The causes and effects of the British enclosure movement

In the 14th and 15th centuries, in the process of the disintegration of serfdom, the new bourgeoisie and the new aristocracy in England violently drove the peasants out of the land, forcibly occupied the peasants' share of land and public land, deprived the peasants of their land use rights and ownership, restricted or abolished the original common cultivated land rights and animal husbandry rights, and encircled the forcibly occupied land and turned it into private pastures and farms. This is the "enclosure movement" in British history. 

The phenomenon of capitalist penetration in British agriculture was more prominent, and it had a great deal to do with the enclosure movement. The enclosure movement of the 16th century was the first stage of the entire enclosure movement in England, which was prompted by the collapse of serfdom and the long-term development of the rural commodity economy, and the development of the wool textile industry in the country and some regions and countries of continental Europe played a direct role. In the late 16th century, some of the enclosed land was converted into farms, while the enclosure continued to be expanded. In the process of land enclosure, changes have taken place in land relations, agricultural management methods and farming systems. The enclosure movement promoted the transformation of the feudal agricultural economy in England into capitalist agriculture, which greatly increased productivity. 

The essence of the British enclosure movement. 

The enclosure movement that began at the end of the 15th century was to forcibly eliminate the peasants' right to occupy the land by means of violence, and the aristocracy rented most of the enclosed land to the farmer capitalists in order to use wage labor to carry out large-scale production operations, while the aristocratic landlords only collected capitalist rent from the tenant farmers. By the end of the 16th century, a wealthy class of capitalist farmers had formed in the English countryside who rented landlords' land. The essence of the enclosure movement was to dispossess the peasants of their land, and it was the main means of reform of the British land system. The result was the transformation of feudal land ownership into capitalist land ownership. 

The causes and effects of the British enclosure movement. 

At the end of the 15th century, the demand for wool grew due to the development of handicraft workshops in the wool textile industry, and sheep farming became a profitable business. Many aristocrats were active in sheep farming, turning their own land into pasture, and even the land of the peasants into pasture. Some aristocrats often destroyed peasant houses and entire villages, leaving plots of land to be contiguous and renting enclosed land to farmers or herdsmen for high rents. This process of forcibly seizing the land of the peasants is known as the enclosure movement in British history. The enclosure movement began in the 70s of the 15th century, and by the second half of the 16th century, with the development of industry, the enclosure movement continued to expand. 

The enclosure movement had a profound impact on the changes in class relations in rural England. 

The development of capitalism in industry and agriculture brought about a change in the structure of British society, and the greatest feature of this change was the decline of the old aristocracy and the rise of the new aristocracy. The enclosure movement also caused a division of the peasant class, and while a few people became rich, a large number of small peasants lost their land, especially the expropriation of the enclosure movement, and became industrial or agricultural hired laborers. They were forced to sell their labor power to artisanal and large farmers at the lowest price and became wage labourers. 

In this way, a new class structure and the resulting new class contradictions emerged in English society in the 16th century.