PART I PAPER 8

BRITISH ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL HISTORY, 1050-c. 1500

2019-20

READING LIST FOR STUDENTS & SUPERVISORS

Man’s head, fourteenth century, a carving in Prior Crauden’s chapel (1320s), Ely cathedral

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 Part I Paper 8 2019-20

The period covered by this paper was one of dramatic change in British economic
and social life. The twelfth and thirteenth centuries were a time of marked economic
development and creativity, and saw the expansion of agricultural output, towns,
trade and industry. Famine and plague followed in the fourteenth century, leading to
a very different era of stagnation and social upheaval in the later middle ages.
Overall, it is now generally agreed that the period studied in this course laid essential
foundations for Britain’s exceptional economic trajectory in later centuries. This
course aims to provide students with a sense of the broader trends of the period
1050-1500, as well as the chance to look in depth at important problems and
debates. By the end of the course students will also be able to reflect on the exciting
challenges involved in studying the society and economy of an era before censuses,
government statistics, and printing.

Paper 8 is made up of 24 topics, such as ‘The Black Death’, ‘Town life’, and ‘War
and society’. Students, in consultation with their supervisors, can choose which of
these topics they wish to study for weekly supervisions. The 24 topics represent a
mix of economic and social history. Across Michaelmas and Lent terms, there will be
two series of introductory lectures, followed by lectures on each of the 24 topics. The
Part I Tripos examination paper for Paper 8 will feature 24 questions, that is, one
corresponding to each of the 24 topics. (Paper 8 took this format for the first time in
the Tripos exam in 2017.) This reading list specifies a number of themes or debates
(usually three) under each topic. The relevant lecture will engage heavily with these
themes or debates. When doing their supervision essays, students are advised to
focus on one or more of these themes/debates. One or more of the themes or
debates will normally form the focus of each examination question.

Using this reading list

This list is divided into two parts, each containing 16 sections, giving 32 sections in
all. The first part concerns British economic history, the second British social history.
The 32 sections correspond to the 32 lectures on this paper which will be delivered
in Michaelmas and Lent Terms. For both economic and social history, there are four
Introductory lectures. These will dicuss key concepts, trends, sources, historical
debates and methods. The aim of these introductory lectures is to provide essential
background to the 12 ‘topic’ lectures which follow in each series. They are intended
to be especially helpful for students who are new to medieval history and/or
economic and social history. The reading lists for the four Introductory lectures are
deliberately kept relatively short and include only the more essential items. The
reading lists for the 24 Topics are usually longer. It is intended that students will be
able, with guidance from their supervisors, to select from these lists when preparing
weekly essays on particular topics. In some of the ‘Topic’ lectures, an additional
reading list will be distributed, which will contain further items not in this list.

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Starred items:

*=priority reading
**=high priority reading

abbreviations used in this reading list

AgHR Agricultural History Review

BIHR Bulletin of The Institute of Historical Research
C&C Continuity and Change
EcHR Economic History Review
EHR English Historical Review
JEH Journal of Economic History
P&P Past & Present
TRHS Transactions of the Royal Historical Society

Electronic resources

Many of the journal items in this reading list are available electronically (the
list below does not always indicate where this is the case, so do check).
To locate an online journal article, visit the University Library ejournals
page, at:
http://www.lib.cam.ac.uk/eresources/index.php.

Many of the more important journals for Paper 8 are available in their
entirety if you are within the @cam domain. This includes AgHR, C&C,
EcHR, EHR, JEH, and P&P.

The Cambridge Urban History of Britain and The Cambridge Economic

History of Europe are available online: search for ‘Cambridge Histories
Online’.

Older works published more than 100 years ago are out of copyright and
likely to be available online, e.g. at: archive.org. Some more recent works
are available as e-books via the UL catalogue. Many of these are marked
in the reading list (though not necessarily all – so do check).

All those taking Paper 8 for Tripos will be added to the Moodle site for Paper 8, where
access to key scanned items is available. Contact Dr Briggs for further details.

