The Problem of the Commons

The Problem of the Commons

The right to pasture was in theory proportionate to the size of the tenant’s arable holding, and must provide food for as many animals as were necessary for plowing and manuring his arable strips. So long as there was abundance of commons for all men and beasts, no regulation was necessary. When the abundance vanished control became inevitable. In its simplest form it might impose a stint to the effect that “None shall oppress or overcharge the commons or wastes by putting more goods thereon in summer than they can, out of the profits and tenements, keep in the winter.” Or there might be closed seasons, when animals were excluded from the forest to prevent them from injuring new growths, young trees, or fruit crops. But two more serious difficulties developed which led to much friction between lords and peasants. In the first place, as populations grew there might be a need for more cultivated land near the village, and this would have to be cut out of the commons, whether clear or timbered. In the second place, the feudal nobility spent much of their time hunting. If the peasants overcrowded the forests with livestock the food for the wild animals, and even the animals themselves, might disappear.

Heaton, H: Economic history of Europe. Harper & Row, 1948.