Order and Disorder in Early Modern England

by Anthony Fletcher, John Stevenson (Editor)

The social history of early modern England has become a lively area of publication and debate. This volume attempts both to take stock of distinct directions in the field and to suggest fresh perspectives on some central aspects of the period. The distinguished contributors bring to bear upon the theme of order and disorder their diversity of experience in the writing of political, religious, social and economic history. They treat a number of problems in depth, and the result is a series of tr

Paperback

First published August 28, 1985

About the author

Anthony Fletcher is a historian of the early modern period. He is a former professor at the Universities of Sheffield, Durham, Essex, and London.

Reviews

[Dinah]

Starts with really good overview of sweeping changes in seventeenth century that transformed England.

[17CECO]

Just read C. Holmes, “Drainers and Fenmen: the Problem of Popular Political Consciousness in the Seventeenth Century,” Order & Disorder in Early Modern England, ed. Anthony Fletcher & John Stevenson (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), 166-196

Holmes uses much of Keith Lindley’s raw material to arrive at different conclusions. One of Lindley’s conclusion on the Fen Riots of the 1600s was that “Fenland Rioters did not give expression to political feelings” and that they weren’t “politically educated” (167). C. Holmes argues the opposite: that the Fenlander’s were quite politically educated and had a strong sense of political values that overlapped with that of the Levellers including “broad participation and decentralization” and the priority of Englander’s customary rights, particularly freehold rights. They had a “fairly sophisticated awareness of legal and constitutional norms” (194).

This bites back against the assumption that elites threatened by drainage projects directed a passionate, mindless peasantry against drainage works, laborers hired by drainers, and settlers brought in to settle drained lands. It also bites back against the assumption that non-gentry are so concerned with their immediate needs they are incapable of developing a larger political consciousness. Rather, Holmes suggests that Fenlanders had long and actively participated in the awesomely named jury of the sewers for the Commissioner of the Sewers where they developed sophisticated understanding of both law and its procedures as well as water management. Their know-how was sharpened through decades of legal fights with projectors like Cornelius Vermuyden. Fenlanders understood that outside courtiers enclosing their commons was linked to a politics in which central rule trumped local precedent and they fought back through the courts and in parliament.

A wonderful quote from Francis Taverner in 1653, “Many of the inhabitants had competent estates, who wanting full employment in tillage, they, of antient custome make it a part of ther recreation to discourse of law cases.” C. Holmes comments that this is “a nice twist to the old canard that the fenmen, as pastorlists, were given to ‘all slowthe and idleness’” (186).

See also the Mowbray deed, which was enshrined in an elaborate chest in Haxey church. What’s in that treasure chest is use right. Not gold but grass, air, water, eels, tinder (192).