Edward Thompsons Contributions

7/26/2019 Edward Thompsons Contributions

1/15

Edward Thompson's Contribution to Eighteenth-Century Studies. The Patrician: PlebeianModel Re-ExaminedAuthor(s): Peter KingSource: Social History, Vol. 21, No. 2 (May, 1996), pp. 215-228Published by: Taylor & Francis, Ltd.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4286341.Accessed: 18/04/2011 00:48

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at.http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless

you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you

may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use.

Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at.http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=taylorfrancis..

Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed

page of such transmission.

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of

content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms

of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

Taylor & Francis, Ltd.is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Social History.

http://www.jstor.org
http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=taylorfrancishttp://www.jstor.org/stable/4286341?origin=JSTOR-pdfhttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=taylorfrancishttp://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=taylorfrancishttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/stable/4286341?origin=JSTOR-pdfhttp://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=taylorfrancis


2/15

DEBATE

Peter

King

dward

Thompson s

contribution

t

eighteenth century

t u d i e s

h e

patrician plebeian

o d e l

re-examined

Although

Edward

Thompson's

work'

on the periodfrom the

I790S to the

I83os has

attracted a veritable

industry

of

critical

responses,

his

eighteenth-century writing

has

yet

to receive a

thorough-going

critical review. In

part

this is

because

Making

was

published

thirty years ago

while Customs in Common s

only

three

years old,

but it also reflects the

different mode of production of Thompson's eighteenth-century writings. Unlike his

work on the

period

after

1790,

which

came to fruition largely in one

book written

in

a brief

period

and with

clear aims

in

mind, Thompson's

eighteenth-century studies were

published

sporadically over

a

twenty-five-year period

during

which

he was also

extremely

actively

engaged

in

both the

European

Disarmament Movement and in a series of

arguments

within Marxism.2

Unfortunately

for

eighteenth-century scholars, when he

finally focused his attention

on the period again

and published

his long awaited volume

Customs in Common

n

I99i,

the

energy

required

to rework

systematically

his ideas was

I

The

personal, political

and intellectual

debts

owed to

Thompson by

academics from

many

disciplines are enormous. For

evaluations see

J.

Rule and R.

Malcolmson

(eds), Protest and

Survival: The

HistoricalExperience.

Essaysfor

E. P.

Thompson

London, 1993); various

articles

in

New

Left Review,

cci

(Sept./Oct.

I993);

B.

Palmer,

E. P. Thompson,

Objections and Oppo-

sitions

(London,

1994);

G. Prins, 'Socialhis-

torian,peace

campaignerand

adult

educator.

An

appreciation

of

the

life

of

E.

P.

Thompson',

Reportback,

I

(Spring

1994),

20-2.

Z

E. P.

Thompson, The

Making of the

English

Working

Class

(London, I963); E.

P.

Thomp-

son, Customs in

Common

(London, I99I).

For

an

excellent recent

volume of

critical

essays

notably

short of

detailed critiques of

Thomp-

son's

pre-1790

work

see H.

Kaye

and

K.

McClelland, E. P.

Thompson:

Critical

Perspec-

tives

(Oxford,

I990).

This volume

alsocontains

a detailed bibliography. E. P. Thompson, The

Poverty

of Theory

(London, 1978);

Palmer,

Thompson,op.

cit.

Social History Vol. 2i

No.

2

May

1996

0307-I

022

?

Routledge

i996


3/15

2I6

Social

History

VOL.

21

NO. 2

being partly undermined

by ill-health,

but this should

not be allowed to detract

from

the

immense importance

of his writings

on the eighteenth

century.3

I

Thompson's

work on this

periodwas so

wide ranging

that commentators

have

not found it

easy to focus on

the core of

his achievements.

Articles

on subjects

as diverse

as work

discipline and

wife sale,

anonymous letter

writing and

rough music4

ensured

that his work

made an impact

on

many subdisciplines

and subject

areas. This article

cannot summarize

all these diverse elements,

but it

will

begin

by briefly

identifying

the main interrelated

topics

which emerged

in

Thompson's

writing

on what might

be called the short

eighteenth

century (a period itself partly defined by the pathbreakingwork Thompson did on the

years

after 1790)

.

These were: first, customary

rights in rural

England,

and the relationship

between

custom,

law and common

right;

second, the role

of the criminal law,

an interest

which

arose

partly

out

of his detailed

exploration

of the first theme

in

Whigs

and

Hunters -

and

partly

from his contributions

to Albion's

Fatal

Tree

5

and

third,

his

work

on the moral

economy

of the eighteenth-century

riot,

which

not

only

changed

our way of seeing

popular

disturbances, but also provided

a model that has

been

used

extensively

by

historians of

other countries and periods.6

Finally all these

studies fed off and fed

into the core

of

Thompson's

work on this

period

- his

attempts

to develop

a

general

model

of

eighteenth-century

social relations

in two

major

mid-197os

articles

'Patrician society,

plebeian

culture' and

'Eighteenth-century

English society:

class

struggle

without

class',

which were later partially

reworked

as a single chapter'The

patricians

and

the

plebs'

in

Customs

n

Common.7

That model not

only

formed the

foundationfor his own writing,

it

also informed

the

work

of

many eighteenth-century

historians. From the

publication

of

the seminal

collaborative

volume,

Albion'sFatal

Tree,

in

1975

to the recent

appearance

of

monographs

by

Peter Linebaugh

and

Jeanette

Neeson,

the

so-called

'Warwick

School',

on

which

Thompson

had

such a formative influence,

has borne

immense

fruit,

and

in

much

of

3 He had

always

intended

to

write one

or

perhaps

two completely new

studies

of the

eighteenth

century,

for which the papers

he

finallycollected

into

Customs,

op.

cit., were

bits

of raw material

a project

not fulfilled

because

of

his health

(personal

communication,

Dorothy

Thompson).

4

E. P.

Thompson,

'Time,

work-discipline

and industrial

capitalism',

Past

and

Present,

XXXVIII

(1967);

'Rough music:

le

charivari

anglais',

Annals

ESC,

XXVII

(1972)

(a

longer

versionof which appearsin Customs, 496-538);

'The

crime

of anonymity'

in

D.

Hay, P.

Linebaugh,

J.

Rule, E. P.

Thompson

and

C.

Winslow (eds),

Albion's

Fatal

Tree.

Crime and

Society in

Eighteenth-Century

England (Lon-

don,

1975),

255-344;

'The sale

of wives'

in

Customs,

404-66.

E. P. Thompson,

'The gird

of

inheritance:

a

comment'

in J.

Goody,

J. Thirsk

and

E. P. Thompson

(eds), Family

and

Inheritance.

Rural Society

in Western

Europe

120o-1800

(Cambridge,

I976);

'Custom,

law

and

common

right'

in

Customs,

97-I84.

S

E. P. Thompson,

Whigs

and

Hunters.

The

Originsof

the Black

Act

(London,

1975); Hay

et

al. (eds),

Albion's F'atal

Tree,

op. cit.

