Crown Policy and Local Economic Context in the Berkhamsted Common Enclosure Dispute, 1618–42

Abstract

AbstractThis paper seeks to place the seventeenth-century enclosure riots at Berkhamsted, Hertfordshire, in both their local and national contexts and to consider the Crown's changing attitudes towards enclosure during the period under consideration. The surviving local records are such that it is not only possible to trace the economic and social backgrounds of many of the rioters, but also to ascertain the eventual outcome of the unrest and the factors that contributed to it: an investigation that many historians of enclosure riots, in their reliance on central records, have been reluctant to undertake. As a manor of the Duchy of Cornwall, Berkhamsted was, in the early decades, subject to the attention of a powerful landlord, with a great deal of legal muscle. In 1640, however, the tables were turned, partly due to opposition to the Crown in other royal manors and in government. It appears that having the Crown as landlord ultimately ensured the rioters' success. A local landlord would have been able to concentrate his energies on the enclosure. Berkhamsted Common was preserved for posterity.