Preface

Summary

I began working on common right and enclosure as a graduate student at the Centre for the Study of Social History in the University of Warwick. There I had the good company of Bernice Clifton, Julian Harber, Douglas Hay, Peter Linebaugh, the late David Morgan, Michael Sonenscher and Malcolm Thomas. I did most of my archival work in those years in Northampton, where, thanks to John Lowerson, I found food, shelter and good argument in the house of Valerie and Vivian Church. Their friendship has been a pleasure ever since.

A change of continents since then has deepened those debts and brought others. It is a pleasure to thank Joan Thirsk for her unfailing encouragement and good advice, and to thank John Beattie, Maxine Berg, Reuben Hasson, Michael Havinden, Maureen Lennon, Christine Johanson, Robert Malcolmson, Sian Miles, Nicholas Rogers and Larry Shore for their interest and support. J. M. Martin has been the most exemplary of correspondents, whose interest and generosity have never flagged. Robert Allen, Kathleen Biddick, David Brown, John Chapman, Andrew Charlesworth, Paul Craven, Colin Duncan, R. L. Greenall, Alun Howkins, Bernard Leahy, David Levine, Arnold Rattenbury, Rex Russell, Keith Snell, John Styles and Dorothy Thompson shared ideas, sources and skills with me. I am grateful to all of them. For listening to me talk about commoners it is a pleasure to thank my colleagues at York University in Toronto, and my students there and in Northamptonshire, at Memorial University, St John's, the University of Warwick and Queen's University at Kingston.