Economics – Rural Archive
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The Heavy Plough and the Agricultural Revolution in Medieval Europe
Posted on June 18, 2013 | No CommentsThis research tests the long-standing hypothesis, put forth by Lynn White, Jr., that the adoption of the heavy plough in northern Europe led to increased population density and urbanization -
The Ecology and Economics of Medieval Deer Parks
Posted on May 22, 2013 | No CommentsThere is a wealth of literature on a diversity of aspects of medieval parks, from their invertebrate ecologies, to rare lichens and bryophytes, to their herds of deer, their fishponds, and to the politics of fashion and taste and the provision of sport and entertainment for an affluent elite. -
Cottage Gardening in the 14th Century England
Posted on April 14, 2013 | No CommentsAs a student member of this research project, I spent my fall semester investigating various aspects of 14th century English agriculture and cottage gardening and blogged regularly about my findings to exchange information with the other project members. -
Manure and the medieval social order
Posted on March 24, 2013 | No CommentsTaking examples from the open fields of England, it is argued that peasants used manure to differentiate their holdings from those of the lord, and by so doing helped to defne both space and their own social identity. -
Hunting and Hunters in Medieval Aragonese Legislation
Posted on March 18, 2013 | No CommentsOur research on hunting in the kingdom of Aragón in the 12th-15th centuries is based on the information provided by two groups of legal texts: those for local or regional areas and those that were applied to all the kingdom after the 13th century. -
The Prudent Village: Risk Pooling Institutions in Medieval English Agriculture
Posted on March 9, 2013 | No CommentsThe prudent peasant chose to scatter his farm fields to protect himself and his family from idiosyncratic agricultural shocks because better alternatives did not exist. Peasants had no better way of protecting themselves from idiosyncratic agricultural shocks. -
An Environmental History of the Middle Ages: The Crucible of Nature
Posted on February 16, 2013 | No CommentsJohn Aberth focuses his study on three key areas: the natural elements of air, water, and earth; the forest; and wild and domestic animals. -
What the Paston Letters Tell about Land Owning in the 15th Century England
Posted on January 28, 2013 | No CommentsHow do the terms on land and manors which appear in the Paston Letters reflect his observation? I pick up several terms relating to the land owning system in the England of Middle Ages and examine their distribution in the letters; i.e. the terms ‘villein, serf, demesne, bond, rent, and tenant.’ -
City and Countryside in Medieval England
Posted on January 27, 2013 | No CommentsAn impressive array of data, ranging over the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, has been collected by two full-time researchers, James Galloway and Margaret Murphy. Of primary importance for the project are demesne farming accounts and inquisitions post mortem (detailing manorial land and other assets, especially again those of the demesne), both of which sources survive in very large numbers for the period under review. Also, the project incorpor- ates large amounts of data from urban records, particularly those dealing with merchants who were prominent in organizing London's food supply. -
The Heavy Plough and the European Agricultural Revolution of the Middle Ages.
Posted on January 24, 2013 | No CommentsIn the period from the 9th century to the end of the 13th century, the medieval European economy underwent unprecedented productivity growth -
The Impact of Climate Change on Late Medieval English Culture
Posted on December 28, 2012 | No CommentsThis thesis challenges the extremes of both environmental determinism and the modernist perspective that humanity exists in social and/or cultural isolation from the natural environment. -
Animal keeping and the use of animal products in medieval Emden (Lower Saxony, Germany)
Posted on December 20, 2012 | No CommentsThis thesis deals with the faunal remains from several excavations in the centre of the medieval town of Emden (Lower Saxony, Germany; Figure 1-1). The aim of this thesis is to answer questions concerning the development of animal husbandry and the use of animal products in the medieval period. -
Fishing with Monks – Padise Abbey and the River Vantaanjoki from 1351 to 1429
Posted on December 17, 2012 | No CommentsHow did the Cistercian Abbey of Padise in Estonia first come into possession of fishing rights for salmon in the River Vantaanjoki in Finland? -
Risk, Asset Markets and Inequality: Evidence from Medieval England
Posted on November 14, 2012 | No CommentsDuring the 12th and 13th centuries the English peasantry experienced large increases in poverty and inequality. -
Beyond chicken: avian biodiversity in a Portuguese late medieval urban site
Posted on November 14, 2012 | No CommentsBetween 2003 and 2004, prior to the construction of an underground parking in the Avenue Miguel Fernandes, an archaeological rescue excavation was carried out by a team of archaeologists from the company Crivarque...The excavations uncovered 137 silos, of which 109 were fully excavated. The high concentration of silos turned out to be the most striking find of the archaeological works. -
Flemings in the Peasants’ Revolt, 1381
Posted on November 14, 2012 | No CommentsWhile the Peasants’ Revolt has been studied in depth by generations of medieval historians, the same cannot be said of England’s foreign-born inhabitants, and the largest group among these, the so-called Flemings (a term which was also applied to those from other principalities in the Low Countries besides Flanders). -
Medieval Book History Week Lecture: “Practical Latin and Formal English in the 14th-15th Centuries”
Posted on November 13, 2012 | No CommentsThis lecture is part of Medieval Book History Week. Renown Professor Jeremy Catto spoke about literacy and language in England during the later Middle Ages at the Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies at the University of Toronto. -
Lords Ask, Peasants Answer: Making Traditions in Late Medieval German Village Assemblies
Posted on November 12, 2012 | No CommentsThe lord summoned the assembly on traditional dates, often three times a year. On the evening prior to the assembly the lord arrived at the village and received food and lodging from the peasants. -
The pattern of settlement on the Welsh border
Posted on October 28, 2012 | No CommentsThe attempt made in this paper to answer these questions will be based almost entirely on Welsh evidence. The English evidence, examined and re- examined since the late nineteenth century, is already sufficiently familiar to members of the British Agricultural History Society. -
The Coleridge Hundred and its Medieval Court
Posted on October 28, 2012 | No CommentsWhere possible, I have given examples of the earliest type of court documented, with examples of the type of case heard, and by whom they were heard, concentrating on the Manorial and Mayor's Courts, which are the best documented, and whose Rolls nave been translated by the authors of my chief sources of reference. -
Modelling Population and Resource Scarcity in Fourteenth-century England
Posted on October 26, 2012 | No CommentsHallam argues that the steady population rise of the 12th and 13th centuries may not have been the main cause of the crisis of the 14th century. First, unprecedented harvest failures and animal diseases between 1315 and 1322 had significant adverse effects on peasant welfare. -
Managing tithes in the late middle ages
Posted on October 23, 2012 | No CommentsTithe represented a diversion to religious uses of around one-tenth of England’s agricultural wealth. -
Hand-Mills to Wind Turbines: Technology Gatekeeping in Medieval Europe and in Contemporary Ontario
Posted on October 22, 2012 | No CommentsIn contemporary Ontario and in medieval England, the power and political influence of propertied classes and labour aristocracies were (and are) used to restrict popular access particular technologies, and to facilitate private appropriation of wealth. -
Irrigation and taxation in Iraq 6th to 10th Century
Posted on October 20, 2012 | No CommentsWater management was crucial for agriculture in Iraq. The delicate ecological balance that allowed high soil productivity could be seriously threatened by irresponsible land administration. -
Technological Change in Medieval England: A Critique of the Neo-Malthusian Argument
Posted on October 13, 2012 | No CommentsThe last two sections will address this issue by dividing the material into two periods preceding and following the great epidemic. The interpretation that will be provided is heavily indebted to Brenner.
