Chapters one and two examine the materially profitable and perilous aspects of flooding respectively. Chapter one argues that far from being solely malevolent forces, floods were viewed as sources of profit by those who lived with them. Drawing on and supplementing research by Joan Thirsk and others, this chapter argues that floods, and wetland landscapes more generally, were put to work by inhabitants.115 It shows how across the early modern
period, floods were integrated within agricultural practices and communal arrangements. Agricultural treatises are used to trace the increasing control exercised over flooding for agricultural benefit. In the course of the seventeenth century practical attempts to control flooding, through drowned and floated water meadows increased agricultural yields, and were symptomatic of a new desire and capacity to engineer the rural landscape. This chapter also considers how communities were able to sustain themselves using flooding as a resource. It argues that utilising floods often necessitated communal action. Communal action was not however harmonious or inclusive. In an attempt to move away from images of early modern
112 Joan Thirsk, English Peasant Farming. The Agrarian History of Lincolnshire from Tudor to Recent Times (London: Routledge, Kegan and Paul, 1957), p. 47; Clive Holmes, ‘Drainers and Fenmen: the Problem of Popular Political Consciousness in the Seventeenth Century’, in Anthony Fletcher and John Stevenson (eds), Order and Disorder in Early Modern England (Cambridge: CUP, 1985), pp. 166–95, p. 182; Heather Falvey, ‘Custom, resistance and politics: Local experiences of improvement in early modern England’ (University of Warwick PhD Thesis 2007), p. 370.
113 G.M. Hipkin, ‘Social and Economic Conditions in the Holland Division of Lincolnshire, from 1640 to 1660’, Reports and Papers of the Architectural Societies of the County of Lincoln, County of York, County of Northampton, and County of Leicester, 40 (1933 for 1930–31), pp. 137–256, p. 141. 114 Thirsk, English Peasant Farming, p. 47.
115 i.e. Ibid., pp. 6–78, pp. 108–158; H.E. Hallam, Settlement and Society: A Study of the Early Agrarian History of South Lincolnshire (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1965);Ian D. Rotherham, The Lost Fens: England’s Greatest Ecological Disaster (Stroud: The History Press, 2013).
36 floodplain communities as living harmoniously with nature, this chapter examines some of the ways in which the sustainability of flood-prone communities was based on social exclusion.
The second chapter analyses some of the social costs of damaging flooding and the attempts made to prevent it. Reviewing some of the scientific literature outlined above, and contrasting it with recent European studies of the impact of flooding, this chapter suggests that disastrous flooding needs to be better contextualised to be fully understood. By studying the impact of flood events of all scales – from roadside inundations to large coastal storms – we can better contextualise them. It focusses on damaging flooding at all scales, from the 1607 Bristol Channel ‘tsunami’, to individual field-scale water control failures. Through this attention to a broad spectrum of flood events the chapter shows that floods were not damaging because of their physical impact alone, but because of underlying vulnerabilities present in the societies they affected. Thus, it draws on sociological conceptions of risk and vulnerability, as well as their application in other historical and geographical contexts, to understand why different groups experienced damaging flooding in different ways. Such a view necessitates a reconsideration of the category of disaster, as seemingly smaller, unstudied flood events are shown to have had more frequent ‘disastrous’ effects on people and their environments than higher-intensity events.
Chapter three addresses what floods meant in early modern England. Currently our understanding of the cultural history of flooding and events that might be termed ‘natural disasters’ more generally, is informed by recent studies of providence.116 This chapter offers
another view of how floods were understood, focussing on narratives of floods produced by those who were flooded, rather than on the printed literature used in accounts of early modern providentialism. Using parish registers, flood memorial plaques, and the records of Commissions of Sewers, and drawing on recent research into custom and senses of local places and pasts, this chapter argues that those who were flooded understood flooding through highly
116 i.e. Alexandra Walsham, Providence in Early Modern England (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999); Walsham, The Reformation of the Landscape; Religion, Identity, and Memory in Early Modern Britain and Ireland (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011).
37 localised cultures of place, kinship and custom often before they reflected providentially on their experiences. This is in contrast to the impression of flooding derived from printed literature and images, which are shown to be generic and formulaic. Floods instead had a multitude of meanings, which were invoked at different times as communities came to cope with significant material disruption. This multiplicity is alluded to in current providentially- focussed historiography, yet is not fully explored. By reigning in the idea that floods were always interpreted providentially, this chapter opens up space for other kinds of environmental attachments in the period, and strengthens previous historians’ arguments over the importance of providence as a rhetorical and political tool.
The final two chapters examine the politics of flooding. Chapter four examines the ways in which flood-liable and wetland landscapes were represented in disputes over flooding and drainage. Taking a long-term perspective of the perception and valuation of wetlands, this chapter argues that flooded land became devalued in the later sixteenth and seventeenth centuries as ideas of improvement took hold amongst governing elites. Three case-studies are used – competing readings of the 1532 Statute of Sewers, the search for ‘surrounded’ grounds, and attempts to drain the fenland – to show how ideas of improvement altered early modern attitudes towards floodplains. Flooding was reconceptualised, with ideas of improvement opening up new space for floods to no longer be seen as hazards to mitigate against, but as problems that might be finally solved. Using law reports, depositionary evidence in Exchequer court cases and pamphlet debates, this chapter shows that the ideology of improvement was by no means hegemonic, and these revaluations of floodplains and wetlands were contested by contemporaries, particularly those who lived on and utilised areas affected by improvement projects. The chapter shows how flooding became a political issue, and how environmental issues were linked to broader conceptions of the royal prerogative, economic prosperity, and the strength of the nation.
The final chapter roots these debates in their local social and political contexts, focussing on political and legal attempts to manage floodplains. It argues that the state was most effective in assisting local communities to deal with their flood risk when power was
38 devolved to the most local level. Central government is shown to have been an ineffectual tool for supporting local flood response and management, whilst regional and local institutions were both more successful and engaged more people. Using the records of Commissions of Sewers, chapter five shows that such popular political engagement with statutory flood defence authorities helped in turn foster the growth of the state. It shows how Commissions of Sewers grew in response to periods of damaging flooding, as local people came to use the resources of the state to manage their local environments. The growth of Commissions of Sewers typify a state formation process that relied on the use of brokers, local expertise, and the delegation of discretionary powers. The chapter also reveals some of the ways in which the popular political practices of local people shaped and were shaped by involvement with the state. The chapter shows how customary cultures of flood management were increasingly codified as communities used bureaucratic and administrative forms of organisation to manage their flood risk.
1. Risk and reward: flooding and rural
production
Abstract
This chapter situates flooding in its everyday context, highlighting the mundane, routine and expected aspects of events which are typically characterised as disastrous and damaging. By looking at the ways in which communities used floods, and sought to exploit potentially hazardous water resources, this considers flood liable lands as resources that were increasingly seen as places of potential profit. It uses agricultural treatises, depositional material from cases in the court of exchequer and before commissions of enquiry, local manuscript sources and modern scientific literature to prove the worth of flood-liable land. Using the concept of socio- environmental metabolism, it illuminates some of the limits communities set to sustain themselves. The chapter shows that the challenges of agricultural production on floodplains could be the spur for significant communal action. That this action was communal does not necessarily mean it facilitated communal harmony, or that it was inclusive. Furthermore, some of the limits of communal regulation of resources are sketched. Floods are shown to have been no barrier to agricultural and economic activity in rural society, and the ‘success’ of these amphibian societies is shown here to have rested on an exclusive set of social practices that mean we should question any uncritical praise of them as ‘sustainable’.