An archaeology of the commons

As stated previously, the concept of the commons is not new at all. For instance, Christian Laval and Pierre Dardot (²⁰¹⁴⁄₂₀₁₅, p. 30) argue that the origins of the common date from the notions of the ancient Greek institution of the common (koinôn) and “to put in common” (koinônein) portrayed by Aristotle who, in turn, stated that citizens were the ones who deliberate in common in order to decide what is best for the city and what is fair to do (Aristotle, 4th Century BC./2004)¹. Lewis Mumford (1989, p. 58) mentions the existence of commonly managed water resources in old Mesopotamia and Peter Linebaugh (2008, p. 40), as well as Laval and Dardot (²⁰¹⁴⁄₂₀₁₅), state that commonly managed resources are rooted in Christian tradition and the Old Testament². Other authors, like Derek Wall (2014, pp. 23-31) trace the existence of commons outside Europe or occidental culture, pointing out that there are other historical examples in India or Mongolia.

However, despite its origins are unclear or blurred, there is a growing number of scholars contributing to the research field of commons’ studies (figure 2.1), and today’s conceptualisation on the commons seem to agree with historian Peter Linebaugh (2008), who traced its origins to the Magna Carta written by King John of England on 15 June 1215. Most of them, hence, share the same imaginary when they refer to the English commons to demonstrate that are something old and good and to outline the parliamentary enclosure acts that put an end to most of them in order to justify their positions. This shared imaginary, however, has been studied from different perspectives, as we will further develop in the upcoming pages in which we will try to define the concept of the commons.

From the Spanish perspective, Nebrija’s Dictionary, a Spanish dictionary written in 1492, has an entry which explicitly defines the common³ as those activities which benefit everyone (Nebrija, Colon, y Soberanas, ¹⁴⁹²⁄₁₉₇₉, our translation.).

1. Year 0: the old English Commons and Parliamentary Enclosures

There is a big core of literature pointing out that common lands (colloquially known as “Commons”) were frequent in medieval Europe. Spain was not an exception on this⁴, although they were more frequent and documented in pre-industrial England as the large literature shows (Beresford, 1998; de Angelis, 2002; Fairlie, 2009; Mingay, 1998; Neeson, 1996; Sevilla-Buitrago, 2013; Wordie, 1983). For instance, by the year 1600, open fields represented ³⁄₅ parts of all arable lands and 53% of all the surface of England (Sevilla-Buitrago, 2013; Wordie, 1983, p. 491)⁵. It was frequent that the owner of the lands would let part of it to members of the parish councils for their communal use, especially after the harvest and fallow. However, it would be highly imprecise to refer to the commons as a homogeneous ethos: Medieval commons was a phenomenon which covered a vast geography where communication was not always easy, and a long period of approximately four centuries that cover the slow decline of feudalism (from the end of 14^th century to second half of 15^th) and the birth of industrialization in 18^th century.

By taking these figures into account, we can easily deduce that there is not one but several ways of understanding and practising the commons, as the concept of common lands has been evolving to adapt to specific casuistry: after all, the societies that produced them differed substantially in time and geography. As an example, some common lands were part of a state which belonged to a tenant and, thus, they were tied to a manorial system⁶ regulated through Manorial Courts and appurtenant rights. On the other hand, some others were governed by local institutions (Parish councils) through a complex system of customs, oral laws and moral rules in order to watch over all community members’ needs. But not only there were differences in the commons’ governances and in who their ultimate owner was, but also in the type of commons, being the most usual the following ones: arable fields, usually divided into smaller lots for rotation crops; open pastures for pasturing cattle, horses, or other domestic animals; piscaries for fishing; turbaries for taking sods of turf for fuel; or estovers for taking wood (usually limited to smaller trees, bushes and fallen branches).

Be it as it may, no matter if commons were created because of laws (Manorialism) or customs, and despite their great variety and complexity in their governance, they always involved two features. First, open access to a land that belonged to a landlord who ceded part of it to anyone to benefit from under certain conditions (may it be during a specific period –fallow, pastures after harvest...– or to a specific area –usually fallow lands or wastelands). And second, a self-organised community that collectively managed the resources that may grow or could be found on those lands so the higher number of people could benefit from them without detriment to other members, usually landless who almost had no possessions. Again, the particularities of each community differed enormously from one to another, as each one was independent and was organised by councils were all decisions were made through assemblies.

Although there is no clear consensus on the reasons for why such a particular system (often quoted to as “inefficient”) endured so many centuries, it is likely that, as pointed out by Jonas Holst (2016), it was because commons provided a response to particular problems that involved a sort of conjoint action to overcome them (Dahlman, 2008, p. 28). From this perspective, this particular structure benefited landlords, as it served to keep the forests clean (preventing natural disasters like fires or floods) and ready for production. Commoners were also benefited, though, as the same structure provided a degree of freedom for most of the less privileged classes in rural areas⁷, who where able to access to natural resources for their own use that allowed them to survive without having their own land or a proper job (Dahlman, 2008, p. 141; Neeson, 1996, p. 663; Sevilla-Buitrago, 2013; Thompson, 2009, pp. 100-101). This resulted in a life-form out of capitalist mode of production, based on customs and social practises that allowed commoners to “live off the land rather than on it” (Neeson, 1996, p. 66) to the extent that, as E.P. Thompson states, “access to an extensive common could be critical to the livelihood of many villages” (Thompson, 2009, p. 177).

