Agricultural History Review, Volume 55 Part 1 (2007), pp. 1–22

This article explores the impact of farmers on rural society in the fifteenth century, when they represented a new tendency in agricultural production. The farmer of Chevington in Sufolk was a forceful and dominant fgure, who established a close relationship with his lords, the abbots of Bury St Edmunds, and ruled in his village by buying land and promoting his family. This example shows the potential for change that farmers represented, and the shift in initiative from lord to tenants in the fifteenth century. Although the Parman family continued to be prosperous landholders in their village, their founder’s towering fortune and powers of manipulation were not perpetuated. 

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