A Study On The Differentiation Of Peasants In The Early Modernization Of England

This article is to discuss the differentiation of peasants of England in the 16^th and 17th century and questions the model of social polarization proposed by Classical Modernization Theory and Marxist. The article has three parts. In the first part, I probe into the concept of peasant, and based on this inspection make a sketch of the peasants in the 14^th and 15^th century. The second part mainly analyses the different destiny on deferent kinds of peasants in the early modernization of England, especially emphasized the influence that the population growth, agriculture commercialization, Enclosure and proto-industrialization on it. The last part points out that the model of polarization simplifies the complication of the differentiation; on the contrary the elements of the modernization have functioned to the peasants in many ways, and lead to the appearance of the different types of differentiation in England.