On The English Land Law System Changes With Economies In Transition

China is experiencing a great process which is called"Economic Transition". What we want to achieve is the transition from the traditional Agricultural Economy to Modern Commercial-Industrial Economy. However, behind the conspicuous achievements in our process, the Chinese economy still suffers from the fail to transcend the traditional economic pattern, especially in our agricultural economy. We believe that the land problem is the key problem. We also confirmed that the developed land economy will offer the most effective engine for the whole Chinese economy. So this article will focus on the land institutions to find the objective connection between the land law and the economic growth. But we put our sight on the history of British land law in its ages of Transition, not only because England society has succeed in this transitional process, but also because it is the first country who achieved the Commercial-Industrial Economy in this world. Its experience means much for every country who also wants to get such achievement. So our research will take the British land institutions as our main concern, and we try to find the real role of land institutions in the economic transition and what makes its role perform correctly and effectively. The structure of the paper is as follows.Chapter 1 expounds the two core concepts of this paper. According to subject of the research, there are two core concepts in this article. The first one is"Land Institution". In this article, land institution is defined as a system of rules which stipulate the property of the land and how to make use of the land to specify its value. It is accepted by the majority members of the society and any violations towards it will be given punishment by the courts. In this concept, the most critical part is the"Property Rights"which bears structural and quantized meaning. Property rights regulate the allocation of the land resources, and at the basis of the allocation, property rights also regulate the economic and the social relations among the people who use the land resources. Meantime, property rights include various contents which can be alienated or detached to different holders. The second core concept of the paper is"Economic Transition". It is defined as an important and indispensable part of the transition of civilization. The economic transition is symbolized by the establishment of the modern commercial-industrial economy. In this economic pattern, agriculture will not hold the leading part in the country's economic life, which is realized only by the great growth of the agriculture productivity. The economic transition is first achieved in a mode of production according to the capitalistic mode.Chapter 2 is the beginning of history research. In this Chapter, we expound the feudalism of England which offers the political environment of the land law. The feudalism in England is based on the foundation of fiefdom and lord suzerain which reflect directly in the legal land nexus. Furthermore, a distinguishing feature of England feudalism is the strong power of the king which becomes a critical factor in propulsion in the follow-up change of the land institutions. Then the chapter 2 discusses the four main compositions of the feudalism of England. They are social structure, economic system, and judicial system and stabilized community. These compositions of feudalism define the background and mechanism of feudal land institutions.Chapter 3 starts to focus on the England feudal land laws. We defined it as a detached property rights system. It lasts from 11th century to 13th century. In this chapter, we can find that the feudal land institutions in England had two totally different parts. One applied to the upper class, another applied to the bottom class. The lords in the upper class had the real and prior ownership of the land resources. The peasants in the bottom class had the limited rights of the land only if they offer the personal services to the lords and contribute their products from the land. The feudal land law is detached forcefully by the privileged power. The peasants who worked on the land had no right to arrange entire products because of the lack of personal freedom. This kind of land institution can't offer enough the stimulations in the yield of agriculture, which resulted in the low productivity. However, there is still a point which should be paid attention to. In the feudal institutions, the customary law in the manor still provided the basic guarantee for peasants'limited land rights.Chapter 4 analyzes the change of the land law in England from 14^th century to 16^th century. In the 14^th century, the feudal relations were abrogated in the infiltration of the monetary economy. The personal obligations attached on the peasants could be exchanged by money. The villains got their personal freedom and economic liberty. Because the Black-Death which swept in the whole Europe made a lot of destroy, hardly a half of the population in England has lost their lives. The supply of the labors in land was in a severe shortage, which makes most of the domain land in manor could be distributed to the peasants. The land institution of tenure had been founded in 15^th century. The peasants became tenants who had the rights of holding lands by tenure. Their land property got the ratification from the law and the courts. There are three kinds of the tenure in the land institutions which are copy-holding, lease-holding and free-holding. Under the institution of tenure, the peasants'rights in land had been expanded; their enthusiasm towards the agrarian production had been increased much more. The productivity of agriculture was released terrifically. The peasants in England experienced the"Golden Century"in 15^th century. Compared with other countries in Europe, England is the first country in the 15-16^th century got the key points about the modern economic growth. They are the common property rights and the freedom in the economy.Chapter 5 provides a summary and a discussion of the historical changes of land institutions in the latter period of 16^th century to 17^th century in England. First of all, this chapter summarized the social structural change after foundation of the new land institutions in 15^th century. The most significant change in the social structure is the arising of the classes called"Yeoman"and"Gentry". They processed the benefits from the changes of the land institutions. They became prosperous and eminent. And after that they held a principal power to launch the more significant changes in the land law. In the 16^th century, the yeoman and gentry launched the famous reformation of British land law which was called"Enclosure". The system of open-fields and common-fields had been challenged at the first time in this campaign. By 17^th century, because of the English Revolution, the parliament which was controlled by the land-classes just like nobility and gentry became predominant in the regime of country. They promulgated a series of laws and regulations to abolish the king-power's bondage in their land. The privately- owned property rights had been established for the upper class. Although there still were some feudal boundaries in the peasant's land, the majority of Lands in England has been free, not only in personal services but also in the economic producing.Chapter 6 is the last part of the historical discussion in the paper. In this chapter, the significant reformation of the British land institutions in 18th century has been illustrated. That is"Enclosure"which launched by the Parliament. This chapter discusses the background and the details of Enclosure in 18th century, and also presents the primary results of this reformation. Finally, the open-filed system was abolished in the mid nineteenth century, so that private complete property right in land was basically formed. What makes these changes more significant is that the new economic patterns had been applied to the agrarian production. The ways of capitalism has permitted to manage the agriculture economy. The transition of the traditional agriculture had succeeded. In addition, from 19th century to 20th century, there were some minor changes in the land law, which were the abolishment of the copy-holding tenure and the reformation in the institutions about the inheritance of the land.We show the conclusion of this paper in Chapter7. Our conclusions can be described by three points. The first point is that there are objective connections between the land institutions and the economic growth. These connections could be embodied in the economic benefits which caused by the land institutions. The second point is there is important mechanism which makes the benefits of the land law come about. The important mechanism is the free, complete and independent property rights. Last but not the least, there is a critical question: what makes these changes happen? They are objective or subjective? More research is still required after the final goal of this paper has been completed.