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CONTENTS
page
GENERAL WORKS 6

BRITISH ECONOMIC HISTORY 1050-c.1500 7

Introduction to medieval British economic history
1. Land and people 7
2. Trends: a chronological overview 7
3. Models of economic change 9
4. Debates, sources and methods 10
Topics
5. England in 1086: economy and society 11
6. Landlords and estate management 1100-1350 13
7. Landlords and estate management c.1350-c.1500 15
8. Agriculture: landlords and peasants 17
9. The ‘crisis’ of the early fourteenth century 19
10. The Black Death and later fourteenth-century epidemics 21
11. Population stagnation: the later middle ages 23
12. The peasant household 25
13. Serfdom 27
14. Towns, markets and trade 1050-c.1350 29
15. Towns, markets and trade c.1350-c.1500 31
16. Money and credit 34

BRITISH SOCIAL HISTORY 1050-c.1500 36

Introduction to medieval British social history
1. The structure of medieval society: contemporary theories 36
2. The structure of medieval society: modern theories 36
3. Trends: a chronological overview 37
4. Debates, sources and methods 38
Topics
5. The monasteries and religious orders in English society c.1066-1215 40
6. Church, parish and people 1050-1300 41
7. Church, parish and people 1300-1500 42
8. Heresy and heterodoxy 1300-1500 44
9. Town life 45
10. Women, men and gender 47
11. Poverty and charity 50
12. Education, language and literacy 51

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13. Art, architecture and society 54
14. Popular rebellion and resistance, c.1250-c.1450 56
15. War and society 58
16. Landowning society: structure and values 60

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GENERAL WORKS

These books are likely to be of use for the whole paper. They cover the 8
introductory themes, as well as most of the 24 topics (many of these general works
are mentioned again below, where relevant). Older works, i.e. those published
before 1990, do not take account of the latest research. If read with this in mind,
however, they remain very valuable, since they frequently engage with ongoing
debates.

Bolton, J.L., The Medieval English Economy 1150-1500 (1980).

*Britnell, R., The Commercialization of English Society 1000-1500 (2nd ed., 1996).

**Britnell, R., Britain and Ireland, 1050-1530: Economy and society (2004).

Carr, A.D., Medieval Wales (1995).

*Crick, J., and Van Houts, E. (eds.), A Social History of England 900-1200 (2011).

**Dyer, C., Making a living in the Middle Ages (2002).

Dyer, C., An Age of Transition? Economy and Society in England in the later middle
ages (2005).

Duffy, S., Ireland in the Middle Ages (1997).

Goldberg, P.J.P., Medieval England: a Social History (2004).

Hatcher, J., Plague, Population and the English Economy, 1348-1530 (1977).

**Horrox, R., and Ormrod, W.M. (eds.), A Social History of England 1200-1500
(2006). [E-BOOK VIA UL CATALOGUE]

McNeill, P., and MacQueen, H. (eds.), Atlas of Scottish History to 1707 (1996).

*Miller, E., and Hatcher, J., Medieval England: Rural Society and Economic Change,
1086-1348 (1978).

*Miller, E., and Hatcher, J., Medieval England: Towns, Commerce and Crafts. 1086-
1348 (1995).

Postan, M.M., The Medieval Economy and Society (1972).

*Rigby, S.H., English Society in the Late Middle Ages: Class, Status and Gender
(1995).

**Rigby, S.H. ed., A Companion to Britain in the Later Middle Ages (revised
paperback edition, 2009), esp. parts I, III and IV; covers Scotland, Wales and
Ireland as well as England. [E-BOOK VIA UL CATALOGUE]

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 ECONOMIC HISTORY

1. Land and people

The medieval economy as an ‘organic economy’; the predominance of agriculture;

fundamental features of British geography; the distribution of natural resources;
transport; settlement patterns and the distribution of population.

