A Short History of English Agriculture

The enclosure of English farmland was one of the most consequential transformations in the nation's history, and no one wrote about it with more authority than W.H.R. Curtler. This 1909 volume traces the complete arc of English agriculture from the communal field systems of pre-Roman Britain through the manorial economy of the Middle Ages, the revolutionary enclosures of the 18th and 19th centuries, and the technological revolution that followed. Curtler documents how the medieval commons, where villagers shared land according to ancient custom, gave way to the consolidated estates of enclosed farms, fundamentally altering the relationship between English people and their land. The book captures not merely the mechanics of farming but the profound social upheaval that accompanied every shift in agricultural practice: the dissolution of monasteries, the rise of a landowning gentry, the displacement of rural communities, and the industrial transformation that changed the countryside forever. For anyone seeking to understand how England became England, this century-old study remains an indispensable guide to the ground beneath our feet.