Subverting the ground : private property and public protest in the sixteenth-century Yorkshire Wolds

McDonagh, Briony A.K.

Abstract

As a forum for litigating property disputes, the Star Chamber left records that provide crucial evidence for investigating the way people understood and experienced the landscape around them at precisely the time that the modern concept of property in land was emerging. Using cases from the Yorkshire Wolds, the paper explores the roles litigation, direct action and riots played in both asserting and subverting property interests, with the aim of reclaiming something of the materiality of the events reported in the court. Particular attention is paid to two key practices by which enclosure and common rights could be negotiated 'on the ground': that is, by grazing animals on the common fields or closes and by ploughing up - or subverting - grassland.

Citation

McDonagh, B. A. (2009). Subverting the ground : private property and public protest in the sixteenth-century Yorkshire Wolds. The Agricultural history review, 57(2), 191-206

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Publication Date: 2009
• Deposit Date: Jun 3, 2015
• Publicly Available Date: Jun 3, 2015
• Journal: Agricultural History Review
• Print ISSN: 0002-1490
• Publisher: British Agricultural History Society
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 57
• Issue: 2
• Pages: 191-206
• Keywords: England and Wales. Court of Star Chamber, Land disputes, Private property, Yorkshire Wolds
• Public URL: https://hull-repository.worktribe.com/output/374733
• Publisher URL: http://www.bahs.org.uk/AGHR/AGHR57.pdf
• Additional Information: Copy of article first published in: Agricultural history review, v.57, issue 2