6

E. P. Thompson,

'The

moral economy

of

the

English

crowd

in the

eighteenth

century',

Past

and

Present,

L (1971);

'The

moral

economy reviewed'in Customs,

259-351.

7

E. P.

Thompson,

'Patrician

society,

plebeian

culture',

Journal of

Social History,

vii

(I974),

382-405;

'Eighteenth-century

English

society:

class

struggle

without

class?',

Social

History,

III

(1978),

133-65;

'The patricians

and

the plebs',

Customs,

I6-96.


4/15

May 1996 The patrician-plebeian model re-examined 2I7

that work the

patrician/plebeian

model has formed a vital

point

of

reference.8

For

these

reasons it seems

appropriate

to make the

nature, strengths

and weaknesses of that model

the main initial focus here.

When

Thompson

first turned his attention to the

eighteenth century very

little work

had

been done

in

this field. Lawrence Stone's observation that 'the

historiography

of

eighteenth-century England

was a desert dominated

by

a

monopolistic corporation,

Namier,

Inc.',

which

regarded

the

only

history

worth

studying

as

political

history,

overstates the

case,

but the

range

of models was

certainly very limited.

Apart

from

Laslett's brief

discussion of

the notion of a 'one class society', Perkin's

description

of 'the

Old

Society'

in

The

Origins

ofModern

English

Society

remained

virtually

the

only

detailed

analysis

of

eighteenth-century

social relations available when

Thompson began writing.9

Perkin saw eighteenth-century society primarily as a finely graded hierarchy based on

property and patronage

in

which the lives of the poor were controlled

by a paternalistic

landed elite.

In

his model 'Power

always

came back to the

social control of the ordinary

squire

over his

tenants and

villagers',

and the

poor

had

precious little

means of

counterbalancing

that

power.

'In a

world of personal

dependency any

breach of

the great

law

of

subordination .

.

.

was',

he

wrote,

'ruthlessly suppressed.

Resentment had

therefore to

be swallowed, or sublimated into

religious dissent, or when

pressed beyond

endurance,

it

exploded

in

outbursts of

desperate

violence.' 0

This

depiction, which came

dangerously

close to

repeating

uncritically the

assumptions

and

self-image

of

the eighteenth-century

landed elite, was quickly

challenged in

Thompson's work. By

stressing the

discipline of the crowd, and the

widely accepted

legitimizing

notions

-

the moral economy

-

that lay behind such crowd

activities as

price-setting,

Thompson's

famous I97I article ensured that

bread riots would never again

be seen as

'outbursts

of

desperate violence'.

By challenging

the

uncritical use

of the term

paternalism

and the

close

personal control of the

poor

it

implied,

his

I970S articles offered

a

very

different

picture

of the

'social control' exercised

by

the

gentry.

1

Pinpointing

several

changes

including the decline of

unfree labour, the growth of

employment opportunities

outside

gentry control, the

declining psychological impact

of the church, the gentry's

retreat from face to face contact

with the

poor, and the parasitic nature of

the 'patrician

8

Hay et al.,

Albion sFatal

Tree;

J.

Rule, The

Experience of

Labour in

Eighteenth-Century

Industry

(London, I98I); R.

Malcolmson, Life

and Labour

in

England

I

700-1780

(London,

I98I)

were

important

early

books. It is

imposs-

ible here to

list the

many articles

published

by

Thompson's ex-students

and

associates at

War-

wick, P.

Linebaugh,

The

London

Hanged.

Crime and

Civil

Society

in the

Eighteenth-

Century (London,

I99I);

J. Neeson, Com-

moners. Common

Right, Enclosure and Social

Change

1700o- 820

(Cambridge,

1993) Perhaps

the most

influential of

all

Thompson's students

is

Douglas

Hay:

see, for

example,

'Property,

authority

and the

criminal law'

in

Hay et al.

(eds),

Albion's

Fatal

Tree,

17-63

and D.

Hay

and F.

Snyder,

Policing

and

Prosecution in

Bntain

*75o-185o

(Oxford, I989).

'

L.

Stone,

The Past

and the

Present

Revisited

(London, I987),

223;

P.

Laslett, The

World

We

have Lost

(London,

I965); H.

Perkin, The

Originsof

Modem

English

Society

178o-1880

(London, I969),

I7-62.

Less

de-

tailed

references

to similar

models

can be found

in

general

textbooks of

this

period such

as D.

Marshall,Industrial ,ngland

1766-851r

(Lon-

don,

1973),

6I-2.

10

Perkins,

Origins,

op.

cit., 37.

E.

P.

Thompson,

'The moral

economy', op.

cit. 'Patrician

society',

'Eighteenth-century

English

society',

'The

patricians',

form the

basis

on which the

following

summary

is founded.


5/15

Zi8 Social

History VOL.

2I:

NO. 2

banditti', Thompson argued that the eighteenth century witnessed both 'a

crisis of

paternalism'and the emergence of a particularly

vibrant plebeian culture.

Drawing together threads from his own

and others' work on riot, on custom as a field of

contest, and on popular recreations, rituals and mentalities, Thompson drew a

new and

complex picture of eighteenth-century plebeian culture. In his portrayal this

was a

vigorous, vibrant, non-Christian culture

based on inherited customary expectations,

reproduced by example, nurtured by experience, expressed by symbolism and

ritual

-

a

rebellious yet traditional culture which

was the people's very own. In the eighteenth

century, Thompson argued, a profound

distance opened up between the cultures

of the

patriciansand

the

plebs. However,

since the authoritiesoften felt it necessaryto

handle the

poor's

demands with

delicacy

and accommodation,

a

certain reciprocity also developed

between rich and poor. This notion of gentry/crowd reciprocity, of the rulers and the

crowd needing each other, watching each other, performing theatre and counter-theatre

was central to

Thompson's analysis.

Yet, of course, it was not an equal contest. The landed

elite remained confident

in

the

eighteenth

century. The insubordinationof the poor was a

nuisance not a menace. The elite still controlled many sources of patronage on

the one

hand,

and the

majesty

and terror of the law on the other. Above all, Thompson

argued,

they possessed,

and

constantly

strove to reinforce, an overarching cultural hegemony.

That hegemony did not, however,

impose an all-embracing domination on the ruled. It

may have defined the limits of what

was possible, inhibiting the poor's horizons and

expectations, but the elite could only sustain it by skilful use of theatre and concession. It

therefore coexisted with a

vigorous, self-activating popular

culture.

Thus,

in

Thompson's

analysis,

the

basis

of

eighteenth-century

social relations was

negotiation

not subordi-

nation, conflict not consensus, structural

reciprocitynot pyramidsof status and power.

A

short

article cannot

do

justice

to the complexities of the Thompson model but it was clearly

a

major step

forward and since it remains

virtually

the

only all-embracing

analysis

of

eighteenth-century

social relations

available to

historians,

it is

important

to assess its

strength

and

weaknesses,

its

challenges

and

problems.