**Britnell, R.H., Britain and Ireland 1050-1530: Economy and Society (2004), chs 1-4
(‘preliminaries’), esp. pp. 71-95 (‘Contours of development’).
Britnell, R.H., ‘England and Northern Italy in the Early Fourteenth Century: The
Economic Contrasts’, TRHS, fifth ser., 39 (1989) [electronic: JSTOR]
*Campbell, B., ‘Progressiveness and backwardness in thirteenth and early
fourteenth-century English agriculture: the verdict of recent research’, in J-M.
Duvosquel and E. Thoen, eds., Peasants and Townsmen in Medieval Europe
(1995) [on Moodle]
**Campbell, B., ‘England: land and people’, in S. Rigby, ed., A companion to Britain
in the late middle ages (2003); also reprinted in B. Campbell, Land and
People in Late Medieval England (2009) [e-book]
Campbell, B., ‘The land’, in R. Horrox and W.M. Ormrod, eds., A Social History of
England 1200-1500 (2006) [e-book] esp. pp. 195-215
Campbell, and Barry, L., ‘The population geography of Great Britain c.1290: a
provisional reconstruction’, in C. Briggs et al. eds., Population welfare and
economic change in Britain, 1290-1834 (2014)
Darby, H.C., ed., A New Historical Geography of England before 1600 (1978),
chapters by Glasscock, Donkin, Baker
*Dyer, C., ‘How urbanized was medieval England?’ in J-M. Duvosquel and E. Thoen,
eds., Peasants and Townsmen in Medieval Europe (1995) [on Moodle]
*Langdon, J., ‘Inland water transport in medieval England’, Journal of Historical
Geography, 19 (1993) [electronic: ejournals]
Smith, R., ‘Human resources’, in G. Astill and A. Grant eds., The countryside of
medieval England (1988)
*Wrigley, E.A., ‘The transition to an advanced organic economy: half a millennium of
English agriculture’ EcHR 59 (2006), pp. 435-80 [electronic:JSTOR]

2. Trends: a chronological overview

Some basic economic and demographic trends of the period 1050-c.1500; difficulties
of assesing twelfth-century trends; movement in indicators such as prices and
wages; ‘turning points’; the period 1349-c.1500 as a set of sub-periods.

Population trends

Hinde, A., England’s Population: A History since the Domesday Survey (2003) Part
I– work by a demographer which looks at the mechanics of population
change in this period.

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1100-1300

King, E., ‘Economic development in the early twelfth century’, in R. Britnell and J.
Hatcher (eds.), Progress and Problems in Medieval England (1996).
*Masschaele, J., ‘The English economy in the era of Magna Carta’, in J.S. Loengard
(ed.), Magna Carta and the England of King John (2010). [e-book]
*Miller, E., ‘England in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries: an economic contrast?’,
EcHR, 24 (1971).

1300-1500 (see also Topic 9, The early 14th-century ‘crisis’)

Bridbury, A.R., ‘Before the Black Death’, EcHR, 30 (1977)

Bridbury, A.R., ‘The Black Death’ EcHR, 26 (1973)
Bridbury, A.R., Economic Growth: England in the Later Middle Ages (1962)
Britnell, R., ‘The economic context’, in A.J. Pollard, ed., The Wars of the Roses
(1995)
Britnell, R., The closing of the middle ages? England, 1471-1529 (1997), Part IV for
the end of the period
Campbell, B., ‘Portrait of Britain: AD 1300’, History Today, 50 (2000)
*Dyer, C., An Age of Transition? Economy and Society in England in the Later
Middle Ages (2005) Chapter One (‘A new middle ages’)
*Hatcher, J., ‘The great slump of the mid-fifteenth century’, in R. Britnell and J.
Hatcher, eds., Progress and Problems in Medieval England (1996)
*Hatcher, J., ‘Unreal wages: long-run living standards and the ‘golden age’ of the
fifteenth century’, in B. Dodds and C.D. Liddy, eds., Commercial Activity,
Markets and Entrepreneurs in the Middle Ages (2011) [Moodle]
*Miller, E., ‘Introduction: land and people’, in Miller, ed., Agrarian History of England
and Wales, III 1348-1500 (1991) [on Moodle]
Munro, J., ‘Before and after the Black Death: money, prices, and wages in
fourteenth-century England’, in T. Dahlerup and P. Ingesman (eds.), New
Approaches to the History of Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe
(2009).
Postan, M.M., ‘The fifteenth century’, EcHR, 9 (1939), also in Postan, Medieval
Agriculture and General problems of the Medieval Economy (1973)

Also stimulating:

Campbell, B.M.S., ‘The Great Transition: climate, disease and society in the 13th
and 14th centuries’ Ellen McArthur Lectures, University of Cambridge,
February 2013. Now published as The Great Transition. Watch podcasts at:

http://www.econsoc.hist.cam.ac.uk/podcast-campbell.html

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3. Models of economic change

The use of models and theories to explain the developments identified in the
overview of trends: Malthusian or population-resources models; class-conflict based
models; commercialisation models.

