Seventeenth-Century Foundations of the Moral Economy of the English Crowd

Authors

Ryan Hund, California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo

Abstract

The historian E.P Thompson famously described English peasant bread riots in the 18th century as based off of a shared ideal of an economy that obeyed moral rules. But where did this idea originate? I argue that conflicts over land enclosure in the seventeenth century led to peasants viewing the old nobility as defending them according to even older moral principles, a view which carried over into the later economic conflicts about which Thompson writes.

Recommended Citation

Hund, Ryan (2018) "Seventeenth-Century Foundations of the Moral Economy of the English Crowd," The Forum: Journal of History: Vol. 10: Iss. 1, Article 7.
Available at: https://digitalcommons.calpoly.edu/forum/vol10/iss1/7