Download or read book Custom and Commercialisation in English Rural Society written by J. Bowen and published by Univ of Hertfordshire Press. This book was released on 2016-03-01 with total page 498 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: English rural society underwent fundamental changes between the thirteenth and eighteenth centuries with urbanization, commercialization and industrialization producing new challenges and opportunities for inhabitants of rural communities. However, our understanding of this period has been shaped by the compartmentalization of history into medieval and early-modern specialisms and by the debates surrounding the transition from feudalism to capitalism and landlord-tenant relations. Inspired by the classic works of Tawney and Postan, this collection of essays examines their relevance to historians today, distinguishing between their contrasting approaches to the pre-industrial economy and exploring the development of agriculture and rural industry; changes in land and property rights; and competition over resources in the English countryside.
Download or read book Rural Society and Economic Change in County Durham written by A. T. Brown and published by Boydell & Brewer. This book was released on 2015 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A regional study of landed society in the transition between the late medieval and early modern period.
Download or read book The Material Culture of English Rural Households c 1250 1600 written by Ben Jervis and published by Cardiff University Press. This book was released on 2023-09-20 with total page 520 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book presents a synthesis and analysis of the possessions of non-elite rural households in medieval England. Drawing on the results of the Leverhulme Trust funded project ‘Living Standards and Material Culture in English Rural Households, 1300-1600’, it represents the first national-scale interdisciplinary analysis of non-elite consumption in the later Middle Ages. The research is situated within debates around rising living standards in the period following the Black Death, the commercialisation of the English economy and the timing of a ‘revolution’ in consumer behaviour. Its novelty derives from its focus on non-elite rural households. Whilst there has been considerable work on the possessions of the great households and those living in larger towns, researchers have struggled to identify appropriate sources for understanding the possessions of those living in the countryside, even though they account for the majority of England’s population at this time. This book will address the gap in understanding. The study combines 3 sources of data to address 2 questions: what goods did medieval households own, and what influenced their consumption habits? The first is archaeological evidence, comprising 14,706 objects recovered from archaeological excavations. The book synthesises this data, much of which is unpublished and therefore inaccessible to researchers. The second dataset derives from lists of the seized goods of felons, outlaws and suicides collated by the Escheator, a royal official, in the 14th and 15th centuries. The work of the Escheator is not well understood, but these lists, relating to some of the poorest people in medieval society (for whom traditional sources such as wills and probate inventories do not exist), provide new insights into the living standards of rural households. The lists typically detail and value the possessions of a household, meaning that it is possible to present a quantitative analysis of non-elite consumption for the first time. The final dataset draws on equivalent lists generated by the Coroner for the 16th century. An interdisciplinary approach is essential, as many objects identified archaeologically do not occur in the written records, and goods such as textiles do not survive in the ground. Drawing these sources together therefore allows the presentation of a more comprehensive analysis of the possessions of medieval households. The introduction lays out the research context in a manner accessible to historians and archaeologists who may not be familiar with work in each other’s disciplines. This is followed by a brief summary of the research methodology and the sources underpinning the research. The next 5 chapters focus on addressing the question of what medieval households owned, discussing the evidence for kitchen equipment, tableware, furniture, clothing and personal items. The following 3 chapters discuss household economy, considering the evidence for the production of goods, variation in consumption between town and country and variation in accordance with wealth, firstly through the consideration of these themes at the national scale and secondly through a regional case study focussed on Wiltshire, which has particularly rich archaeological and documentary sources. The volume closes with a concluding chapter which places the research back into its wider context.
Download or read book Landless Households in Rural Europe 1600 1900 written by Christine Fertig and published by Boydell & Brewer. This book was released on 2022-07-19 with total page 349 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: First comparative study of landless households brings out their major role in European history and society.
Download or read book After the Black Death written by Mark Bailey and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2021-02-11 with total page 401 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Black Death was the worst pandemic in recorded history. This book presents a major reevaluation of its immediate impact and longer-term consequences in England.
