Peasant Economic Development Within the English Manorial System

Peasant Economic Development Within the English Manorial System
Author: James Ambrose Raftis
Publisher: McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP
Total Pages: 268
Release: 1996
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 9780773514034

Challenging a hundred-year tradition that English peasants were serfs at the disposal of their lord, J.A. Raftis argues that tenants were in considerable control of the manorial regime and were able to take advantage of what most scholars have considered to be exploitive and negative aspects of the medieval agricultural economy.

Peasant and Community in Medieval England, 1200-1500

Peasant and Community in Medieval England, 1200-1500
Author: P. Schofield
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 282
Release: 2002-12-17
Genre: History
ISBN: 0230802710

In recent years, work on the medieval English peasant has tended to stress the degree of interaction between the village and the world beyond its bounds. This book not only provides an overview of this research, but also develops this approach. Phillipp R. Schofield describes the traditional world of the peasant - with attention given to such issues as relations between lord and tenant, and the nature of the peasant family - and places the peasantry of the late middle ages within the wider political, legal, ecclesiastical and commercial world of the medieval community.

Population, Welfare and Economic Change in Britain 1290-1834

Population, Welfare and Economic Change in Britain 1290-1834
Author: Chris Daniel Briggs
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer Ltd
Total Pages: 364
Release: 2014
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1843839555

Presents the latest research on the causes and consequences of British population change from the medieval period to the eve of the Industrial Revolution, in both town and countryside Population, Welfare and Economic Change presents the latest research on the causes and consequences of British population change from the medieval period to the eve of the Industrial Revolution, in both town and countryside. Its overarching concern is with the economic and demographic decision-making of individuals and groups and the extent to which these were constrained by institutions and resources. Within this, the volume's particular focus is on population growth: its causes and the welfare challenges it posed. Several chapters investigate the success with which the English Old Poor Law provided care for the poor and elderly, and new work on alternative welfare institutions, such as almshouses, is also presented. A further distinctive feature of this book is its comparative perspective. By making systematic comparisons between economic and demographic developments in pre-industrial Britain and those taking place in various regions of contemporary Continental Europe and Russia, several chapters uncover how far Britain in this period was 'different'. Stimulating to experts and students alike, Population, Welfareand Economic Change offers overviews and summaries of the latest scholarship by leading economic historians and historical demographers, alongside detailed case studies which showcase the original research of younger scholars. Chris Briggs is Lecturer in Medieval British Economic and Social History at the University of Cambridge and a Fellow of Selwyn College. P.M. Kitson is a former Research Associate at the Cambridge Group for the Historyof Population and Social Structure and Bye-Fellow of Downing College, Cambridge. S.J. Thompson is a former J.H. Plumb Fellow and Director of Studies in History at Christ's College, Cambridge. CONTRIBUTORS: Lorraine Barry, Jeremy Boulton, Chris Briggs, Bruce M.S. Campbell, Tracy Dennison, Nigel Goose, R.W. Hoyle, Peter Kitson, Julie Marfany, Rebecca Oakes, Sheilagh Ogilvie, Stephen Thompson, Samantha Williams, Sir Tony Wrigley, Margaret Yates

Land and People in Late Medieval England

Land and People in Late Medieval England
Author: Bruce M.S. Campbell
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 336
Release: 2024-10-28
Genre: History
ISBN: 1040247520

This is the third collection of articles by Bruce Campbell to appear in the Variorum series. Late medieval England was an overwhelmingly rural society. Never since has such a large proportion of the population lived in the countryside or relied so directly for its livelihood upon agriculture. The lot of a majority of that population was always a hard one - and never more so than during the first half of the 14th century, when peasants competed with each other for ever-scarcer land and work and a succession of major harvest failures jeopardised the survival of many. Nevertheless, experience varied considerably, both during this era of mounting population pressure and the century and more of population decline and stagnation that followed the demographic disaster of the Black Death. How well individual communities coped during these contrasting conditions of expansion and contraction owed much to the quality and composition of their natural-resource endowment, a good deal to their ability to take advantage of changing commercial opportunities, and sometimes almost everything to how exposed they were to military conflict. Always, however, much hinged upon how the twin feudal institutions of lordship and serfdom were mapped onto land and people via the manorial system. These are the themes variously explored by the eight essays assembled in this volume, which range from a case-study of a single crowded Norfolk manor to a consideration of the broad and, towards the end of the Middle Ages, widening contrasts that persisted between North and South.

