II.   Sovereign

Enclosure, also known as Inclosure, is an 18th Century legal fiction being the claimed legal and lawful annexation of certain previous rights, privileges, uses, land or other property of a person, society, community, association, body politic or entity to another, even if such rights were held by ancient custom, common law, deed or treaty or continuous possession.

The term “enclose” or “inclose” are from the 16th Century and refer to the practice by landlords of annexing previously “common land” through the creation of stone walls, or trenches or hedges – hence “to enclose” literally means to “shut in, to fence about, to surround with a wall or trench”.

The term “close” refers to a position of land, such as a field enclosed as by a hedge, fence, trench or other visible enclosure. From the 19th Century and the creation of formal land registers, the term “close” acquired the meaning of a registered interest of a person in any particular piece of ground, whether enclosed or not.

The term “include” is an 18th Century legal term synonymous with the concept of “enclose” or “inclose” but for general application against personal property and intangible property.

Contrary to false claims, the introduction of Enclosure (Inclosure) as a legal concept defined in Statute does not appear until 1773 (13 Geo.3 c.81) and an act of parliament claiming “the better cultivation, improvement and regulation of the common arable fields, wastes, and commons of pasture, in this kingdom”:

(i) The inclusion of the term “waste” in both the Statute of Merton (1235) and the Statute of Westminster (1285) is a deliberate 18th Century fraud and false insertion designed to abrogate and circumvent more than five hundred (500) years of legal protection for poor tenants and farmers. The concept of waste is not properly invented in statute until the 1773 Enclosure Act of George III; and

(ii) The practice of landlords annexing ancient common land and converting arable land to pasture through the practice of “enclosure” (inclosure) in contravention to ancient acts of law protecting tenants and farmers accelerated and corresponded with the increase in value and regulation of the wool industry. Prior to King Henry VIII (1509-1547) of England, several of his predecessors had enacted laws against the practice of enclosure and annexing of former common land; and

(iii) Under King Henry VIII (1509-1547) of England and thanks to the influence of the Venetian nobles who settled in England, the practice of enclosure accelerated rapidly, corresponding to the export of wool for the first time in commercial quantities. Combined with the rising cost of foreign wars, the policies of Henry VIII were economically devastating and at the end of his reign, tens of thousands of displaced poor rioted across England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland culminating in the “Kett’s Rebellion” of 1549. The Venetian descended English noble Guillermo Giovanni Corraro (1513 – 1571) also known by as William Parr, Marquess of Northampton with one thousand five hundred (1,500) Venetian mercenaries put down the rebellion; and

(iv) Rioting of the poor and displaced against the still unlawful and illegal practice of enclosure continued through the reign of Elizabeth I and culminated again during the reign of King James I (1603-1625) of England with the Midland Revolt of 1607 and the Newton Rebellion in June 1607; and

(v) The creation of the absurd and perverse legal concept of “waste” in the 18th Century led to the creation of the first laws in western history making the “enclosure” of lands and property both legal and lawful under certain circumstances through the 1773 act. This act, more than any other, transformed Great Britain from a mainly agriculture based economy to an emerging industrial economy by forcing hundreds of thousands of farmers from their land and into privately owned factories, prisons, workhouses and slave ships ready for sale as “white slaves” to the colonies; and

(vi) In 1801, King George III (1760-1820) of Great Britain enacted a detailed inclosure act (41 Geo. III c. 109) which formed the basis of legally entrenching the doctrine of waste and enclosure into law thus determining the nature of future land grants, future land acts and land rights to the present day; and

(vii) Under Queen Victoria (1837-1901) of the United Kingdom, eleven (11) further acts of enclosure were introduced, refining the system including 1845 (8 & 9 Vict. c.118), 1846 (9 & 10 Vict. c.70), 1847 (10 & 11 Vict. c.111), 1848 (11 & 12 Vict. c.99), 1849 (12 & 13 Vict. c.83), 1852 (15 & 16 Vict. c.79), 1854 (17 & 18 Vict. c. 97), 1857 (20 & 21 Vict. c.31), 1859 (22 & 23 Vict. c.43), 1876 (39 & 40 Vict. c.56) and 1879 (42 & 43 Vict. c.37); and

(vii) From the end of the 19th Century, land acts began to be issued in British Colonies extending the concepts formed in enclosure acts such as the Land Act 1877 for New Zealand (41 Vict No 29), Land Law (Ireland) Act 1881 (44 & 45 Vict c 49) establishing the land registry offices.

Enclosure as a legal fiction depends on several key elements being survey, claim, registration, title and waste:

(i) Survey (from 1801) is both the witnessed event or “deed” of a formal visitation or inspection by a duly authorized representative (agent) of the property, land or right in question plus the “survey map” of the land or property or invention; and

(ii) Claim (from 1801) is the witnessed recording of a ceremony of claim whereby the individual or group possessing the survey and survey map of the property formerly “lay claim” to its possession and call upon others who wish to challenge such a right to come forward and defend themselves; and

(iii) Waste (from 1773) is the argument justifying the abrogation of any rights by custom, common law or ancient treaty whereby the mere recognition of a landlord-tenant relation enables the landlord to plead certain types of waste as justification to either financial compensation as well as surrender of the land by the tenants; and

(iv) Registration (from 1801) is the formal recording and receipt (title) of copies of both the survey as well as the claim including the formal conveyance of such property to a higher authority.

The concept of Enclosure remains fundamental to the creation of corporate franchise within the Roman-Commonwealth System and the reduction of further rights and property since the 19th century, enabling the technical abolition of the concept of slavery as compared to enclosure and waste the concept of slavery provides less control and benefits to the noble and merchant classes.