The Routledge Handbook of Property, Law and Society
Nicole Graham, Margaret Davies, Lee Godden
Abstract
In this chapter we review the commons in law and in practice in a British context, taking the long historical perspective. We set the scene with some modern legal definitions, then explore what ancient common land meant in practice. The commons is a property regime, but survives from a fundamentally different relationship with land to that of legal modernity. Before enclosure and the converting of common land to private property, land was not understood conceptually as a form of property. Land was a resource, which many people could have different rights over without conflict. Land can sustain many different uses, some continuously, some irregularly, some for only a fixed season or period of time. Legal modernity has thinned out the content of the legal commons, but the idea of the commons remains a powerful challenge to how we own and use land.