A Companion to Britain in the Later Middle Ages

A Companion to Britain in the Later Middle Ages
Author: S. H. Rigby
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 688
Release: 2008-04-15
Genre: History
ISBN: 0470998776

This authoritative survey of Britain in the later Middle Ages comprises 28 chapters written by leading figures in the field. Covers social, economic, political, religious, and cultural history in England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales Provides a guide to the historical debates over the later Middle Ages Addresses questions at the leading edge of historical scholarship Each chapter includes suggestions for further reading

Peasants and historians

Peasants and historians
Author: Phillipp Schofield
Publisher: Manchester University Press
Total Pages: 403
Release: 2016-09-01
Genre: History
ISBN: 1526104709

Peasants and historians is an examination of historical discussion of the medieval English peasantry. In this book, the first such study of its kind, the author traces the development of historical research aimed at exploring the nature of peasant society. In separate chapters, the author examines the three main defining themes which have been applied to the medieval economy in general including change affecting the medieval peasantry. In subsequent chapters debates in relation to demography, family structure, women in rural society, and the nature of village community are each considered in turn. A final chapter on peasant culture also suggests areas of development and, potentially at least, future directions in research and writing. Offering an informed grounding in the main areas of historical writing in this area, it will be of interest to researchers as well as to those coming new to the topic, including undergraduate and postgraduate students.

Why Europe?

Why Europe?
Author: Michael Mitterauer
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Total Pages: 432
Release: 2010-07-15
Genre: History
ISBN: 0226532380

Why did capitalism and colonialism arise in Europe and not elsewhere? Why were parliamentarian and democratic forms of government founded there? What factors led to Europe’s unique position in shaping the world? Thoroughly researched and persuasively argued, Why Europe? tackles these classic questions with illuminating results. Michael Mitterauer traces the roots of Europe’s singularity to the medieval era, specifically to developments in agriculture. While most historians have located the beginning of Europe’s special path in the rise of state power in the modern era, Mitterauer establishes its origins in rye and oats. These new crops played a decisive role in remaking the European family, he contends, spurring the rise of individualism and softening the constraints of patriarchy. Mitterauer reaches these conclusions by comparing Europe with other cultures, especially China and the Islamic world, while surveying the most important characteristics of European society as they took shape from the decline of the Roman empire to the invention of the printing press. Along the way, Why Europe? offers up a dazzling series of novel hypotheses to explain the unique evolution of European culture.

Negotiation and Resistance

Negotiation and Resistance
Author: Constance Brittain Bouchard
Publisher: Cornell University Press
Total Pages: 184
Release: 2022-12-15
Genre: History
ISBN: 1501767259

In Negotiation and Resistance, Constance Brittain Bouchard challenges familiar depictions of the peasantry as an undifferentiated mass of impoverished and powerless workers. Peasants in eleventh- and twelfth-century France had far more scope for action, self-determination, and resistance to oppressive treatment—that is, for agency—than they are usually credited with having. Through innovative readings of documents collected in medieval cartularies, Bouchard finds that while peasants lived hard, impoverished lives, they were able to negotiate, individually or collectively, to better their position, present cases in court, and make their own decisions about such fundamental issues as inheritance or choice of marriage partner. Negotiation and Resistance upends the received view of this period in French history as one in which lords dealt harshly and without opposition toward subservient peasants, offering numerous examples of peasants standing up for themselves.

After the Black Death

After the Black Death
Author: Mark Bailey
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 384
Release: 2021-02-11
Genre: History
ISBN: 0192599739

The Black Death of 1348-9 is the most catastrophic event and worst pandemic in recorded history. After the Black Death offers a major reinterpretation of its immediate impact and longer-term consequences in England. After the Black Death reassesses the established scholarship on the impact of plague on fourteenth-century England and draws upon original research into primary sources to offer a major re-interpretation of the subject. It studies how the government reacted to the crisis, and how communities adapted in its wake. It places the pandemic within the wider context of extreme weather and epidemiological events, the institutional framework of markets and serfdom, and the role of law in reducing risks and conditioning behaviour. The government's response to the Black Death is reconsidered in order to cast new light on the Peasants' Revolt of 1381. By 1400, the effects of plague had resulted in major changes to the structure of society and the economy, creating the pre-conditions for England's role in the Little Divergence (whereby economic performance in parts of north western Europe began to move decisively ahead of the rest of the continent). After the Black Death explores in detail how a major pandemic transformed society, and, in doing so, elevates the third quarter of the fourteenth century from a little-understood paradox to a critical period of profound and irreversible change in English and global history.

Reader's Guide to British History

Reader's Guide to British History
Author: David Loades
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 4319
Release: 2020-12-17
Genre: History
ISBN: 1000144364

The Reader's Guide to British History is the essential source to secondary material on British history. This resource contains over 1,000 A-Z entries on the history of Britain, from ancient and Roman Britain to the present day. Each entry lists 6-12 of the best-known books on the subject, then discusses those works in an essay of 800 to 1,000 words prepared by an expert in the field. The essays provide advice on the range and depth of coverage as well as the emphasis and point of view espoused in each publication.