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A Cheap Bill For Deviant Enclosures: Legal Change And The Eighteenth Century Enclosure Movement, Robert Tennyson

Robert Tennyson

This article considers the question of legal change in the context of the parliamentary enclosure movement of eighteenth century England. While the English court of Chancery had enabled late Tudor and early Stuart enclosures by inserting a controlled uncertainty into the enclosure process, it refused to enforce them where an individual with rights of common held out. The eighteenth century parliament overcame this difficulty by allowing bill suitors to obtain private enclosure legislation in the face of ever-greater numbers of dissenters. This dilution of the unanimous assent standard occurred through the efforts of suitors who were encouraged by parliamentary procedures …