General and Introductory

Campbell, B., English Seigniorial Agriculture (2000), pp. 1-25

*Hatcher J., and Bailey, M., Modelling the Middle Ages: The History and Theory of
England’s economic development (2001) [e-book]
**Rigby, S.H., ‘Introduction: social structure and economic change in late medieval
England’, in R. Horrox and W.M. Ormrod, eds., A Social History of England
1200-1500 (2006) [e-book]

For an advanced yet stimulating view of these issues, see:

Epstein, S., Freedom and Growth. The Rise of States and Markets in Europe, 1300-
1700 (2000), chs. 1 and 3.

Malthus – population and resources

**Postan, M., ‘Medieval agrarian society in its prime: England’, in Postan, ed., The
Cambridge Economic History of Europe, I. Agrarian Life in the Middle Ages
2nd. Edn., 1966)
Titow, J.Z., English Rural Society 1200-1350 (1969)

Class conflict and the role of socio-property relations

*Aston, T.H., and Philipin, C., eds., The Brenner debate: Agrarian Class Structure
and Economic Development in Pre-Industrial Europe (1985), especially the
two chapters by R. Brenner, starting with the original (1976) one

Commercialization

Bailey, M., ‘The commercialisation of the English economy, 1086-1500’, Journal of

Medieval History, 24 (1998) [electronic: via ejournals]
**Britnell, R.H., ‘Commercialisation and economic development in England, 1000-
1300’, in Britnell, R.H., and Campbell, B.M.S, A Commercialising Economy.
England 1086 to c.1300 (1995) [on Moodle]
Britnell, R.H., ‘Specialization of work in England, 1100-1300’, Economic History
Review, 54 (2001) [electronic: JSTOR]
*Britnell, R.H., The Commercialistation of English Society 1000-1500 (2nd edition,
1996)
*Langdon, J., and Masschaele, J., ‘Commercial activity and economic growth in
medieval England’, P&P, 190 (2006) [electronic: JSTOR]

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4. Debates, sources and methods

What sources and methods have been used to write the history of the medieval
British economy ,and how have these changed over time? Chronological and spatial
distribution of surviving sources; local case studies versus larger scale
investigations.

Primary sources

English Historical Documents volumes 2-4 (edited by D. Douglas, H. Rothwell, and

A.R. Myers, respectively), sections on ‘land and people’ or ‘economy and
society’, for examples of the written sources used to write the economic
history of this period.

Discussions of the primary sources

**Britnell, R.H., Britain and Ireland 1050-1530: Society and economy (2004),
chapters 13 and 23
Campbell, B., ‘A unique estate and a unique source: the Winchester Pipe Rolls in
perspective’, in Britnell, R., ed., The Winchester Pipe Rolls and Medieval
English Society (2003)
** Clanchy, M., From Memory to Written Record. England 1066-1307 (3rd edition,
2012) [e-book via UL catalogue] – on the huge growth in writing in this period,
especially royal documents.
Duby, G., Rural Economy and Country Life in the Medieval West (1968) –good
collection of documents useful for comparisons of England and France.
*Dyer, C., ‘Documentary evidence: problems and enquiries’, in G. Astill and A. Grant,
eds., The Countryside of Medieval England (1988); and see other essays in
the book e.g. that by Grant for use of material evidence.
Dyer, C., An Age of Transition? Economy and Society in England in the Later Middle
Ages (2005) – shows that some sources - especially manorial sources -
become scarcer and less detailed for the fifteenth century, while new types of
sources such as wills then become available.
Hilton, R., ‘The content and sources of English agrarian history before 1500’
AgHR 3 (1955) [online via bahs.org.uk; old but still useful]
West, J., Village Records (1982)

Archaeology and material evidence

Astill, G., ‘Economic change in later medieval England: an archaeological review’, in

T.H. Aston et al., eds. Social Relations and Ideas (1983)
Astill, G., and Grant, A. (eds.) The Countryside of Medieval England (1988)
Platt, C., Medieval England: a social history and archaeology from the Conquest to
A.D. 1600 (1978).
Schofield J. and Vince, A., Medieval Towns (1994).

