European Background The “Bloody Code” (England) Before the enclosures:  The collapse of the Roman Empire  The manorial system  Feudalism and expanding trade  The collapse of feudalism  The rise of merchant capitalism

European Background The Transition:  The enclosures  The seizure of church lands  The clearing of estates Why did all of this happen?

European Background Surplus populations:  Massive numbers of displaced peasants  Violence and threat to elites  Criminalization of the surplus populations  Designed to “terrorize” impoverished peasants  As the surplus pops grew the punishment for their new “crimes” grew into the “Bloody Code”  Slavery, torture, mutilation, executions

European Background The end of the “Bloody Code”:  It didn’t work – didn’t reduce the violence/threat  By the 1700s – prison hulks (didn’t work either)  Then the transportation policy  Transportation combined with growing demand for industrial workers led to the end of the BC  “Modernization” followed in Europe (1800s on)  From peasant freeholders to the proletariat

European Background Michel Foucault’s work helps explain what happened next – How peasant freeholders became surplus pops and then wage workers and how they were eventually reshaped culturally into the modern working class (proletariat).