The Divide: A Brief Guide to Global Inequality and its Solutions

by Jason Hickel

When we think of medieval peasants we usually assume that they must have lived rather miserable lives. And this is true, in many ways: disease was common, nutritional standards were not very high and life expectancy was short – as it was for most people living in settled agricultural societies before the late 19th century. But peasants did have the most important thing they needed to guarantee a stable livelihood: they had secure access to land, which they could use for farming crops, grazing livestock, hunting game, drawing water, excavating peat and cutting wood for heating, cooking and shelter. Some had direct rights to their own land, others had the right to use lands owned by lords, and others had access to shared ‘commons’. Peasants may not have been rich, but they enjoyed the basic right of habitation – a right that was protected by long-standing tradition and strong laws, such as the 1217 Charter of the Forest in England. It was unthinkable that anyone should not have secure access to the basic resources they needed for survival. But this traditional security system came under attack in the 15th century – a process that started in England. Wealthy nobles, eager to profit from the highly lucrative wool trade, began a systematic campaign to turn their land into sheep pasture. To do this, they dissolved old feudal obligations and abolished the right of habitation that had protected peasants for so many centuries. They also began to privatise the common land that peopl...

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