ABSTRACT

This article examines controversies related to a neglected aspect of early modern English grain marketing: toll corn. Such disputes and the litigation that they occasioned provided opportunities for individuals of various positions – including those who sold grain on the market – to reassert normative ideals about the considerations that should take precedence in the market: specifically, the belief that the needs of the poor should outweigh the interests of private individuals (or, less often, corporate entities), and that those in authority had a paternalistic duty to ensure that the poor’s needs were met. That these points were articulated in toll corn-related suits throughout the period indicates their continued hold in some quarters, even after they had ceased to be reflected in ‘official’ policies regarding grain provision. However, controversies about toll corn also demonstrated the extent to which such thinking could ring hollow in practice. Individual authorities’ willingness to fulfil the material component of their duty to their inferiors was not accompanied by a mandate that they do so kindly. The politics of toll corn – like contemporary ideologies and practices of paternalism – both enabled and circumscribed the labouring population’s ability to shape the terms of their subordination in early modern England.

摘要

本文探讨了与早期现代英国谷物营销中一个被忽视的方面相关的争议：收费玉米。此类纠纷及其引起的诉讼为各种职位的个人（包括那些在市场上出售粮食的人）提供了机会，以重申关于在市场上应优先考虑的规范理想：具体来说，相信穷人的需求应该超过私人（或较少见的公司实体）的利益，并且当权者有家长式的责任确保穷人的需求得到满足。在整个期间，这些观点在与玉米相关的诉讼中得到了明确表达，这表明它们在某些方面继续存在，即使在它们不再反映在有关谷物供应的“官方”政策中之后也是如此。然而，关于通行费玉米的争议也证明了这种想法在实践中可能会显得空洞的程度。个别当局愿意履行其对下属的物质部分的义务并没有伴随他们这样做的授权。收费玉米的政治——就像当代的意识形态和家长作风的做法——既使劳动人口能够塑造他们在近代早期英格兰的从属条件，也限制了他们的能力。