There is much to admire

in

Thompson's

model: its balance of action and structure,

its

analysis

of the

interrelationship

between the

ideological

and the

material,

between

the

cultural

and

the

economic,

are obvious

strengths.

So are its

awarenessof the

importance

of

the

cultural and

linguistic

inheritance of the

poor

and

of the

ways

it influenced

plebeian

culture,

balanced as that awareness

is

by

an

exploration

of the

ways

the

poor's

experience,

exploitation

and

joint

action could

reshape

as well as be

shaped by

that inheritance.

Thompson's willingness to address

theoretical issues and

to use

sociological

and

anthropologicalconcepts

was also

extremely

fruitful.

Although

his detailed

application

of

the

concept

of

hegemony

did not

necessarily

avoid

the

pitfalls

that befell other versions

of

the dominant

ideology

thesis

propounded

by

his

contemporaries,

his use of Gramsci

considerably

enhanced our

understanding

of the nature of

authority

n

eighteenth-century

England.12

The pathbreakingnature of Thompson's work in this respect should not be

12

For

critiques of the dominant

ideology

thesis see, for example,

W.

Abercrombie,

S.

Hill

and B. Turner, The Dominant Ideology

Thesis

(London,

I980); S. Hill, 'Britain:

the dominant

ideology

thesis after a decade'

in N. Abercrom-

bie, S.

Hill

and

B. Turner (eds), Dominant

Ideologies

(London, I990); R. Collins,

Tele-

vision:

Policy and Culture (London,

1990), 3-7

suggests

that the

1970s

'paradigm

of the

dominant

ideology

thesis' is still

a dominant one.


6/15

May

1996

The patrician-plebeian

model re-examined

219

underestimated. British

historians

instinctively

avoid

general

models and

theorizing,

and

(as Geoff

Eley

has

pointed

out),

the

consequence

of this is that

key questions

such as

the

balance of

coercion and consent

in

the

governing

system,

the

potentials

for

conformity

and

opposition, and

the bases of cohesion within

the social order are

rarely

analysed.'3

Thompson's

work on the

eighteenth

century stands

out,

therefore,

because of his

powerful

capacity

to

generalize, and his

ability

to

provide

a

structured

yet

deeply

contextualized

and

delicately

nuanced

analysis of the basis of

authority.

14

In

any given

society',

he

wrote,

'we

cannot

understand the

parts

unless we

understand their

function and roles

in

relation

to

each other.' In

the

context of a

historiographical

tradition

dominated

by

the

opposite

tendencies

-

by specialist monographs

and

detailed

empirical

work

-

Thompson's

courageous

attempt

at a

general

model is

immensely

valuable,

all the

more so because

he

tackled a century in which it is particularly difficult to construct a history of popular

attitudes. In the

seventeenth and the

nineteenth centuries

articulate

resistance to

ruling

institutions and

ideas

is highly visible. In

the

eighteenth

there is

considerable

evidence of

direct

specific

action

by the

poor,

but the

extent of

opposition

to

ruling

ideas

and

authority

structures is difficult to

unravel.

15

Any

critique of

Thompson's

model must

thereforestart

by

recognizing

his

immense

achievement

in

reaching beyond

the bland

rhetoric of the

eighteenth-century

elite and in

constructing

a

model of social

relations that is

immensely

challenging

and

fruitful.

II

What

are the

weaknesses and

problems of

Thompson's

model?

One

obvious

area of

contention,

the

bipolar

nature of his

model and

its

tendency to

marginalize 'the

middling

sort',

clearly

requires

discussion.

However, he has

also

been

criticized

for leaving

undiscussed, or

giving

too

little

weight

to, a number of

other key

elements of

eighteenth-century

society.

A

brief

review of the

most

important

of these

elements is

therefore

necessary.

Thompson's

nineteenth-century

work

has been

criticized

for its lack

of

engagement

13

G.

Eley,

'Edward

Thompson, social

history

and

political

culture,

the

making

of a

working-

class

public,

I

780-i

850'

in

Kaye and

McClelland

(eds),

E.

P.

Thompson,op.

cit., I2.

14

Few

of the

substantial

works

published

on

the

eighteenth

century

develop

an

alternative

model.

Porter

mentions and

implicitly

uses,

but

never

systematically

reworks,

Thompson's

model in

R.

Porter,

English

Society in

the

EighteenthCentury (London,

I982)

63-112;

J.

Cannon,

Aristocratic

Century.

The

Peerage

of

Eighteenth

Century

England

(Cambridge,

1984)

partly

confirms

Thompson's views on

the

middling

sort's

failure to

challenge

aristocratic

rule

(I78)

but

offers

no

model

of

aristocratic/

elite

relations

with

the rest

of

society.

Paul

Langford's A

Polite

and

Commercial

People,

England

I

727-1

783

(Oxford, I989)

and

Public

Life

and the

Propertied

Englishman

'

689-1

798

(Oxford,

I99I) opens

up important new

per-

spectives on

the

propertied,

but refuses

to

discuss

Thompson's model

except

in

the

odd

aside

(A

Polite,

6i)

as D.

Wahrman

has

already

pointed out

(Social

History,

xvii

(I992),

5oo, a

review

of

Public

Life).

The

same

author's

'National society, communal culture: an argu-

ment about

the

recent

historiography of

eight-

eenth-century

Britain', Social

History,

xvii

(1992),

43

is a

rare

exception

and

does

begin

from

Thompson's

work.

15

Thompson,

Customs,

71-2.


7/15

220 Social History

VOL. 21: NO. 2

with

gender issues,16

but

his eighteenth-century

writings

have featured much

less

prominently

in such

critiques. The

history

of women in the

eighteenth century

is

still in its

infancy, but Thompson's work on wife sale, on rough music, on women's involvement in

food riots and

on other issues

has

made important

contributions.

His analysisof

wife sale

went beyond

the obvious

fact that these

rituals

were deeply

patriarchal and

highly

degrading

to women,

and argued

that wife

sale needed to

be seen primarily

as a plebeian

form of divorce with

consent.

It was

one of many strategies

in

the politics

of the

personal

among working people

and,

while the rules of

those politics

were

'male dominative',

women had the skill

to turn

these customary

practices to

their own advantage.18

Thompson's

views have been

criticized as over-optimistic

or

as

wrongly contextualized,

but

in

stressing

that while there were

'certainly

victims among

sold wives . . . more

often

the reports suggest their independence',he has rightlyremindedus thatmanywomen had

the capacity

to

subvert,

or at least find

their own

strategies

within,

the

legal

and

cultural

limitations

of patriarchy.

19

He fruitfully

follows a parallel

theme

in his defence of

the vital

role

played by women

in

eighteenth-century

bread

riots.20

Thompson's

discussion

of

'female

consciousness'

in

this

context,

his model

of

cross-gender partnership

n manyriots,

and his reminder that

food riots were 'visible

and

public

expressions

of working

women's

lack of deference' are

an

essential counterbalance

o historians such

as

Bohstedt,

who have

minimized

women's impact on

popular protest.21

There are

parallels here with

the

patrician/plebeian

model. Just as

Thompson

stressed

the extensive room

for

manoeuvre

enjoyed by

the

poor

within the

overall cultural hegemony

of the

elite,

so his work on

women

has

emphasized

that they

were not simply

the helpless

victims

of

patriarchy.