Download or read book The Foldcourse and East Anglian Agriculture and Landscape 1100 1900 written by John Belcher and published by Boydell & Brewer. This book was released on 2020-12-18 with total page 215 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: First survey of one of the most important pre-modern farming systems, and its effects on society and landscape.
Download or read book The Enclosure of Knowledge written by James D. Fisher and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2022-07-21 with total page 345 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The rise of agrarian capitalism in Britain is usually told as a story about markets, land, and wages. This study reveals that it was also about books, knowledge and expertise, challenging the dominant narrative of an agricultural 'enlightenment' and showing how farming books appropriated traditional knowledge in pre-industrial Britain.
Download or read book Law in Common written by Tom Johnson and published by . This book was released on 2019-12 with total page 339 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: There were tens of thousands of different local law-courts in late-medieval England, providing the most common forums for the working out of disputes and the making of decisions about local governance. While historians have long studied these institutions, there have been very few attempts tounderstand this complex institutional form of "legal pluralism".Law in Common provides a way of understanding this complexity by drawing out broader patterns of legal engagement. Tom Johnson first explores four "local legal cultures" - in the countryside, in forests, in towns and cities, and in the maritime world - that grew up around legal institutions,landscapes, and forms of socio-economic practice in these places, and produced distinctive senses of law.Johnson then turns to examine "common legalities", widespread forms of social practice that emerge across these different localities, through which people aimed to invoke the power of law. Through studies of the physical landscape, the production of legitimate knowledge, the emergence of English asa legal vernacular, and the proliferation of legal documents, the volume offers a new way to understand how common people engaged with law in the course of their everyday lives.Drawing on a huge body of archival research from the plenitude of different local institutions, Law in Common offers a new social history of law that aims to explain how common people negotiated the transformational changes of the long fifteenth century with, and through legality.
Download or read book England s Second Domesday and the Expulsion of the English Peasantry written by Spencer Dimmock and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2024-05-23 with total page 827 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The world-shaking forced evictions of English peasants during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries are treated by most historians as largely a 'Tudor myth'. For them, the peasantry disappeared much later through fair means thanks to industrialisation and trade. Centred on close scrutiny of the royal commission of 1517 – 'England's Second Domesday' – this book overturns these accounts. It demonstrates, unequivocally, that capitalism carved fundamental and irreversible breaches into the English countryside between 1400 and 1620. It began, grew and thrived on widespread illegal clearances of rural people and their culture by the English ruling class, long before the British industrial revolution.
Download or read book The Medieval Clothier written by John S. Lee and published by Boydell & Brewer. This book was released on 2018 with total page 395 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A clear and accessibly written guide to the medieval cloth-making trade in England.
Download or read book Common Land in Britain written by Angus J L Winchester and published by Boydell & Brewer. This book was released on 2022-09-27 with total page 330 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first authoritative survey of the history of common land in Great Britain from the medieval period to present day.
Download or read book Managing for Posterity written by Elizabeth Griffiths and published by Univ of Hertfordshire Press. This book was released on 2022-04-04 with total page 406 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Securing the long-term survival and status of the family has always been the principal concern of the English aristocracy and gentry. Central to that ambition has been the successful management of their landed estates, whilst failure in this regard could spell ruination for an entire family. In the sixteenth century, the task became more difficult as price inflation reduced the value of rents; improved management skills were called for. In Norfolk, estates began to change hands rapidly as the unaware or simply incompetent failed to grasp the issues, while the more astute and enterprising landowners capitalised on their neighbours' misfortunes.When Sir Hamon Le Strange inherited his family's ancient estate at Hunstanton in 1604 it was much depleted and heavily encumbered. The outlook was bleak: such circumstances often led to the disappearance of families as landowners. However, within a generation, he and his remarkable wife Alice had modernised the estate and secured the family's future. After 700 years, the Le Stranges still survive and prosper on their estate at Hunstanton, making them the longest surviving gentry family in Norfolk. The first part of this book presents new research into the secret of their rare success. A key aspect of their strategy was a belief in the power (and economic value) of knowledge: Hamon and Alice wanted to ensure that their improvements would endure for posterity. To this end, they curated their knowledge through meticulous record-keeping and carefully handed it down to their successors. This behaviour, instilled in the family, not only facilitated on-going reforms, but helped future generations overcome the inevitable reversals and challenges they also faced.The second part of the book collects together four related papers from Elizabeth Griffiths' research about the Le Stranges, Hobarts and Wyndhams, republished from the Agricultural History Review and edited from two Norfolk Record Society volumes. For anyone interested in early modern rural society and agriculture and the history of Norfolk gentry estates, this volume will be essential reading, offering as it does new perspectives on the history of estate management, notably the role of women, the relationship with local communities and sustainability in agriculture.