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5. England in 1086: economy and society

Themes and debates:

-How much can Domesday Book (DB) tell us about the size and distribution of
England’s population in 1086?
-How much can DB tell us about the level of England’s economic development in
1086?
-How much does DB reveal about the social impact of the Norman Conquest?

Primary sources

For a convenient translation of the text, try Domesday Book: A Complete Translation
(Penguin, 2003), or the series published by Phillimore (red paperbacks, one per
county), general editor J. Morris (Seeley Library 13.11.502 onwards)

Secondary sources

The Domesday survey and DB: background, motives, and structure of its contents:

Finn, R.W., Domesday Book: a Guide (1973)

Galbraith, V.H., The Making of Domesday Book (1961)
Harvey, S., Domesday: book of judgement (2014) [e-book], esp. ch. 7
*Holt, J.C., ed., Domesday Studies (1987), especially chapter by Holt; chapters by
Harvey and Palmer also relevant for economic aspects
Sawyer, P., ed., Domesday Book: A Reassessment (1985)

On the Norman Conquest, and its economic effects:

Finn, R.W., The Norman Conquest and its Effects on the Economy, 1066-1086
(1971)
Kapelle, W.E., The Norman Conquest of the North (1979), chapters 3, 6

Introductory surveys of what Domesday tells us about the economy:

*Dyer, C., Making a Living in the Middle Ages (2002), ch. 3

*Miller E., and Hatcher, J., Medieval England: Rural Society and Economic Change
1086-1348 (1978), ch. 1

Domesday Book and the (Rural) Economy:

Britnell, R.H., and Campbell, B.M.S, eds., A Commercialising Economy. England

1086 to c.1300 (1995), Appendices 1-3 (short discussions which shed
interesting light on the problems of using Domesday to calculate GDP;
Mayhew and Snooks reach very different figures in this volume)
Campbell, B.M.S., English Seigniorial Agriculture 1250-1450 (2000), chapter 8 (uses
estimates of Gross Domestic Product (GDP), population etc. in 1086 to make
comparisons with evidence from later dates)
*Darby, H.C., Domesday England (1977), useful on towns, population, geographical
distribution of resources etc.

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*Harvey, S., ‘Domesday England’, in The Agrarian History of England and Wales II,
ed. H.E. Hallam (1988)
Harvey, S. ‘The extent and profitability of demesne agriculture in England in the late
eleventh century’, in T. Aston et al., eds., Social Relations and Ideas (1983)

Towns in Domesday:

Palliser, D., ed., The Cambridge Urban History of Britain Vol. 1, 600-1540 (2000),
Part II [e-book]
Reynolds, S., chapter in Holt, ed., Domesday Studies (see above)

On population in Domesday:

Hinton, D.A., ‘Demography: from Domesday and beyond’, Journal of Medieval Hist.,
39 (2013) [online]
Moore, J., ‘ “Quot homines?” the population of Domesday England’, Anglo-Norman
Studies 19 (1996)

For the application of modern economic and statistical techniques to Domesday,

see:

McDonald J., and Snooks, G.D., Domesday Economy: a New Approach to Anglo-
Norman History (1986) [e-book; esp Part I]
McDonald, J., Production efficiency in Domesday England, 1086 (1998) (very
mathematical – a striking example of the kinds of quantative analysis that
have been undertaken using DB)

Classic older studies:

Lennard, R., Rural England 1086-1135. A Study of Social and Agrarian Conditions
(1959)
Maitland, F.W., Domesday Book and Beyond. Three Essays in the early History of
England (1897; 1960 reprint with introduction by E. Miller)
Round, J.H., Feudal England. Historical Studies on the Eleventh and Twelfth
Centuries (1985)

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6. Landlords and estate management 1100-1350

Themes and debates:

-What objectives guided landlords’ estate management?

-To what extent did landlords make a dynamic contribution to the wider economy?
-Did large and small landlords adopt similar estate management policies following
similar chronologies?