Gender

relations

had their

own,

if

equally

unbalanced,

version

of

gentry-crowd

reciprocity.

Thompson's discussion

of the ways

women made their own cultural spaces,

enforced their

own norms and

ensured that

they

received what

they

saw as their

own

'dues'

has,

for

example,

helped to

make sense of the

eighteenth-century

gleaners'

assertiveness,

successful collective actions

and

self-regulation.22

The massive

debate about

Thompson's general

'moral

economy'

model

cannot be

adequately

reviewed here.

Too much has been

expected

of this

pathbreaking

piece.

One

article could

not

present

a

detailed

analysis

of the

geography,

chronology,

incidence

or

16

For example,

C. Hall, 'The

tale of Samuel

and Jemima:

gender

and working-class

culture

in nineteenth-century

England'

in Kaye

and

McClelland (eds),

E. P. Thompson,

78-102;

J.

Epstein, 'Understanding

the cap of

liberty:

symbolic practice

and social

conflict

in early

nineteenth-century

England',

Past and Present,

CXXII,

105-6; J. Scott,

Genderand the

Politics

of

History

(New York,

I988),

68-z;

J.

Scott,

'Experience'

in J.

Butler and J.

Scott, Feminists

Theorize the Political (London,

199

2),

30.

17

Some general

texts on eighteenth-century

women's history

are available,

notably

B.

Hill,

Women,Work

and Sexual

Politics in Eighteenth-

Century England

(London,

I989) but

most

early modern

work has focused

on

pre-1700

sources, e.g.

M. Prior

(ed.),

Women

n

English

Society

iSoo-i8oo

(London,

I985);

A.

Laurence,

Women

in

England

1500-I

760.

A

Social

Histoty (London,

1994).

18

Thompson,

Customs,

404-62.

19

Hill, Women,

Work,

215-20;

see also

the

debate

between

Thompson

and

R. Samuel

in

History

Workshop

Journal,

XXXV, 274-6;

Thompson,

Customs,

458-6I.

20

Thompson,

Customs,

305-36.

21

J.

Bohstedt,

'Gender,

household

and com-

munity politics: women in English riots

1790-

I8xo', Past

and Present, cxx

(1988),

88-I

22.

22

Thompson,

Customs,

460; P.

King,

'Gleaners,

farmers

and the failure

of legal

sanctions

in England 1750-I850',

Past and

Present,

cxxv

(1

989), I

xI6-44.


8/15

May /996 The patrician-plebeian model re-examined 221

communal

context

of

all food

riots,

and later

historians

who

have

studied these

dimensions

in detail

have

been

critical

of a number

of

Thompson's

generalizations.

The

resulting

extensive historiography,including his lengthy counter-critiquein Customs n Common, s

still

mushrooming

but until

the

papers given

at the

recent

'Moral

Economy

Twenty-one

Years After'

conference are

published a full

reappraisal s

impossible and

will

not

therefore

be

attempted

here.23

If

Thompson

did not

neglect

the

'moral', some

have accused

him of

neglecting

religion.

His

conclusion that

'the church

lost

command . .

.

over

a

large

area

of

plebeian

culture',

that

it had

lost its

'psychic'

sway

over the

poor,

led

him

to

stress

other

forces.

'The

controlling instruments and

images

of

hegemony',

he

wrote

'are those of the

law and

not

those of

the church

or of

monarchical

charisma.'24

Jonathan

Clark's

controversial

mid-ig8os books directly challenged this view, arguing that 'Gentlemen, the Church of

England and the

Crown

commanded

an intellectual

and social

hegemony' until

the

I820S.

However,

while Clark

may

have

been

right to

castigate

social

historians

for

ignoring

theology,

his assertion

that

'a

Christian faith

and

moral code

was a

common

possession of

all

social

strata' was

not

supported by any

substantial discussion

of popular

religion or of

nonconformity.

By

failing,

for

example,

to

discuss

the ways

in

which,

to quote

Deborah

Valenze,

'popular

evangelicalism

struggled

against the

confinements of

conventional

institutional

religion', he

neglected an

importantfield and

left his

sharpest potential

thrust

against

Thompson's

model

undeveloped.25

Ironically,

given his

highly

critical stance

towards

Thompson,

Clark's

English

Society relied

heavily on

the

patrician/plebeian

model. In his desire to marginalize

the rising

non-aristocratic

propertied classes,

Clark

embraced

a view of

the

old society

as 'dominated still

by the

common people,

by the

aristocracy and

by the

relations

between the

two'.

Moreover, far

from

challenging

Thompson's use

of the

concept of

hegemony, he

attempted to

extend the power

of 'the

cultural

hegemony

of the old

elite' well into

the

nineteenth

century,26 hus

coming close to

'3

E. P.

Thompson, 'The

moral

economy

reviewed',

Customs,

259-351

lists,

and

responds

to,

many

of

the

contributors.

Among the most

important

are J.

Bohstedt,

Riots

and

Com-

munity

Politics in

England and

Wales

1790-

i8,o

(Cambridge,

Mass., I983);

D.

Williams,

'Morals,

markets

and

the

English

crowd

in

1766',

Past

and

Present,

civ

(1984).

A.

Charlesworth

and

A.

Randall, 'Comment.

Morals,

markets

and the

English

crowd in

1766',

Past and

Present,

cxIv

(1987),

200-13.

Work

that has

come out

since

Thompson's

riposte

includes J.

Bohstedt,

'The

moral

economy and

the

discipline of

historical

context',

Youmnal

f

Social History, xxvi

(I%92),

265-8i; A.

Charlesworth, 'From the

moral

economy

of

Devon to

the

political

economy

of

Manchester,

1790-i8I2',

Social

History,

xviii

(1993),

205-17.

Twenty-one

years

after

the

publication

of

the

original

piece,

a

conference

was held at

Birmingham

University

in

which

scholars

from

all over

the

world

reviewed the

model

and its

impact.

The

resulting

volume

of

essays is to

be

edited

by

A.

Randall and

A.

Charlesworth.

24

Thompson,

Customs, 50 and

9.

2

J.

Clark,

English

Society

i688-i832 (Cam-

bridge,

I985),

especially

7,

87-9;

J.

Clark,

Revolution

and

Rebellion:

State

and

Society in

England in

the

Seventeenth

and

Eighteenth

Centuries

(Cambridge,

I986),

I6. On

Clark's

failure

to

recognize the

problems of his

con-

fessional state

model see

P.

Corfield,

'Georgian

England: one

state,

many

faiths',

History

Today

(April

1995).

D.

Valenze,

Prophetic

Sons

and

Daughters

(Princetown,

I985),

I9.

