Rural Land-Use in the Metropolitan Hinterland, 1270–1339: The Evidence of Inquisitiones Post Mortem (original) (raw)
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Some recent trends in the rural history of medieval England
This communication will review some of the more notable trends of the last 15 years in writing on the rural history of later medieval England (c.1200-c.1500). It will focus in particular on two apparently contradictory historiographical developments: first, the emphasis on commercial growth and the economic dynamism of the peasantry in this period, and second, an increasing stress on environmental disaster and 'crisis' in the countryside during the fourteenth century in particular. The paper will ask whether and how these two strands can be reconciled.
Mapping the agricultural geography of medieval England1
Journal of Historical Geography, 1989
The annual farm accounts produced by medieval reeves and bailiffs represent one of the most remarkable compendia of agricultural information ever devised and survive in their thousands for the period 1250–1350. The potential therefore exists to reconstruct the agricultural geography of this intriguing and formative period in very considerable detail. This paper outlines the results of a pilot analysis of a national sample of these accounts. Attention is focused upon the aggregate characteristics of arable and pastoral husbandry and the spatial variations by which these were characterized are investigated using Cluster Analysis, a technique which has been hailed as possessing considerable utility for that purpose.
During the last four centuries of Middle Ages rural economy and society observed radical changes across Europe. In this regard, the role of institutions and socio-property relations such as seigneurial powers, leasing system, credit market and peasant agency have been extensively researched by rural historians and medievalists, renovating the fields and its agenda during the last three decades. Such achievements, however, have not always been homogeneous across European historiographies. The Italian one, for instance, albeit a rich tradition in rural studies, have been scarcely challenged by the current agenda in rural history, apart from themes such as commons and economic inequalities (Alfani 2014). In this respect, however, a comparative exploration embedding institutions and socio-economic change in late medieval rural Italy within a European perspective is also missing. This panel contributes to fill this gap by addressing the role of institutions and the dynamics of social changes in rural countryside through case-studies and comparisons from the Italian peninsula and western Europe (France, England). More specifically, it aims to question and to explore, first, the role of seigneurial powers and credit market in shaping overall growth in 1100–1200 and, second, the impact of leasing system such as sharecropping as well as urban and seigneurial power relations and law enforcement in shaping economic inequalities and peasant resistance in rural society. For instance, research on the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries is often rife with the narrative of the expansion of urban mercantile classes into the countryside as one of the main factors of economic development – in both Italy and Europe. In this regard, however, several questions can be asked: what was the role played by rural aristocracies? Were they backward, ‘feudal’ lords? Or did they share the entrepreneurial attitude of the bourgeoisie? Similarly, Italian and European scholarship on the central and late Middle Ages has mostly focused on large-scale credit activities – the bedrock on which international networks of trade were built; petty credit to agriculturists has been comparatively less studied. Is the evolution of small-scale rural credit a symptom of economic growth? And how is it related to the transformations of land management? Finally, inequalities represent one of the major fields of investigation of current economic research, and the way these were shaped by – or else adapted to – extant ecosystems and farming regimes is of paramount importance for the understanding of society and economy as a whole. The wealth of information enshrined by late medieval sources does make room for new research: what was the interplay between different farming regimes (sharecropping, leasehold, seigneurial domain) and socio-economic inequalities in the countryside? And how did the institutional structures of urban governing bodies contribute to shaping debt relations between landlords and tenants? Addressing these questions, moreover, will contribute to throw light on how inequalities could lead to social unrest and peasant resistance.
The later medieval countryside lying beneath
About 10% of the total National Roads Authority-funded excavations in the Republic of Ireland produced evidence for activity of this period. Sites investigated include manorial centres, moated sites, farmsteads, nucleated settlements, cemeteries, fields, ringforts, corn-drying kilns, refuse pits, iron- and charcoal-working sites and lime kilns. The majority of these excavations took place in the parts of Ireland that were under the control of the Anglo-Normans in the period from the late 12th century until the 14th century and by their descendents after that date. The area examined and the scale of excavations allows for the first time clearer statements to be made about the rural archaeology of the period from 1100 to 1600. In particular, it was possible to reinterpret the remains of later medieval houses to understand the character of their construction. It is argued that this evidence from this review of road-scheme excavations suggest that a class of prosperous peasants existed in the countryside of Anglo-Norman Ireland. This indicates that not all wealth was concentrated in the hands of the landowning elite and that ordinary people were permitted, even encouraged, to prosper during this time. The evidence from the four moated sites excavated in advance of the road schemes hints strongly that Anglo-Norman Ireland was at its wealthiest in the second half of the 13th century. Overall, these excavations have greatly added to our understanding of the later medieval period in Ireland, particularly of rural lifeways during Anglo-Norman times.
Resource allocation and peasant decision-making: Oakington, Cambridgeshire, 1361-1393
Agricultural History Review, 2013
The later fourteenth century is often considered a period of rising standards of living, attributed in part to falling grain prices and diminished population pressure in the aftermath of the Black Death. Yet data from Oakington, Cambridgeshire, obtained from unusually complete tithe accounts, suggests that smallholding peasants in this region remained constrained by competing needs of production and consumption, even at the end of the fourteenth century. This article examines resource allocation and decision making on peasant land, and considers the effects of falling grain prices on standards of living in a region dependent on arable husbandry. By modelling a hypothetical peasant holding, this article argues that peasants at Oakington prized stability of yield, flexibility of crop use, and the calorific value of the land for people and, crucially, livestock. This allowed peasants to meet their consumption and contractual needs, but hindered their ability to respond quickly to changing economic circumstances.
Resource allocation and peasant decision making: Oakington, Cambridgeshire, 1360–99
The Agricultural History Review, 2013
The later fourteenth century is often considered a period of rising standards of living, attributed in part to falling grain prices and diminished population pressure in the aftermath of the Black Death. Yet data from Oakington, Cambridgeshire, obtained from unusually complete tithe accounts, suggests that smallholding peasants in this region remained constrained by competing needs of production and consumption, even at the end of the fourteenth century. This article examines resource allocation and decision making on peasant land, and considers the effects of falling grain prices on standards of living in a region dependent on arable husbandry. By modelling a hypothetical peasant holding, this article argues that peasants at Oakington prized stability of yield, flexibility of crop use, and the calorific value of the land for people and, crucially, livestock. This allowed peasants to meet their consumption and contractual needs, but hindered their ability to respond quickly to changing economic circumstances.
Continuity and Change, 2002
Population developments in the western European countryside not only show strong fluctuations during the later Middle Ages, but they also exhibit sharp regional differences. By investigating and comparing developments in three parts of the Low Countries this study tries to shed more light on the causes underlying these regional diversities. In this connection, particular attention will be paid to differences in the social distribution of landownership. Examination of the data at regional level indicates that property structures were indeed an important factor in late-medieval population trends. Later sections of the article investigate the various factors which shaped the interrelationships between population growth, density and property structures, thus contributing to a clearer comprehension of the different demographic histories of the three regions and a better understanding of regional diversities in latemedieval population developments in general.