Modern finance in the Middle Ages
In this short video, Professor Adrian Bell of the University of Reading discusses the parallels between financial crises today and those 800 years ago – including credit crunch, sovereign default, foreign exchange and rate rigging.
Historical Thought and the Reform Crisis of the Early Sixteenth Century
I shall follow what I feel to be the methodologically sound procedure of examining one case in some detail, while at the same time producing evidence to suggest that elements which are operative in this instance may be operative in others as well. What I should like to focus attention upon are certain ideas of history which were current in the early sixteenth century.

The Regular Canons and the Use of Food, c. 1200–1350
We are greatly handicapped by the lack of material available to us for this period. By and large, household accounts which provide gross details of quotidian diet elude us. However, to recover the everyday diet of the canons, one useful approach is to examine corrodies and study the assumptions there, by way of analogy, with what can be inferred as normal consumption by canons.
Religious prohibitions against usury
Why do religions prohibit usury? From a non-historical perspective, interest rate policy might seem an unlikely candidate for inclusion as a central tenet of religious doctrine.
Dark ages and dark areas: global deforestation in the deep past
The ‘darkness’ that envelopes the ages and areas of the forest of the past consists broadly of two elements. First, there are the problems intrinsic to forests as living ecosystems or entities. Many of these are still more or less uncertain and murky. Second, there are the difficulties of knowing what human activity took place.
The Impact of Climate Change on Late Medieval English Culture
This 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.
King and magnate in medieval Ireland: Walter de Lacy, King Richard and King John
Perhaps the best way to capture the essence of the relationship between Richard, John and their magnates is to focus on one such relationship and to analyse the changes it underwent over the twenty-seven years the two brothers ruled England. The career of Walter de Lacy provides an excellent opportunity for such an analysis.
The Swedish Kings in Progress – and the Centre of Power
Why did the rulers travel! One reason was purely financial: the economy demanded a constant movement of the household. Once the food supplies in one place of abode had been eaten up it was easier to move to a new residence than to transport provisions overlong distances. Mobility contributed to the proper utilization of the produce of manors.
Adventures far from home: Hanseatic trade with the Faroe Islands
he voyage to Iceland, now a major destina- tion, took about four weeks (gardiner & mehler 2007, 403; Krause 2010, 150). The Faroe Islands are situated more or less in the middle of that distance and provided a fine stop-over. The islands were an additional market for their trade business and in case of storms offered a safe and most welcome shelter.
The Troublesome bequest of Dame Joan: the establishment of the chapel of St Anne at Walsingham Priory
In an act of both piety and remembrance, his widow, Dame Joan, ordered that his body should be buried within the great Priory church at nearby Walsingham and, above the tomb, there should be a chapel created in dedication to the mother of the Blessed Virgin, Saint Anne.
Market Failure during the Great Famine in England and Wales (1315-7)
While there can be little doubt that the floods of 1314-6 were the primary harbingers of the crisis, it is, perhaps, worth asking to what extent they were the only factors behind the hardship experienced between 1315 and 1317.
Shifting Experiences: The Changing Roles of Women in the Italian, Lowland, and German Regions of Western Europe from the Middle Ages to the Early Modern Period
Specifically, the thesis compares and analyzes the changing roles that women could employ economically, politically, socially, and religiously.
The Regulations of James I concerning the Jewish Moneylenders: a Preliminary Report
This article enumerates the constitutions and statutes dictated by James I regarding the usurers, and the usurers of the Jews, between 1228 and 1251, from shortly before to shortly after the conquest of the kingdoms of Majorca and Valencia.
Technological Change in Medieval England: A Critique of the Neo-Malthusian Argument
The 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.
Tolerance of Usury
In the Middle Ages, could usury be tolerated in the law?
Explaining Viking Expansion
This thesis studies and explains employment opportunities, political motives, and societal norms as separate, individual motives that perpetuated Scandinavian migration, conquest, and adventure from the eighth through the eleventh centuries AD.
Sometimes a Codpiece Is Just a Codpiece: The Meanings of Medieval Clothes
I am going to take you on a small tour of clothing production and of the many roles that clothing played in medieval life.
Post-Conquest Medieval
Unlike the preceding millennium, which had seen the upheavals of the Roman conquest and then growing Anglo-Saxon influence, and the related socioeconomic transformations reflected, for example, in the emergence, virtual desertion and then revival of an urban hierarchy, the post-Conquest Medieval period was one of relative social, political and economic continuity.
The Gallic Aristocracy and the Roman Imperial government in the fifth century A.D.
The recovery, however, proved to be too superficial for the continuing prosperity of either Gaul or the Western Roman Empire. The problems of the imperial government continued with little relief. The government still had to drive out and keep out the barbarians…
Social Aggravations during the Period of Medieval Wars in Europe
This article makes and attempt to disclose the dynamics of development of social interactions in an aggravated environment in relation to the distinctive features of religious wars and their negative impact to the society. Crisis situations that took place in all spheres of social life are described, on the grounds of which the author comes to specific conclusions.
A Tale of “Benevolent” Governments: Private Credit Markets, Public Finance, and the Role of Jewish Lenders in Medieval and Renaissance Italy
In Tuscan private credit markets, Jewish lending helped households to smooth consumption, buy working capital, and provide dowries for daughters.
Greed wasn’t good in the Middle Ages – historian looks at medieval business ethics
Self-serving behavior deemed necessary on Wall Street today might have been despised in medieval Europe. One might even have been murdered for using wealth as a justification for circumventing societal norms.
The road to the Industrial Revolution: hypotheses and conjectures about the medieval origins of the ‘European Miracle’
One of the big questions of economic history, and perhaps of the social sciences in general, is why Western Europe developed into an industrial society and generated a process of ‘modern economic growth’ continuing until today.
‘Imaginary’ or ‘Real’ Moneys of Account in Medieval Europe? An Econometric Analysis of the Basle Pound, 1365–1429
‘Imaginary’ or ‘Real’ Moneys of Account in Medieval Europe? An Econometric Analysis of the Basle Pound, 1365–1429 By Ernst Juerg Weber Explorations in…
Economy of Ragusa, 1300 – 1800: The Tiger of Mediaeval Mediterranean
An economist is indeed tempted to think of Ragusa as the “Adriatic Tiger “ of yesteryear, an early example of a small open economy with strong fundamentals, and to hypothesize further that, in analogy to the current consensus about what it takes to minimize the impact of external crises, these strengths also allowed Ragusa to mitigate the effects of the many external shocks and financial crises in Medieval Europe.