'

Clark, English, 43 and go- on which page

he

comes

close to

embracing

Laslett's

one class

view.

For

acknowledgement of

his

agreement

with

Thompson

on

patricians

and

plebeians,

see

J.

Clark, 'On

hitting

the

buffers:

the

historiogra-

phy of

England's

ancien

regime', Past

and

Present,

cxvii

(I987),

I98.


9/15

Social History VOL.

2I:

NO. 2

using Thompson

on

the short eighteenth century to undermine Thompson

on the

pOst-1790period. Thompson's own reassessment of the potential power of religion

in his

later work on Blake, which stressed the anti-hegemonic potential of the doctrine of

justification by faith, not only raises

questions about aspects of Clark'swork but also about

his

own model of eighteenth-century social relations. Perhaps the main

impact of

antinomianism was on tradesmen

and artisansratherthan on the rural abouring poor, but

it remains unclear to what degree

elements of the same doctrines were present in the

grass-roots evangelism of the later

eighteenth century, and there is clearly much

work to be

done before

Thompson's dismissal

of

the psychic force of religion can be fully

evaluated.27

Thompson's reliance on the law as a central pillar of the gentry's hegemony,

while it is

not as

problematic as Clark's

reliance on state religion, also requires further research. His

argument, based partly on Douglas Hay's work, that hegemony 'wasexpressedabove all,

not in

military force, not

in

the mystifications of the priesthood or of the press, not

even in

economic

coercion,

but

in

the rituals of the

study

of the

justices

of the

peace,

in

the

quarter

sessions,

in

the pomp of the Assizes

and

in

the theatre of Tyburn' raises a number of issues

which

I will

address

in

detail

elsewhere. To what extent, for example, did the robust

self-activating plebeian

culture

Thompson

so

brilliantly

describes also

invade,

and subvert

or

influence,

the theatre of the

assizes,

not to mention the rituals of

Tyburn. Equally

the

JP's study may be better seen as an arbitrationcentre, while the main body that ruled

many

labouring lives, the vestry, receives

no mention. Thompson's brilliant conclusion on the

nature of the rule of law remains

the best starting point for any student of

eighteenth-

century justice.

'We

reach',

he wrote 'not a

single

conclusion

(law

=

class

power)

but

a

complex

and

contradictory

one. On the one

hand,

it is true that the law did

mediate

existent class

relations to the

advantage

of the rulers.

. . .

On the other

hand,

the law

mediated these class relations

through legal

forms which

imposed, again

and

again,

inhibitions upon the actions of the

rulers.'28However, his reliance

on

the theatre

of law

as

a

central instrument of

hegemony overestimates, perhaps,

the

power

of

the

state to control

its own public judicial rituals.

Paradoxically,

one of

Thompson's

other central conclusions

-

that 'the

price

which

aristocracy

and

gentry paid

for a limited

monarchy

and a weak state

was,

perforce,

the

licence of the crowd' - has been criticized for underestimating the strength of the

eighteenth-

and

nineteenth-century

state.

In

Customs in

Common, however,

Thompson

integrates recent

work on the rise of the

fiscal-military

state

by arguing

that there is

no

inconsistency

between Brewer's view of the

state

from without

-

as an

efficient

military,

27

E. P. Thompson,

Witness

against the

Beast. William

Blake and the

Moral

Law

(Cambridge,

1993);

E. P. Thompson, 'Anti-

hegemony:

the legacy

of William

Blake',

New

Left

Review,

ccI

(I993),

26-33;

for

the

problems of seeing through Clark's religious

prism,

see

J. Innes, 'Jonathan

Clark,

social

history and

England's

Ancien Regime ',

Past

and Present,

cxv (1987),

'93; for the

vital role

of religion

in one context, see R. McGowen,

'The changing face

of God's justice:

the

debates

over divine

and human

punishment

in

eight-

eenth-century England',

Criminal

7ustice

His-

tory,

Ix

(X988),

63-98;

R. McGowen,

'He

beareth not

the Sword in Vain :religion

and the

criminal law

in

eighteenth-century

England',

,Eighteenth

Century Studies,

xxI

(1I987), 192-

211.

22

Thompson,

Whigs,62-4;

Hay, Property'.

For a fuller

discussion,

see chap. 7

of P. King,

Crime,

Justice

and Discretion.

Law and Society

in Essex and

Southern

England

1740-1820

(forthcoming).


10/15

May

1996

The

patrician-plebeian model re-examined

223

fiscal and

imperial

presence

-

and

his view

of it from within

-

as

offering

ever

increasing

licence to agrarian, mercantile

and

manufacturing capitalismbecause

of the

'desuetude of

its paternal, bureaucratic and protectionist powers'.29To some extent he attempted a

parallel assimilation

of

Linda

Colley's

work

on

popular patriotism,

concluding

that

her

analysis of

the

making of one British nation

need not contradict his

own

views about

the

two nations of class.

However,

while

Colley never

fully

discussed

the

patrician/plebeian

model, and

while

Thompson may have

limited her book's impact

by contesting her

selection of

sources

and

by arguing

that the

early nineteenth

century

was the

key

moment

in the growth of

popular loyalism, some

of her insights do

challenge his

views.30

In

particular

Colley's observation

that

'historians

have written

so

extensively and

so well

on

various

manifestations of class

conflict

in

eighteenth-century Britain,

that it cansometimes

appearthat protest of some kind made up the whole sum of popular political behaviour'

touches on

an

important

problem

also raised

by

other

recent

work.3'

Does

Thompson give

sufficient

weight

to

those

elements

of

plebeian culture and

collective behaviour that do

not

fit

into a patrician/plebeian

polarity?

Was

he 'too

ready to see

opposition and rebellion

in

popular traditions and

customs'?

Did he

leave too

little room

for

the

regressive

impulses

in

popular

consciousness

or for its frequent

penetration by ruling

class ideas? Colley, in

stressing

the

growing tendency of

many working people to

be involved more in

expressing

their support

for

the nation

state

than

in

opposing

the men

who governed

it, certainly

suggests

as much.32

Thompson's

eighteenth-century

essays contain little

sustained analysis of

the clerical

orchestration of

anti-dissenter

mobs,

of

anti-Catholic or

anti-Jewish riots, or of the

numerous

electoral riots

that were, in part at

least, manipulated by

elite political

factions

for

their own ends.

Moreover,

his

tendency to focus

in his

eighteenth-century

work on

rural and

small town

England may

have reinforced an

implicit bias towards the

study of

crowds

acting

on

their own behalf in

defence of

custom, food

supplies or communal

norms. In the

larger towns and

cities, as Rogers has

pointed out, crowd

behaviour,

organization and

mobilization

in

local political

conflict was so

complex that it does not fall

easily into the

patrician/plebeian model.33

Clearly, before we

can evaluate

whether

Thompson

painted too optimistic a

picture of

eighteenth-century

social relations and of

the plebeian role in making them, we need amore complex model which encompasses both

29

See, for

example, L.

Colley,'The

politics

of

eighteenth-century

British

history',

Journal

of

British

Studies, xxv

(I986),

373.

