BONDS WITHOUT BONDSMEN - TENANT-RIGHT IN 19TH-CENTURY IRELAND

Tenant-right, or a tenant's right to sell his holding, was one of the most puzzling institutions of nineteenth-century Irish land tenure. Hi storians have argued that the institution reflects the tenants' assert ions of a proprietary interest in the land, an assertion often backed up by threats and violence. In this article we argue that landlords re spected tenant-right because they could profit from the institution. O ur model reflects comments by contemporaries and explains that tenant- right functioned as a bond against nonpayment of rent and was part of a rational landlord's income-maximizing strategy.