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This book traces the shift from medieval to modern institutions in English agriculture. It explores their importance for productivity growth, income distribution, and the contribution of agriculture to British economic development.

This book traces the shift from medieval to modern institutions in English agriculture. It explores their importance for productivity growth, income distribution, and the contribution of agriculture to British economic development. Robert C. Allen's pioneering study shows that, contrary to the assumption of many historians, small-scale farmers in the open-field system were responsible for a considerable proportion of the productivity growth achieved between the middle ages and the nineteenth century. The process of enclosure and the replacement of these yeomen by large-scale tenant farming relying on wage labour had relatively little impact on the agricultural contribution to economic development during the industrial revolution. Enclosures and large farms enriched landowners without benefiting consumers, workers, or farmers. Thoroughly grounded in the archival sources, and underpinned by rigorous economic analysis, Enclosure and the Yeoman is a scholarly and challenging reassessment of the history of English agriculture. It will be indispensable reading for all historians concerned with the making of modern Britain.

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Introduction: Agrarian Fundamentalism and English Agricultural Development	p. 1
The Rise of the Yeoman and the Landlords'' Agricultural Revolution	
Enclosure in the South Midlands	p. 25
Enclosure and Depopulation	p. 37
The Rise of the Yeoman	p. 56
The Disappearance of the Yeoman in the Open Fields	p. 78
Enclosure and Productivity Growth	
The Adoption of Modern Methods	p. 107
Yields and Output	p. 130
Employment and Labour Productivity	p. 150
Rent Increases and Overall Farm Efficiency	p. 171
Capitalist Agriculture and Productivity Growth	
Yeomen, Capitalist Farmers, and the Growth in Yields	p. 191
Labour Shedding and the Growth in Productivity	p. 211
Agrarian Change and Industrialization	
The Failure of Protoindustry and the Origins of the Surplus Labour Economy, 1676-1831	p. 235
Agrarian Change and Economic Growth	p. 263
The Distribution of the Benefits of Technical Progress	
Who Gained from the Agricultural Revolution?	p. 283
The Yeoman Alternative	p. 303
App. I: Regional Patterns of Peasant Land Tenure	p. 312
App. II: The Batchelor-Parkinson Farm Model	p. 316
App. III: Sources of Real Wages	p. 320
App. IV: Sources of Agricultural Output and Input Price Indices	p. 327
Bibliography	p. 333
Index	p. 365