

Thomas Gainsborough (1727-1788)

Cornard Wood, near Sudbury, Suffolk, 1748

Cornard Wood is near the artist's birthplace of Sudbury, in Suffolk. The scene is of common land where villagers are gathering wood and grazing animals, according to ancient rights.
#english imagination#english culture#albion#england#english landscape#english history#18th century#enclosure#the enclosure act#english countryside#the midlands#thomas gainsborough#Suffolk#english painting#english painter
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