Cambridge and Its Economic Region, 1450-1560


Book Description

Lee studies the population, wealth, trade and markets of Cambridge and its region, and the changes that took place over a century of economic and social transition are detailed.




Trade and Economic Developments, 1450-1550


Book Description

Detailed examination of the trade and economy of England, in a time of vast changes.




Town and Countryside in Western Berkshire, C.1327-c.1600


Book Description

A fresh examination of how society and economy changed at the end of the middle ages, comparing urban and rural experience. The traditional boundary between the medieval and early modern periods is challenged in this new study of social and economic change that bridges the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. It addresses the large historical questions -what changed, when and why - through a detailed case study of western Berkshire and Newbury, integrating the experiences of both town and countryside. Newbury is of particular interest being a rising cloth manufacturing centre that had contacts with London and overseas due to its specialist production of kerseys. The evidence comes from original documentary research and the data are clearly presented in tables and graphs. It is a book alive with theactions of people, famous men such as the clothier John Winchcombe known as 'Jack of Newbury', but more notably by the hundreds of individuals, such as William Eyston or Isabella Bullford, who acquired property, cultivated their lands, or, in the case of Isabella, managed the mill complex after her husband's death. MARGARET YATES is Lecturer in History at the University of Reading.




Credit and Trade in Later Medieval England, 1353-1532


Book Description

This book challenges the notion that economic crises are modern phenomena through its exploration of the tumultuous ‘credit-crunch’ of the later Middle Ages. It illustrates clearly how influences such as the Black Death, inter-European warfare, climate change and a bullion famine occasioned severe and prolonged economic decline across fifteenth century England. Early chapters discuss trends in lending and borrowing, and the use of credit to fund domestic trade through detailed analysis of the Statute Staple and rich primary sources. The author then adopts a broad-based geographic lens to examine provincial credit before focusing on London’s development as the commercial powerhouse in late medieval business. Academics and students of modern economic change and historic financial revolutions alike will see that the years from 1353 to 1532 encompassed immense upheaval and change, reminiscent of modern recessions. The author carefully guides the reader to see that these shifts are the precursors of economic change in the early modern period, laying the foundations for the financial world as we know it today.




Field Systems and Farming Systems in Late Medieval England


Book Description

The later Middle Ages was an overwhelmingly rural world, with probably three out of four households reliant upon farming for a living. Yet conventional accounts of the period rarely do justice to the variety of ways in which the land was managed and worked. The thirteen essays collected in this volume draw upon the abundant documentary evidence of the period to explore that diversity. In the process they engage with the issue of classification - without which effective generalisation is impossible - and offer a series of solutions to that particularly thorny methodological challenge. Only through systematic and objective classification is it possible to differentiate between and map different field systems, husbandry types, and land-use categories. That, in turn, makes it possible to consider and evaluate the relative roles of soils and topography, institutional structures, and commercialised market demand in shaping farm enterprise both during the period of mounting population before the Black Death and the long era of demographic decline that followed it. What emerges is an agrarian world more commercialised, differentiated, and complex than is usually appreciated, whose institutional and agronomic contours shaped the course of agricultural development for centuries to come.




A Companion to the Medieval World


Book Description

Drawing on the expertise of 26 distinguished scholars, this important volume covers the major issues in the study of medieval Europe, highlighting the significant impact the time period had on cultural forms and institutions central to European identity. Examines changing approaches to the study of medieval Europe, its periodization, and central themes Includes coverage of important questions such as identity and the self, sexuality and gender, emotionality and ethnicity, as well as more traditional topics such as economic and demographic expansion; kingship; and the rise of the West Explores Europe’s understanding of the wider world to place the study of the medieval society in a global context




Capital Histories


Book Description

First published in 1998, this book reprints eight articles from The London Journal, covering the history of London from the middle ages to the twentieth century. Each is an extensive bibliographical essay, updated by the individual contributors for this anthology. The book comes with a new introduction from a previous editor of the journal, Patricia Garside, and also with a specially commissioned guide to sources for London history and the libraries and special collections that house them. The London Journal was founded in 1975 to provide a forum for the study of London history: an eclectic and multi-disciplinary field. As well as articles based on original research, The London Journal has carried notes and comments, viewpoint and review articles, and general surveys of particular aspects of London life. In the past few decades the specialist literature on London has become extensive, intricate and dense. The opportunity for a systematic review of this literature presented itself on the twentieth anniversary of the founding of The London Journal, and the core of the work presented here first appeared in Volume 20(2), November 1995. Each of the authors, specialists in one of seven periods from Roman to contemporary times, was asked to evaluate the literature that had appeared in their field of London expertise during the last 20 years. For this book, each contribution has been updated where possible to take account of the very latest publications.




The Peopling of Britain


Book Description

This volume reviews the way in which, over the centuries, the evolving human presence in Britain has shaped the British landscape and how, in turn, the British landscape has moulded the development of British communities. From the beginnings of human settlement Britain has represented a final frontier for successive waves of colonists, each bringing its own set of cultural adaptations and its own ethos into the landscape. Over time both landscape and culture have matured from raw frontier to settled centre, moulded by the advent of agriculture, towns, and industry, and by streams of migration both within Britain and from outside. The chapters in this book - by archaeologists, historians, and geographers - present an interdisciplinary and accessible account of that long process. Together they trace the various phases of the story, showing how much of it has only recently been unearthed, and how much remains to be discovered.




The Art of Solidarity in the Middle Ages


Book Description

Explores the motives and experiences of the medieval men and women who joined together in guilds, family-like societies that affected most aspects of their members' lives.