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Full-Text Articles in Legal History
Making Property Productive: Reorganizing Rights To Real And Equitable Estates In Britain, 1660 To 1830, Gary Richardson
Making Property Productive: Reorganizing Rights To Real And Equitable Estates In Britain, 1660 To 1830, Gary Richardson
Gary Richardson
Between 1660 and 1830, Parliament passed thousands of Acts restructuring rights to real and equitable estates. These estate Acts enabled individuals and families to sell, mortgage, lease, exchange and improve land previously bound by inheritance rules and other legal legacies. The loosening of these legal constraints facilitated the reallocation of land and resources towards higher-value uses. Data reveal correlations between estate Acts, urbanization and economic development during the decades surrounding the Industrial Revolution.
Guilds, Laws, And Markets For Manufactured Merchandise In Late-Medieval England, Gary Richardson
Guilds, Laws, And Markets For Manufactured Merchandise In Late-Medieval England, Gary Richardson
Gary Richardson
The prevailing paradigm of medieval manufacturing presumes guilds monopolized markets for durable goods in late-medieval England. The sources of the monopolies are said to have been the charters of towns, charters of guilds, parliamentary statutes, and judicial precedents. This essay examines those sources, demonstrates they did not give guilds legal monopolies in the modern sense of the word, and replaces that erroneous assumption with an accurate description of the legal institutions underlying markets for manufactures in medieval England.