The Study On Common Rights In Woodlands In England Between The 13^th And Mid-14^th Century

The common rights in woodlands was an ancient and important customary right in the medieval English countryside,which had given peasants the right to use woodland in common for a long time.However,the existence of this customary right had limited the rights of the lord to some extent.This contradiction laid the groundwork for the struggle between peasants and lords.Resulting from the gradual establishment of british feudal system,the development of society and economy,and the growing tension between people and land,the need for lords to exploit woodlands was also increasing.Therefore,since the 13 th century,the peasants' common rights in woodlands had been constantly threatened by lords,leading to disputes over it.By legal or violent means,peasants' resistance to different forms of invasion of the lord was essentially a game between the traditional customary rights of the peasants and the feudal lord's privileges.It is worth noting that while some peasants were resisting encroachment,others have moved to their opposite side�reclamation and enclosure of woodlands.The disputes between the two,superficially due to the different ways of land use,substantially implies the struggle of individual rights to break through collective rights,and shows the clear trend of land property rights behind the disputes.The full thesis is divided into three parts:The first part is introduction,which is based on summarizing the research situation at home and abroad,and clarifies the research significance and research method of this thesis.The second part is the main part of the thesis,which consists of three chapters.The first chapter mainly introduces the connotation of common rights in woodlands.It explains the basic concept of the rights from four aspects: content,origin,basis and role,which lays a foundation for the discussion of the full text.Meanwhile,by clarifying the important role of the rights,it can help us to understand the peasants' resistance for customary rights.The second chapter discusses the background and manifestation of the dispute over the common rights in woodlands.Due to population growth,urban and industrial development,and the construction of parks,feudal lords began to erncroach this customary rights,which had aroused strong resistance from peasants.The thirdchapter focuses on the essence of the disputes and the historical trend reflected by it.First of all,the essence of the disputes is a game between peasants and lords in which peasants were in order to maintain traditional customary rights.Furthermore,by analyzing the identity of the assartors,the disputes reveals the tendency of differentiation within the peasantry;thus revealing that the dispute over forested rights of common at this time has a tendency to clarify land property rights.The third part is conclusion,which summarizes the full thesis appropriately and puts forward the research shortages and academic prospects.Through a discussion of the disputes over common rights in woodlands in England between the 13 th and mid-14 th centuries,it can be seen that even in the heyday of feudal society,the peasants at the bottom of the society can still rely on traditional customary rights to safeguard their own interests,which thus provides a certain degree of guarantee for the development of peasants' own rights.By the late Middle Ages,with the declining power of lords and the emergence of wealthy peasants,these disputes reflected the game between collective rights and individual rights.The struggle for this customary rights between peasants and lords,or within the peasant class,is a mirror of society,reflecting the formation and development of rights and legal consciousness in the development of british society.