Thompson,

Customs,

30

and

79;

J.

Brewer,

The

Sinews

of

Power:

War,

Money and

the

English State

i688-1783

(London,

I989); L.

Stone,

An

Imperial State

at War.

Britainfrom

1689

to

i8s5

(London,

1994),

3,

argues

that Thompson

underestimated

the role

of

the state as

a

semi-autonomous

agency.

30

E.

P.

Thompson,

'Which

Britons',

reprin-

ted

in

his

Persons

and

Polemics.

Historical

Essays

(London,

1994), L.

Colley,

Britons,

Forging

the

Nation r

707-i

837

(London,

1992).

3'

Colley,

Britons, 371-2;

M.

Harrison,

Crowds and

History. Mass Phenomena in

English

Towns,

179o-1835

(Cambridge, I988).

32

E.

Wood,

'Falling

through the cracks:

E. P.

Thompson

and the

debate on

base and

super-

structure'

in

Kaye and

McClelland

(eds), E. P.

Thompson,

145;

Colley,

Britons, 372.

33

N. Rogers, Whigs and Cities. Popular

Politics

in the

Age of

Walpole

and Pitt

(Oxford,

1989),

35'-2.

Thompson

acknowledges the

force

of

Rogers's

argument

while

maintaining

his faithin

the basic

patrician/plebeian

polarity-

Customs,

94-5

and

26o

for

his less

gracious

response to

Harrison.


11/15

224 Social

History

VOL.

21:

NO. 2

the self-activating and overtly riotous crowds explored

by Thompson and the many other

forms of crowd behaviour

observable in the eighteenth

century.

By approaching plebeian culture primarily via the analysis of conflict, and by

concentrating on relationsbetween classes rather than

within them, Thompson

may also

have been partly responsible for the fact that despite

the work of Malcolmson, Rule,

Neeson and various historians

of crime,34 there are many methods of constructing

a

'history

from

below'

for the eighteenth century which remained argely unexplored.

As yet

we know very little, for example, about the material

lives of the poor, their conviviality,

their internal disputes or the strategies they used

to gain assistance from the authorities

in

time of need, although sources exist that could be

used to illuminate all these areas.35

Thompson's contribution

should not be underestimated. His exploration of custom

as'a

whole vocabulary of discourse, of legitimation andof expectation'in Customs n Common

should,

for

example,

be a foundation text

for all students of the

eighteenth

century.

Yet

even this work focuses primarily

on

conflict,36

and

given

the recent

tendency

for other

eighteenth-century

historians to focus on the propertied,

a

detailed

history

of the

individual and family

lives of the eighteenth-century labouring poor has still

to be

constructed.

As Thompson himself

recognized, both the term 'labouringpoor' and the term

'gentry'

were

vague

and tended to evolve

in

meaning.

The use of the title

'gentleman',

for

example,

expanded

to include an increasing proportion

of

'polite

and commercial

people'

as the

century progressed.37

More

problematic, however,

than

Thompson's

use of these terms

was his

assumption

that the

gentry elite,

and

the

propertied middling

sort he

broadly

assumed

to be their

dependents,

were

relatively culturally homogeneous.

This has

recently

been

challenged

by Wahrman's

work on the divisions within the

propertied,

and

particularly

within the urban

middling sort,

between those who were

nationally

orientated

and London-centred,

and those who

identified

with a

local/provincial

communal

culture.38 This work

in

turn feeds

off,

and contributes

to,

the most

widespread

set

of

critiques

of

Thompson's

bipolar model,

i.e. those which

focus on its

marginalization

of the

middling sort. Thompson

never

substantially

altered the

views he

expressed

in

his

original

1974

article in which the

middling

sort

('the professional

and middle

classes and the

substantial yeomanry') were portrayed as so strongly tied to the elite by relations of

14

See

n.

8 and

other work inspired partly by

Thompson

such as J. Beattie,

Crime

and the

Courts

n

England

i

66o-i 8oo

(Oxford,

I986).

35

Some work

has

been

done, mostly

at a

quantitative

level.

See K. Snell, Annals of

the

Labouring

Poor. Social

Change and

Agrarian

England

600*-goo (Cambridge,

I985); J. S.

Taylor, Poverty,

Migration and

Settlement in

the Industrial Revolution. Sojourner's Nar-

ratives

(Chapel

Hill, I989);

T. Sokoll,

House-

hold

and Family among

the Poor

(Bochum,

1993).

These issuesarediscussed

n moredetail

in T. Hitchcock,

P.

Sharpe and

P. King

(Chronicling

Poverty.

The Voicesand Strategies

of

the English

Poor

1640-I

840 (1996));

J.

Styles,

'Clothing the north:

the supply

of non-elite

clothing

in the eighteenth-century

north of

England',

Textile History

(

994).

36

Thompson,

Customs,

97-I84;

to some

extent

the

same can be said of another

mportant

contribution, B. Bushaway,

By Rite,

Custom,

Ceremony

and

Community

in

England

1700-

l88o (London, 982)

.

37

Thompson, Customs,

I6-v7;

P. Corfield,

'Class by

name

and number in eighteenth-

century

Britain',History, LXXII

(I987),

38-61;

Langford,

A Polite, 65-6.

For a

discussion

of the

equally problematic

terms

plebeian

or plebs

see

Eley,

'Edward Thompson',

op.

cit.,

I9-20.

38

D.

Wahrman,

National', op.

cit.


12/15

May 1996


model re-examined

225

clientage and dependency

that

they

offered 'little deflection of the essential

polarities'.39

Although

his final I99I

version made

a series of tactical

retreats, acknowledging

that

Langford, Borsay et al. had charted the emergence of the middling ordersas an important

cultural presence

who were creating

their

own

'shadowy

civil

society',

it

continued

to

argue

that the growth

in numbers and wealth of the 'middling

orders' had not fundamentally

modified or softened class

polarization. The middle

class were not yet 'autonomous

self-motivated

political

actors' able to modify

in

any

serious

way the patrician-pleb

equilibrium.

It wasnot until the end of the century

that the notion of

'middle class'

began

to

emerge, becoming

in

itself

part

of

political debate

and

of the conflicts

between different

interest groups.40

The

relatively

brief nature of

Thompson's responses

in Customs in

Common

to the

implications of recent workon the middling sort werepartlyrelatedto the fact that key texts,

such as Langford's second book,

were

not yet

available

when he

was

writing,

but more

important

perhaps was Langford'sfailure

to situate fully his work

within a broader

context.

Although

he attacked unnamed 'twentieth-century

historians' for neglecting the

middle

class

and for

'somewhatfanciful

accounts' that

'fasten on

the colourful but

often theatrical

conflicts

of

plebeiansand patricians ',41

Langford

failed

to

produce

an alternativegeneral

model.

If

Thompson had

lived to respond to

the continued mushrooming of historical

work

on the middling sort, the urban renaissance

and

the world of consumption in the eighteenth

century,

he might

have

further modified

his model. Even his apparently

imited reworkings

in

I99I suggested

important problems.

