The English Peasants' Economic Thoughts In The Middle Ages

The world outlook always includes the people's ideas about ownership and wealth in any society. These ideas, which guide the people to realize their economic goals, belong to the scope of plutonomy and ideology as well. The English peasants formed and developed their economic thoughts with pursuing wealth gradually. The thesis tries to analyze the English peasants'economic thoughts in three parts.Firstly, the origins of the medieval English peasants'economic thoughts are introduced. It was that Roman rule and the Germanic tradition had great impact on the medieval English peasants'economic thoughts. The strong sense of property and economic concepts of Rome were inherited and continued in England. As nomads, the livestock was the main form of Germanic personal property. Therefore, the Germanic peasants'economic concepts were conspicuously represented on the possession and protection of chattel. Afterward, with the development of agriculture, peasants'eager for owning land was increasing. Therefore, the livestock was replaced by land as the primary form of property gradually. And, from of ancient times, Germanic peasants already have had a specific concept of the private economy.Secondly, the medieval English peasants'consciousness in pursuit of personal economic rights is discussed from the custom law and the common law aspects. The common law protected freemen and their economic rights. Under the common law system, the freemen's economic rights were protected by the Royal law, and they had rights to dispose of their property. So, there was no essential difference between the medieval English peasants'economic rights and the veriest property rights. In the Middle Ages, villeins were on the bottom of the society, however, they still had a certain of economic rights. Although villeins were not protected by the common law, they could maintain their economic rights by the force of the custom law for its senior position in the Middle Ages. And, they even could sale their land, mortgage or lease their livestock and dispose of their own property optionally.Thirdly, the developmental trend of the medieval English peasants'economic thoughts is presented. On land manage mode, because of the lower labor productivity and great waste in the open-field system, peasants began to gather land by purchasing and exchanging strips. The land was enclosed and the individual land ownership was gradually formed. To pursue greater land profits, some small-manorial owners began to employ the employees and produce the market-oriented productions. Therefore, a new type of economic organization was established gradually and the land manage mode was changed. It was because of the development of commodity economy and the prosperity of market that some peasants began to pursue non-agricultural economic activities which closely related to the market economy. At the same time, business was appeared among peasants. And the transverse economic relation was established. The appearance of these economic phenomena indicate that the medieval English peasants'concepts of getting rich become diversity.In conclusion, the medieval English peasants'economic thoughts embodied the Westerns'inherent concepts of the economic democracy, individualism and the spirit of pursuing material wealth.