Download or read book Lichfield and the Lands of St Chad written by Andrew Sargent and published by Univ of Hertfordshire Press. This book was released on 2020-07-27 with total page 482 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book focuses on the period from the seventh to eleventh centuries that witnessed the rise and fall of Mercia, the great Midland kingdom, and, later, the formation of England. Specifically, it explores the relationship between the bishops of Lichfield and the multiple communities of their diocese. Andrew Sargent tackles the challenge posed by the evidential 'hole' at the heart of Mercia by synthesising different kinds of evidence - archaeological, textual, topographical and toponymical - to reconstruct the landscapes inhabited by these communities, which intersected at cathedrals and minsters and other less formal meeting-places. Most such communities were engaged in the construction of hierarchies, and Sargent assigns spiritual lordship a dominant role in this. Tracing the interconnections of these communities, he focuses on the development of the Church of Lichfield, an extensive episcopal community situated within a dynamic mesh of institutions and groups within and beyond the diocese, from the royal court to the smallest township. The regional elite combined spiritual and secular forms of lordship to advance and entrench their mutual interests, and the entanglement of royal and episcopal governance is one of the key focuses of Andrew Sargent's outstanding new research. How the bishops shaped and promoted spiritual discourse to establish their own authority within society is key. This is traced through the meagre textual sources, which hint at the bishops' involvement in the wider flow of ecclesiastical politics in Britain, and through the archaeological and landscape evidence for churches and minsters held not only by bishops, but also by kings and aristocrats within the diocese. Saints' cults offer a particularly effective medium through which to study these developments: St Chad, the Mercian bishop who established the see at Lichfield, became an influential spiritual patron for subsequent bishops of the diocese, but other lesser known saints also focused c
Download or read book Bricks of Victorian London written by Peter Hounsell and published by Univ of Hertfordshire Press. This book was released on 2022-11-01 with total page 489 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Many of London's Victorian buildings are built of coarse-textured yellow bricks. These are 'London stocks', produced in very large quantities all through the nineteenth century and notable for their ability to withstand the airborne pollutants of the Victorian city. Whether visible or, as is sometimes the case, hidden behind stonework or underground, they form a major part of the fabric of the capital. Until now, little has been written about how and where they were made and the people who made them. Peter Hounsell has written a detailed history of the industry which supplied these bricks to the London market, offering a fresh perspective on the social and economic history of the city. In it he reveals the workings of a complex network of finance and labour. From landowners who saw an opportunity to profit from the clay on their land, to entrepreneurs who sought to build a business as brick manufacturers, to those who actually made the bricks, the book considers the process in detail, placing it in the context of the supply-and-demand factors that affected the numbers of bricks produced and the costs involved in equipping and running a brickworks. Transport from the brickfields to the market was crucial and Dr Hounsell conducts a full survey of the different routes by which bricks were delivered to building sites - by road, by Thames barge or canal boat, and in the second half of the century by the new railways. The companies that made the bricks employed many thousands of men, women and children and their working lives, homes and culture are looked at here, as well as the journey towards better working conditions and wages. The decline of the handmade yellow stock was eventually brought about by the arrival of the machine-made Fletton brick that competed directly with it on price. Brickmaking in the vicinity of London finally disappeared after the Second World War. Although its demise has left little evidence in the landscape, this industry influenced the developme
Download or read book Comparative Property Law written by Michele Graziadei and published by Edward Elgar Publishing. This book was released on 2017-01-27 with total page 515 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Comparative Property Law provides a comprehensive treatment of property law from a comparative and global perspective. The contributors, who are leading experts in their fields, cover both classical and new subjects, including the transfer of property, the public-private divide in property law, water and forest laws, and the property rights of aboriginal peoples. This Handbook maps the structure and the dynamics of property law in the contemporary world and will be an invaluable reference for researchers working in all domains of property law.
