Author：WANG Yuantian

Publisher: China Social Science Press (August 2025)

ISBN: 9787522759074

Introduction:

This book is not a conventional history of the English land system, but rather a history of the English exploration of land institutions. Under the feudal land regime established in England after the Norman Conquest, land rights were hierarchically fragmented, and landholders at every level were theoretically entitled to a share of land revenues in accordance with their graded rights. Yet neither lords nor peasants remained complacent with the arrangement. Instead, they each sought to devise new forms of land disposition in order to secure greater land interests. Over centuries, the trial‑and‑error practices and sustained negotiations of countless landholders propelled the evolution of the English land system, shaping it into the form we recognize today.