In responding, for example,

to criticisms that by

marginalizing the middling

sort he made it difficult

to explain the

emergence of a new

self-conscious

urban

middle-class presence from the 1790S

onwards, Thompson

admitted

that

his bipolar

model

has more relevance

to ruralor proto-industrial

areas than to

London

and

the larger corporate

towns.

In

doing

so he both highlighted the

extent to which his

eighteenth-century

model was essentially rural

rather than urban,

and also signalled the

possibility

that his

model works better for the period before I760 than

for the period after

it.42Moreover,

by choosing

ruralEngland as his last bastion

he focuses attention on

another

question. Does Thompson's

bipolar model work

for rural England, and in particular

for

southern

and eastern England,

where the urban

villages produced by proto-industria-

lization were declining rather than growing in number during the eighteenth century?43

39

Thompson,

'Patrician

society',

395;

Thompson,

'Eighteenth-century', 143 and

151.

40

Thompson,

Customs, 31-2 and

go;

Wahrman, 'National', 64; D.

Wahrman,

'Vir-

tual

representation:

parliamentary reporting

and

languages of class

in

the

1790S',

Past

and

Present, cxxxvi

(1992); Langford, A

Polite;

Langford, Public

Life;

P. Borsay The

English

Urban

Renaissance

(Oxford, I989). Additions

to the

literature

on

'the

middling

sort' since

i99i

include J. Seed, 'From middling sort to middle

class

in late eighteenth and

early

nineteenth-

century England'

in

M.

Bush

(ed.),

Social

Orders

and Social Classes

in

Europe

since

Isoo

(London, I992); J. Barry and C.

Brooks, The

Middling Sort of

People.

Culture, Society and

Politics in England 155o-1800

(London, 1994).

The latter contains a detailed bibliography.

41

Langford, A Polite, 6i. Thompson

is not

even footnoted here, raising once again

the

question of why so many eighteenth-century

historians use or abuse Thompson's model

without directly acknowledging that they are

doing so. N. Rogers, 'Paul Langford's Age of

Improvement ', Past and Present,

cxxx

(1992), 201-9.

42

Thompson, Customs, 33 and 88.

43

For interesting thoughts on Thompson's

extensive

use of

examples

from the cottaging

population of Yorkshire and a broader

dis-

cussion of his work

in

relation to work on

proto-industrialization see D. Levine,

'Proto-

nothing', Social History, XVIII

(1993),

38x-go.


13/15

226 Social History

VOL. 21: NO. 2

III

The more work that is done on the nature of social conflict and social relations in the

eighteenth-century countryside, the more

it seems that the most appropriatemodel is, at

the

very least, triangular.

In

many fields

of activity it is difficult to avoid the conclusion

that the labouring poor, the middling sort and the ever-more distanced or absent gentry

were developing as increasingly separate

interest groups. There are many problems, of

course, with

the

use of a triangular

model

-

the continued existence of what some

historians have termed an English peasantry,45 or example, or the many fractures

and

factions among the middling sort of most communities. However, time and time again

alliances

on

the

ground tended

to

take

a

triangular form, although the make-up of those

allianceswould differaccordingto circumstances. The game laws brought the farmers nto

overt

conflict

with the gentry and

into an

uneasy alliance with the poor. Vestries

might

mobilize the local JP to punish the disorderly poor, but equally paupers often appealed

successfully to gentry or pseudo-gentry magistrates to obtain relief refused them

by

farmer-dominated vestries.

Disputes

over

unpaid wages might produce

a

similar

temporary alliance

much

to the

employers'

annoyance.46Equally, farmers'attacks on the

poor's right

to

glean often

foundered when the

magistracy

refused

to

support

them.

Triangular tendencies can also be found

in Thompson's own work. His moral economy

model suggests

that

similar configurations

occurred during food

riots

which

witnessed 'the

culturally-constructed alliance

between patricians and plebs against the middling orders'

as

the crowd

and

the authoritiescombined to scapegoat hoarding

farmers

and

profiteering

dealers.47

Thompson's

work

on

customary usages

as an

arena

of

struggle

also

implies

the

existence

of

three

separate

interest

groups.

'The

rich employed

their

riches,

and all the

institutions

and

awe of local authority,'

he

wrote.

'The middling

farmers

or

yeomen

sort

influenced local courts and sought

to write stricter by-laws

. . .

could

also

employ

the

discipline of

the

poor laws against

those beneath

them,

and on

occasion

. . . defended

their

rights against

the rich

and

powerful

at

law.

The

peasantry

and the

poor employed stealth,

a

knowledge

of

every

bush

and by-way

and

the

force of

numbers.48

Of

course,

if

property

or

the ultimate

authority

of

either the

magistracy

or the

vestry

were threatenedby popular unrest, the gentry and the middling sortusually joined forces

promptly

and

effectively

to

counter

the

threat.

But

within

these

outer

limits,

defined

as

much

by

the

power

of

penal

sanctions

as

by any hegemonic

closure

of

popular perceptions

These are

explored in more detail

in a

paper

on the

middling

sort of eighteenth-century

rural

England

I

have

given at various

seminars and

which will soon,

I hope, take its final

form under

the (provisional)

title of 'Property, power

and

the parish

state

in

eighteenth-century

England'.

I

have

not footnoted

the argument

outlined

brieflybelow as this will be done in detail in the

above

article.

45

M. Reed,

'The

peasantry

in

nineteenth-

century England:

a neglected

class?', History

Workshopyournal,

XVIII

(1984)

for the starting

point

of

the debate.

More recently

a helpful

and

questioning piece

is

J. Neeson,

'An

eighteenth-

century

peasantry'

in Rule

and

Malcolmson

(eds),

Protest,

24-59.

46

I

have

not footnoted

in detail

the argument

outlined briefly

here

as this will

be developed

and fully

footnoted

in

my

paper

referredto

in

n.

44.

For some early work,

mainly on the

Essex

evidence

in relationto

these issues,

see P.

King,

'Crime, Law and Society in Essex

1740-i820'

(Cambridge

Ph.D.,

I984), especially

282-90.

47

King,

'Gleaners'; Thompson,

'The moral

economy' and

'The

moral economy

reviewed',

300.

48Thompson,

Customs,

102-3.


14/15

May

1996


model re-examined 227

of the possible, the

poor had

room

for manoeuvre not

only

because

of

their

vigorous

and

separate culture,

but also because the propertied were

often divided

-

having separate

interests and separate policy priorities. The complex subject of the power and relative

autonomy of

'the

parish state', as

John

Clare called

it,

finds

virtually

no

place in

Thompson's

analysis,49

yet

through

it

the

middling

sort

held

a

vast

array

of

discretionary

powers.50

If

the vestry

minute

books and the

diaries

of

middling vestry

members

like

Thomas Turner and John Carrington

are any guide, they exercised

those powers

with

precious little reference

to,

or

deference

towards,

the

landowning elite.51 Important

though

the

concept

of

cultural

hegemony may

be

in

explaining

the

unhindered

continuance

of

gentry

rule

until

the

1790s,

'the

dull

compulsion'52

f

economic and labour

relations and of parish politics, which

gave the farmers such power over

the employment

opportunities, wages, poor relief and charitable resources availableto labouringfamilies

may

have

been

a

vital

stabilizing

factor

which

Thompson's

model

fails

to allow room

for.