However, between the end of 17^th century and the beginning of 18^th, started to take place the slow decline that would eventually end with the common lands and with the societies organised around them: the parliamentary enclosures. These so-called parliamentary enclosures were a set of more than 4,000 changes in the British legislation promoted by the parliament with a common denominator: the access’ limitation to the common lands by means of fences, dykes, hedges or trenches preventing access to them to anyone but their legal owner (Fairlie, 2009). In other words, enclosures were a combination of privatisation plus limiting access to those resources that had been open for centuries and provided means of subsistence to the most deprived ones.

Although there are documented cases of enclosures during Tudor dynasty, which were basically unilateral fencings made by landlords in order to convert common lands into pastures (Beresford, 1998, p. 28), these practises started to spread little by little to the point they became institutionalised, coordinated and legislated like the aforementioned parliamentary enclosures under Stuart and Hannover dynasties.Several reasons led to this situation, being the most evident and documented ones those that make a spatial lecture and see the land as a mean to improve the economy⁸. From that perspective, the transformation of the open common lands into private pastures made them more efficient and more profitable in economic terms and, as a result, England could compete in the recently opened international market for grain distribution, which was dominated by Poland, Prussia and The Netherlands (Sevilla-Buitrago, 2013, sec. Implicaciones para la historiografía de la planificación: desposesión y cambios de escala en la concepción de los procesos territoriales) at that time.

But enclosures were far more than just a physical transformation of the land structure and the landscape. From a social perspective, they also provoked a profound transformation with dramatic consequences for the millions of people (Fairlie, 2009, sec. Parliamentary enclosures) who depended in more or less degree on the common lands but didn’t own any: the accumulation of wealth in the hands of a small elite on the one hand and the dispossession⁹ of a vast social group on the other. By preventing the commoners to access to the lands that brought their means of subsistence, their lifestyle was also destroyed and all that people were expelled from the villages where they had their previous way of life. This situation forced commoners and former small land-owners to initiate a rural exodus to the cities with the expectations of finding a job opportunity in the only possible place they could be accepted with no prior experience and where no questions were asked: a growing industry which demanded loads of cheap labourers in order to expand and extend their hegemony to new international markets.

Some scholars defend that, in fact, parliamentary enclosures responded to a conscious decision to get rid of a social group that could survive without even working and, hence, was considered as lazy, filthy and annoying¹⁰. An example of that perception on the commoners can be found in the pamphlet written by Thomas Wilkinson in 1812, which he used to try to convince his neighbours against the enclosure of Yanwath Moor, in order to prevent what, according to him, would lead to a more than probable negative consequences for the present and future of the inhabitants of his native village, and the neighbouring ones (Wilkinson, ¹⁸¹²⁄₂₀₁₃, p. 2). As Sevilla-Buitrago (2013) points out, the following fragment is worth reading, as it is an excellent document that can help us to get an understanding of the perceptions that wealthy people had regarding commoners and commons:

[…] The fifth and last argument is the one that has been most frequently used, and is, that by inclosing (.sic) the Common we should get quit of the Potters! [...]. However, as we have got hold of the poor Potters, let us keep them a little and treat them kindly, for I believe they are hitherto strangers in print. [...] It is said they are a nuisance; a rat is a nuisance in a house, but what wise man would pull down his house to get quit of a rat? But they at times exhibit scenes of riot and disorder; this I lament, and would join in endeavouring to suppress such disorder. Public Houses too, exhibit scenes of riot and disorder: ale contributes to this, and has done more harm than all the Potters lodging on all the Commons in England. Yet; who would promote an act of parliament to prohibit ale? Surely nobody.

Ale has done a deal of good, and Potters some. I have seen, five or ten miles from market, the Potters spread their wares on green hills, while the village maids and matrons gathered around, to become purchasers. I have not investigated the question whether these sort of purchases are made more reasonable at Penrith or by the Black Fells. The villages at the foot of that long chain of mountains, and other villages, are accommodated by these perambulating dealers, and perhaps on as reasonable terms. Then the village matron, far from market, escapes the perplexity and loss that often occur from the stumbling of her horse and the downfall of her basket, or the breakage of her crockery from the breaking of her apron-string. We see differently, and perhaps I have beheld the Potters with other eyes than some of my neighbours (Wilkinson, ¹⁸¹²⁄₂₀₁₃, pp. 30-31).

But from a Marxist perspective, as Sevilla-Buitrago (2012, 2013) explains, in fact, the goal was not to destroy the commoners for the sake of its morals but to transform them into a new social class so dependent on their new jobs far away from their original hometowns in order to survive, that could be easily malleable to their patrons’ needs.

Without open lands and without commoners that could manage them, almost all the commons disappeared, not only from England but also from Europe, where similar processes also took place¹¹. However, this process of several centuries that brought to the almost extinction of the commons led to a new history of rebirth. Not only some similar commons survived throughout Europe to present days¹², but at the end of the 20^th century they would experience a second renaissance with a renovated and broader meaning¹³ that take this snapshot picturing the decline of the commons as the starting point in their propositions. It is such a critical concept in today’s literature that it has been studied and quoted by most scholars, to the point that there are very few papers that do not mention the old English commons or the concept of the enclosures.