18世紀英國의 地主와 農業

Landlord and Farming in the Eighteenth-Century England

1. Hitherto, studies on the agricultural revolution have been concentrated in the period of the second half of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, while full attention has not always been paid to the early part of the eighteenth century. However, after Prof. Habakkuk's work on English land-ownership, the significance which the early eighteenth century has in the agricultural development has come to be regarded as important; and there has been a growing prevalence of the opinion that the agricultural revolution was a long process ranging at least from the later seventeenth century to the early nineteenth century, and that the parliamentary enclosure worked only as an accelerator of this process. Therefore, it is believed that the rapid changes in agricultural structure and the progress of farming technique, usually attributed to the parliamentary enclosure, began to take palce at least in the later seventeenth century, and that factors of agricultural development in the eighteenth century are price-fluctuations of agricultural and industrial products, and that the growth of population, market and estate before the parliamentary enclosure has an important significance, and that the high evaluation in the past of famous landlords subject to revision. In this paper, it is, with particular reference to Dr. Mingay's recent works, intended to survey on the structure of landlords, the growth of their estates, and their functions on the agricultural development in the eighteenth century England. 2. In the eighteenth century England, the landowners, viewed in respect of their social status and political functions, consist of three broad categories of peers, gentries and freeholders; and reviwed in respect of their economic functions, they consist of more clearer categories, landlords and owner-occupiers. By the second half of the eighteenth century, English landlords formed a stable society and they played a fairly unique role in politics and society in general. Indeed, English landlords were not a exclusively closed society but had some social mobilities, which were regarded as a characteristic of the English society. However, the mobilities had their limits so that it was difficult to rise into the landed class by acquiring estates. This fact resulted from the reasons that a large sum of fund was needed for purchasing estates, and that the political condition and the economic stability in those days were unfavourable to creation of new landed families. Therefore, the main path to rise into the landed class by acquiring estates necessarily lays through marriage. A wealthy townsman who made a fortune mainly in the business world married with landed class. Because it was a means by which he could advance to the landed class, while for the landed class, marriage was a means by which they could accumulate wealth, cement political alliances, and extended their influences. Thus, main concerns of a great landlord who acquired estates were in the advancement of his social status and the security of his estates. The legal device to achieve it was the entail and the entail was practiced through strict settlements which became a means to ensure the long-term security of estates and status of landed families. Under the conditions mentioned above, English landed society in the eighteenth century maintained stability, and especially in the second half of the eighteenth century, increased their income and further strengthened their influences. 3. The late seventeenth and the early eighteenth centuries were a period of remarkable changes in the English agricultural structure. In this period, great landowners extended their estates at the cost of small landowners, and wealthy gentries could ensure in general their position, while small gentries and owner-occupiers decreased in number and their lands were considerably absorbed into large estates. In general, it seems that the growth of large estates was achieved partly throug