72 The Seventeenth Century (1603 - 1714)

(F) ECONOMIC HISTORY

The first half of the century is also, of course, dominated by the
debate over the gentry (n. 259).

Wilson's handsome and readable introduction to the age
must now be anybody's start on this topic; he explains the
origins of the great transformations.438 Work on agriculture
has really concentrated on the eighteenth century and shall be
listed under that head. Here we may note that Habakkuk has
traced back his earlier study of landownership (1940) into the
Interregnum and has also written a piece of more general re-
flection.439 Beresford discusses the contemporary debates on
the virtues of enclosing.440 Hammersley draws attention to
woodland as a source of crown revenue.441 And in his study of
the rate of interest and the price of land, Habakkuk discovers
the surprising fact that \vhile the former fell, the latter re-
mained stable.442

On the other hand, there has been a great deal of work done
on trade; indeed, historians have virtually come to accept the
notion that this century witnessed a 'commercial revolution5 in
preparation for the industrial revolution of the next. What has
appeared is not necessarily very coherent, but all of it supports
some such conclusions in demonstrating both the decline of
older trades and the growth of new outlets, manufactures and
methods. Chaudhuri tackles the early days of the greatest com-

488 Charles H. Wilson, England's Apprenticeship > 1603 -1763, L:
Longmans: 1965. Pp. xii, 413. Rev: EHR 84, 394f.; Hist 52, 83^

481 Hrothgar J. Habakkuk, TubUc finance and the sale of confiscated
property during the Interregnum*, EcHR1 15 (1962-3), 70-88;
'Landowners and the civil war*, ibid* 18 (1965-6), 130-51;
'Economic functions of English landowners in the seventeenth and
eighteenth centimes*, Explorations in Entrepreneurial History 6 (1953),
92-102. - See also n. 364.

440 Maurice Beresford, 'Habitation versus improvement: the debate
on enclosure by agreement*, Tawney Ft (n. 126), 40-69.

441 George Hammerslcy, 'The crown woods and their exploitation in
the i6th and I7th centuries*, BIER 30 (1957), 136-61.

441 Hrothgar J. Habakkuk, *The long-term rate of interest and the
price of land in the seventeenth century*, EcHR* 5 (1952 -3),
26-45.