Download or read book World of the Small Farmer written by Patricia Croot and published by Univ of Hertfordshire Press. This book was released on 2017-06-01 with total page 398 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This detailed and original study of early-modern agrarian society in the Somerset Levels examines the small landholders in a group of sixteen contiguous parishes in the area known as Brent Marsh. These were farmers with lifehold tenures and a mixed agricultural production whose activities and outlook are shown to be very different from that of the small 'peasant' farmers of so many general histories. Patricia Croot challenges the idea that small farmers failed to contribute to the productivity and commercialization of the early-modern economy. While the emergence of large capitalist farms was an important development, these added to the production of existing small cultivators, rather than replacing them. The idea that only large-scale, specialized farmers were involved in agricultural progress, or that their contribution alone was enough to account for the great increase in food production by the late 17th century is questioned; small farmers continued to make a living, contributed to the market, and survived alongside the new, bigger farms. Croot's in-depth study not only adds to our knowledge of agrarian society generally, but shows that far from being backward and interested primarily in subsistence farming, small producers in this area sought profit in making the best use of their resources, however limited, being flexible in their production and growing new or unusual crops. The main land tenures, copy and lease for lives, are also covered in detail, contributing to current debates on landholding and sub-tenancy. The author shows the uses to which lifehold tenures could be put, resulting in the increasing financial strength of copyholders and their dominance in local society. The effects of the tenure and profits of farming can be seen in the way that families were provided for, as well as in the roles that women played and the responsibility they had in economic and social life, while the wider interests of the inhabitants are shown in their religious and political engagement in events of the 17th century. Patricia Croot's meticulous study is a valuable contribution to English agrarian history, and in particular to the history of this under-researched region.
Download or read book Maritime Kent Through the Ages written by Stuart Bligh and published by Boydell & Brewer. This book was released on 2021 with total page 588 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A wide-ranging history of the geography and communities of Kent from the earliest times to the present day.Kent, with its long coastline and its important geopolitical position close to London and continental Europe, and on major trading routes between Britain and the wider world, has had a very significant maritime history. This book covers a wide range of topics relating to that history from the earliest times to the present day. It sets Kent's varied coastline and waters in their geological and geographical context, showing how erosion and sediment deposition have contributed to the changing nature of maritime activities and populations. It examines Kent's strategic role in the defence of the country with the development and redevelopment of coastal defences, including four naval dockyards. It goes on to consider the supporting industries which grew up around the coastline, those which supplied raw materials and agricultural products from the county's hinterland, and its wider national and international trading links. It also discusses the diverse coastal communities of Kent and how they have changed in response to the demands of defence, trade, and changing population and migration patterns. In addition, the book includes detailed case studies which explore particular subject areas as exemplars of the major themes covered by the book.l trading links. It also discusses the diverse coastal communities of Kent and how they have changed in response to the demands of defence, trade, and changing population and migration patterns. In addition, the book includes detailed case studies which explore particular subject areas as exemplars of the major themes covered by the book.l trading links. It also discusses the diverse coastal communities of Kent and how they have changed in response to the demands of defence, trade, and changing population and migration patterns. In addition, the book includes detailed case studies which explore particular subject areas as exemplars of the major themes covered by the book.l trading links. It also discusses the diverse coastal communities of Kent and how they have changed in response to the demands of defence, trade, and changing population and migration patterns. In addition, the book includes detailed case studies which explore particular subject areas as exemplars of the major themes covered by the book.