There are other problems with

Thompson's use

of

the notion of

hegemony.

He

offers

little discussion, for example, of the

means

of

mental

production

in

the eighteenth century

and of how

plebeian attitudes and

culture

were

influenced

by

them.

At

times

the gentry's

hegemony

seems to leave

such

a

wide arena of struggle

that one wonders whether the

implied forms of mental

closure had much purchase.

The

only way

we

could

test

its

role

would

be

to remove

gentry unity and hegemony and watch

events. Would

the

naked

power

of

the

employing, vestry-ruling

middling

sort

have

held? This

may

well

have

been what

happened at

the

height

of

the English

Revolution when, some historians have

suggested, it

was

the

middling

sort, not the gentry, who ensured the

maintenance of order at the local

level.53

However, matters were

different a century

later and, problematic though it is,

Thompson's notion

of cultural

hegemony still holds considerable

explanatorypower

in

the

eighteenth-century context. Indeed,

his reworking of Gramsci in the

introduction to

Customs

in

Common,

in

order to refute what he calls the

fashionable assumption 'that the

plebs were

in

a sense

spoken by their linguistic

inheritance' is both

thought-provoking

49

Thompson was

not alone

in

his

neglect of

this field. On the lack of a history of the often

powerful tenant

farmers

in

particularsee Innes,

'Jonathan

Clark', i82;

Barry

and

Brooks (eds),

The

Middling, 213.

Thompson

tried

unsuccess-

fully

to

get

a

student to

work

on

the

vestry

(personal

communication

from

Dorothy

Thompson).

s J.

North, 'State

of the poor in

the parish of

Ashdon,

Essex', Annals of

Agriculture, xxxv

(I8oo),

468-9. For a

debate

which has

touched

interestingly

on

these

issues

and on the

potential

of

social

control by

poor

relief, see R.

Wells,

'The development of the English rural pro-

letariat and

social

protest, i700-i

850',

ournal

of

Peasant

Studies,

vi

(I979)

and

A.

Charlesworth,

'Comment' on

that article

in

Journal

of

Peasant

Studies,

viii

(i 980-I).

J. Clare,

The

Parish.

A

Satire

(London,

I985);

D. Vaisey

(ed.), The

Diary of Thomas

Turner

1754-65

(Oxford, I985);

W.

Branch-

Johnson (ed.), Memorandums for The Diary

between

1798

and

r8io

of 7ohn

Carrington,

Fanner,

Chief

Constable, Tax

Assessor, Sur-

veyor

of

Highways

and

Overseer

of

the

Poor

of

Bramfield

in

Hertfordshire

(London,

1973).

S2

The

importanceof the

'dull

compulsion

of

the economic

relations

of

everyday life'

rather

than the

role

of a

dominant

ideology

which

incorporates

subordinates is

stressed in Aber-

crombie et

al. (eds),

Dominant

Ideologies,

2-3.

See

Thompson,

Customs, 22, for

a very brief

mention of the

overseers of

the

poor and their

importance.

53

J. Morrill

and

J.

Walter,

'Order and

disorder in the

English

Revolution'

in

A.

Fletcher

and J.

Stevenson

(eds),

Order and

Disorder

in Early

Modern England

(Cam-

bridge, I985),

153.


15/15

228

Social

History VOL.

21:

NO.

2

and persuasive.

Those who see the plebs 'as

captives within a linguistic prison' are,

he

argues,

underestimating the

importance Gramsci ascribed to

praxis, to the shared

experiences

of

fellow-workers and neighbours. It

was those

experiences of hardship,

exploitation and

repression

which

continually exposed the text of

paternalist theatre to

ironic criticism

and, less

frequently, to revolt.54The temptation to

enter into a praxis

versus

post-modernism debate will be resisted here.

It would have

been marvellousto have

seen

Thompson

at

his best

grappling with

arguments such

as

those

of Joan Scott in her

recent attackon

'experience'as historical category.

Sadly we have only

fragmentsof such a

response in his later

letters.5sHe

was not afraidof the 'linguistic turn'

and its gyrationswill

be much the poorer for the lack of

his critical input,56but for all

those

who

want to

write

and

to make

histories

that

are

more than

mere

fragments,

and

that are committed to

the

excluded and the apparently powerless, Thompson's work will continue to provide a

beacon.

His

legacy

is

partly

a

personal,

even

(dare

we

whisper it)

a

moral

one.

When

again

will

we have the company of such a

brilliant

historian, committed not only to know and

to

theorize,

but also

to

do so

in

order

to act.

For

eighteenth-century

historians

that

legacy

is

also a

very concrete one.57

With

its nuanced

understanding

of

the

relationship

between

cultural and

linguistic

inheritances and

of the

lived

experiences

of

those

who bore

the

weight

of

those inheritances, his

work on

custom,

riot

and time

discipline

will

remain

a

vital starting point for all students of

the period,

as will

his

all too brieftourdeforce

on

the

rule

of

law

in

Whigs

and

Hunters.

Eighteenth-century

studies

may

need to

go beyond

his

bipolar

model

and to construct a new, general model of social relationsthat incorporates

more

fully the polite and commercial

people

of

the towns

and

the robust

local

rule of

the

profit-hungry farmers, but its debt

to

Thompson is,

and always

will

be,

immense.

Nene College

of Higher Education

5'

Thompson,

Customs, I

o-I I.

J

. Scott, 'Experience'

in

J. Butler and J.

Scott, Feminists Theorize the Political (Lon-

don,

1992),

22-40;

Palmer, E. P. Thompson,

I85.

56

There is no need to footnote the debate in

detail here,

but

for

recent

pieces

which owe

something

to

Thompson's inheritance see, for

example,

J.

Hoff, 'Gender as a postmodern

category of paralysis', Women's

History

Review,

III

(I994),

149-68;

N. Kirk,

History,

anguage,

ideas and post-modernism: a materialist view',

SocialHistory,xIx

(1994)

221-40.

For a

piece

that, by contrast,

refers to Marx,

Thompson and

Stedman-Jones

asfounding fathers

and to 'a rich

valley

of Thompsonian Orthodoxy'

see

J.

Vernon,

'Who's afraid of the

linguistic

turn ?

The politicsof social

history and its discontents',

Social History,

XIX

(I994),

81-97.

57 The legacy of

his eighteenth-century

work

is also especially

important

to non-European

historians.

See, for example, F. Cooper, 'Work,

class and empire: an African

historian'sretro-

spective

on E. P. Thompson',

Social History,

xx

('995),

237-8.

Documents

Edward Thompsons Contributions