General and introductory:

*Dyer, C., Making a Living in the Middle Ages: the People of Britain 850-1520 (2002)
chap. 4
Dyer, C., ‘The ineffectiveness of lordship in England, 1200-1400’, in C. Dyer et al.,
eds., Rodney Hilton’s Middle Ages (supplement to Past and Present, 2007)
[electronic: ejournals]
Miller, E., and Hatcher, J., Medieval England: Rural Society and Economic Change
1086-1348 (1978) [chap. 7 although now quite old is still v good introduction]
*Miller, E., ‘England in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries: an economic contrast?’
EcHR, 24 (1971) [electronic: JSTOR]

The inflation of 1180-1220

*Harvey, P.D.A., ‘The English inflation of 1180-1220’, P&P 61 (1973)

[electronic: JSTOR; reprinted in R.H. Hilton, ed., Peasants, Knights and
Heretics (1976)]
*Harvey, P.D.A., ‘The Pipe Rolls and the adoption of demesne farming in England’,
EcHR, 27 (1974)
Latimer, P., ‘The English inflation of 1180 to 1220 reconsidered’, P&P 171 (2001)
[electronic: JSTOR]

Treatises on estate management, and the development of estate documentation

Drew, J.S., ‘Manorial accounts of St Swithun’s Priory, Winchester’, English

Historical Review 62 (1947), [electronic: JSTOR; also repr. in E. Carus-
Wilson, ed., Essays in Economic History Volume Two (1962).]
Harvey, P., ‘Agricultural treatises and manorial accounting in medieval England’,
AgHR 20 (1972) [electronic; via link on Moodle site]
Oschinsky, D., ed., Walter of Henley and other Treatises on Estate Management and
Accounting (1971) [for texts of the key treatises; see previous item for
important review essay]
Titow, J.Z., English Rural Society 1200-1350 (1969) [gives examples of estate
documentation and is also a useful introduction to these.]

Profit

Mate, M., ‘Profit and productivity on the estates of Isabella de Forz (1260-92)’,
EcHR, 33 (1980) [electronic: JSTOR]
Postles, D., ‘The perception of profit before the leasing of demesnes’ Agricultural
History Review, 34 (1986) [electronic: JSTOR, or bahs.org.uk]

13
Stone, E., ‘Profit and loss accountancy at Norwich Cathedral Priory’, TRHS, 5th ser.,
12 (1962) [electronic: JSTOR]

Some studies of different types of landlord from the point of view of estate
management

Coss, P., The foundations of gentry life: the Multons of Frampton and their world
1270-1370 (2010) [e-book], chaps. 5 & 6
Dyer, C., Lords and Peasants in a Changing Society. The Estates of the Bishopric of
Worcester, 680-1540 (1980)
Faith, R.J., ‘Demesne resources and labour rent on the manors of St Paul’s
Cathedral, 1066-1222’, EcHR 47 1992 [electronic: JSTOR]
Harvey, S.P.J., ‘The extent and profitability of demesne agriculture in England in the
later eleventh century’, in T.H. Aston et al., eds., Social relations and ideas
(1983)
Kershaw, I., Bolton Priory The Economy of a Northern Monastery, 1286-1325
(1973)
King, E., Peterborough Abbey 1086-1300 (1973), esp. chs. 7-8
Mate, M., ‘The farming out of manors: a new look at the evidence from Canterbury
Cathedral Priory’, Journal of Medieval History, 9 (1983) [ejournals]
Miller, E., The abbey and bishopric of Ely (1951)
Postles, D., Oseney abbey studies (2008) [chaps 7-14; online collection of previously
published items, at: http://historicalresources.myzen.co.uk/oxon.pdf]
Smith, R.A.L., Canterbury Cathedral Priory. A Study in Monastic Administration
(1943)

14
7. Landlords and estate management c.1350-c.1500

Themes and debates:

-What were the problems facing landlords in this period and how severe were they?
-How far did landlords innovate in their approch to estate management?
-Did large and small landlords act in the same way?

