On this page I make available a number of my older papers (those that are hard to locate) as downloadable pdfs.

‘Redefining copyhold in sixteenth century England: the case of timber rights’, in P. Hoppenbrouwers and B. van Bavel (eds), Landholding, Land Tenure and Land Markets in north-west Europe, c.1200-1850 (Brepols, 2004), pp. 250-64.

This essay looked at the changing character of copyhold in the sixteenth century, concentrating on the rights of tenants to take (and sell) timber growing on their copyhold tenements. The assumption on the part of tenants throughout eastern England was that the trees were theirs for the taking. The paper shows how lords queried this claim and often insisted on their own ownership and discretion in supplying the tenants with timber on their own warrants. They held that for a tenant to take fell trees on his own ground without a licence was a forfeiture of the tenement. The possibilities for conflict over timber rights were therefore legion and the stakes high. Examples are given of the litigation which arose out of contested timber rights, and it is shown how this amounted to a tightening of the lord’s control over copyholds and a redefinition of the rights of the tenants.

I am happy to supply a pdf of the paper on request.

‘New markets and fairs in the Yorkshire Dales, 1550-1750’ in P. S. Barnwell and Marilyn Palmer (eds), Landscape history after Hoskins, III, post-medieval landscapes (2007).

This paper marked my return to the history of Yorkshire and the Dales. It shows how a system of markets and fairs had been established in the upper Dales by 1350. In the later sixteenth and seventeenth centuries there was an elaboration of the market system. Existing markets secured new charters giving them additional fair days, but new markets appeared in a number of locations including Askrigg (charter 1587), Hawes (1700), Reeth (1692) and Leyburn (1684 and 1686). The question of where these new markets were held is considered. Some new markets seem to have taken place in the streets of the village (Askrigg) or on the edge of the village (Hawes), but there is strong suspicion that market places were laid out at Reeth and Leyburn (the latter a seigneurial project) with both a toll booth and a market cross.

Made available here with the kind permission of Oxbow Books. Link to PDF.

‘Securing access to England’s uplands: or how the 1945 revolution petered out’, in R. Santos, and R. Congost (eds), Contexts of property: The social embeddedness of property rights to land in Europe, Turnhout, Brepols (2011), pp. 187-209.

Having turned its face against land nationalisation, the Labour government of 1945-50 answered longstanding demands for access to moorland and mountains with the National Parks and Access to Countryside Act of 1949. This paper looks at the operation of the access provisions in the act, which allowed for access to uplands to be negotiated, or if that failed to secure agreement, to be compelled. The access provisions are often judged to have been a failure. Here it is shown how in the central Pennines, the problem that the National Parks Commission faced in negotiating access was not the shooting lobby but the municipal water boards of some of the industrial towns of the north of England. They had varying approaches to the problems, some of them already being tolerant of walkers, but others stanchly resisted granting access to their water-gathering grounds out of fear that their pure but untreated water would be contaminated by water-borne disease carried onto the moors by walkers. The fear may have been genuine, but the water boards also leased their moors for shooting and so a acclaim of hypocrisy can reasonably be made. Informed medical opinion was able to show the risks were infinitesimally small. These issues are explored using examples mostly from east Lancashire. This was a very English sort of revolution: confiscation was avoided, landlords were encouraged to come to an agreement with a public authority (and if necessary paid for their agreement) and only at the end of the process, if no agreement had been achieved, might be compelled.

I am happy to supply a pdf of the paper on request.

‘Social and geographical specificity in the British famine of 1622-4: some evidence from northern England’, in Maria Luisa Ferrari and Manuel Vaquero Pineiro (eds), Moia la Carestia. la scarsità alimentare in età preindustriale (2015), pp. 257-81.

This is a largely experimental (and speculative) piece, looking in detail at the impact of the famine of 1622-24 on the parish of Giggleswick in Craven. It is shown that there was a crisis in the parish in these years, but the mortality amongst male heads of household was surprisingly small. A detailed analysis of the parish register was undertaken which suggests that different sections of the population were especially liable to die at particular moments: there is therefore a degree of sequencing in the pattern of deaths. This is related to the allocation of foodstuffs within households suffering shortages with the suggestion that there was a determination to protect adult males who were needed for their labour. Finally it is shown how a small number of households produced a large number of deaths apiece, and it is suggested that this may have a spatial element. Link to PDF.