General and introductory:

*Bean, J.M.W., ‘Landlords 1350-1500’, in E. Miller (ed.), Agrarian History of England

and Wales, iii, 1348-1500 (1991)
Britnell, R., Britain and Ireland 1050-1530: Economy and Society (2004), ch. 21.
Dyer, C., ‘Were there any capitalists in fifteenth-century England?’, in J. Kermode
ed., Enterprise and individuals in fifteenth century England (1991)
Dyer, C., Standards of Living in the Later Middle Ages (revised edn., 1998), chs. 2-4.
Dyer, C., Making a Living in the Middle Ages (2002), pp. 330-349.
*Fryde, E.B., Peasants and landlords in later medieval England (1996), ch. 8; also
chs. 9-11.
Given-Wilson, C., The English nobility in the late middle ages (1987), Part II.
*Hatcher, J., ‘The great slump of the mid-fifteenth century’, in J. Hatcher and R.
Britnell (eds.), Progress and Problems in Medieval England (1996)

The leasing out of demesnes

Du Boulay, F.R.H., ‘Who were farming the demesnes at the end of the middle ages?’
EcHR 17 (1965) [electronic: JSTOR]
*Dyer, C., ‘A Suffolk farmer of the fifteenth century’, AgHR, 55 (2007) [useful case
study, electronic: http://www.bahs.org.uk/]
Hare, J., ‘The demesne lessees of fifteenth-century Wiltshire’, AgHR, 1981
[electronic: via JSTOR] – and see now Hare’s book on Wiltshire, A prospering
society (2011), chapters 6 and 7
Harvey, B., ‘The leasing of the abbot of Westminster's demesnes in the later middle
ages’, EcHR 22 (1969) [electronic: JSTOR]

Tenurial changes amongst tenants

Bailey, M., ‘The transformation of customary tenures in southern England, c.1350-

c.1500’ AgHR 62 (2014) [electronic: http://www.bahs.org.uk/]
*Schofield, P.R., ‘Tenurial developments and the availability of customary land in a
later medieval community’, EcHR, 49 (1996) [electronic: JSTOR – about the
shift to contractual tenures on a manor of Westminster Abbey]

Some studies of individual estates and landlords:

Britnell, R., ‘The Pastons and their Norfolk’, AgHR 36 (1988) [electronic: JSTOR]
Britnell, R., ‘The coal industry in the later middle ages: the bishop of Durham’s
estates’, in M. Bailey and S. Rigby eds., Town and countryside in the age of
the Black Death (2011)

15
Carpenter, C., Locality and Polity: A Study of Warwickshire Landed Society 1401-99
(1992) [Pt. 1 esp. chs. 4 &. 5]
Dobson, R.B., Durham priory 1400-1450 (1973), ch. 8.
Du Boulay, F.R.H., The Lordship of Canterbury (1966)
Dyer, C., Lords and Peasants in a Changing Society: the Estates of the Bishopric of
Worcester 680-1540 (1980)
Harvey, B., Westminster Abbey and its Estates in the Middle Ages (1977), esp.
chs. v, ix, & x.
Holmes, G., The Estates of the Higher Nobility in Fourteenth-Century England
(1957) esp. ch. Iv
Mate, M., ‘Agrarian economy after the Black Death: the estates of Canterbury
Cathedral Priory, 1348-91’, EcHR, 37 (1984) [electronic: JSTOR]
McFarlane, K.B., The Nobility of Later Medieval England (1973)
Pollard, A., ‘Estate management in the later middle ages: the Talbots and
Whitchurch, 1383-1525’, EcHR (1972)
Richmond, C., John Hopton (1981) [chap. 2]

16
8. Agriculture: landlords and peasants

Themes and debates:

-How far did peasant agriculture differ from that of landlords?

-To what extent were medieval farmers capable of technical innovation?
-To what extent is it possible to discern distinctive regional farming systems in this
period?

General and introductory (including regional contrasts):

Britnell, R., Britain and Ireland 1050-1530: Economy and Society (2004), chaps 9-10,
19-20
*Campbell, B.M.S., ‘Progressiveness and backwardness in thirteenth- and early
fourteenth-century agriculture: the verdict of recent research’, in J-M.
Duvosquel & E. Thoen (eds.), Peasants and Townsmen in Medieval Europe
(1995) [Moodle]
Campbell B., and Overton, M., ‘A new perspective on medieval and early modern
agriculture: six centuries of Norfolk farming, c.1250-c.1850’, P&P, 141 (1993)
*Campbell, B.M.S., English seigniorial agriculture, 1250-1450 (2000). Though it looks
forbidding, this important book is well worth a try. It is a good place to go if you
want to find out something specific about agricultural methods - see
chapters 4 and 5 in particular.
Hallam, H.E. (ed.), The Agrarian History of England and Wales, vol. II (1988). Ch. 4
Miller, E. (ed.), The Agrarian History of England and Wales,vol III (1991). Ch. 3.
Postan, M., The Medieval Economy and Society (1972), ch. 4
*Stone, D., Decision-making in medieval agriculture (2005) [e-book]

Agricultural productivity

*Campbell, B.M.S., ‘Agricultural progress in medieval England: some evidence from

eastern Norfolk’, EcHR, 36 (1983).
*Campbell, B.M.S., ‘Arable productivity in medieval England: some evidence from
Norfolk’, JEH, 43 (1983).
-The above two items are best read as a pair.
Stone, D., ‘The productivity of hired and customary labour: evidence from Wisbech
Barton in the fourteenth century’, EcHR, 50 (1997).
*Thornton, C. ‘The level of arable productivity on the bishopric of Winchester’s manor
of Taunton, 1283-1348’, in R. Britnell, (ed.), The Winchester Pipe Rolls and
Medieval English society (2003).

Technological change in medieval agriculture

Bailey, M., ‘The rabbit and the medieval East Anglian economy’, AgHR, 36 (1988).
Campbell, B.M.S., ‘Economic rent and the intensification of English agriculture,
1086-1350’, in Astill, G., and Langdon, J. (eds.), Medieval Farming and
Technology. The impact of Agricultural Change in Northwestern Europe (1997)
Campbell, B.M.S., ‘The diffusion of vetches in medieval England’, Economic History
Review, 41 (1988)

17
Langdon, J., Horses, Oxen and Technological Innovation. The Use of Draft Animals
in English Farming from 1066-1500 (1986). [start with ‘Conclusions’]
Mate, M., ‘Medieval agrarian practices: the determining factors?’, AgHR, 33 (1985).
Fox, H.S.A., ‘The alleged transformation from two-field to three-field systems in
medieval England’, EcHR, 39 (1986)
Sawyer, P., and Hilton, R.H., ‘Technical determinism: the stirrup and the plough’
P&P, 24 (1963) (a response to Lynn White jr. – see below).
Stone, D., ‘Medieval farm management and technological mentalities: Hinderclay
before the Black Death’, EcHR, 54 (2001).
White Jr, L., Medieval Technology and Social Change (1962). [E-book] (for a broad
account of the role of technology).

Peasant agriculture, including comparison with seigniorial agriculture

Dodds, B. Peasants and Production in the Medieval North-East: The Evidence from
Tithes, 1270-1536 (2007), esp. chs. 3 and 6.
Langdon, Horses (above)
Postan, M., ‘Village livestock in the thirteenth century’, EcHR, 15 (1962), also in
Postan, Essays on Medieval Agriculture (1973).
Sapoznik, A., ‘The productivity of peasant agriculture: Oakington, Cambridgeshire,
1360–99’, EcHR, 66 (2013)
Stone, Decision-making (above), pp. 262 ff.

Pastoral agriculture

Biddick, K., The Other Economy: pastoral husbandry on a medieval estate (1989).
Birrell, J., ‘Deer and deer farming in medieval England’, AgHR, 40 (1992).
Mate, M., ‘Pastoral farming in south-east England in the fifteenth century’, Economic
History Review 40 (1987) [electronic: via JSTOR]
Page, M., ‘The technology of medieval sheep farming: some evidence from Crawley,
Hampshire, 1208-1349’, AgHR, 51 (2003).
Stone, D., ‘The productivity and management of sheep in late medieval England’,
AgHR, 51 (2003).

18
9. The ‘crisis’ of the early fourteenth century

Themes and debates:

-Was the crisis a single event or a series of developments?

-Which were the more important in causing the crisis: endogenous or exogenous
forces?
-How rapid or successful was economic recovery following the crisis?

General and introductory:

**Bailey, M., ‘Peasant welfare in England, 1290-1348’, EcHR, [electronic: JSTOR]

Bailey, M., ‘The concept of the margin in the medieval English economy’, Economic
History Rev., (1990) [electronic: JSTOR]
Baker, A.R.H., ‘Evidence in the Nonarum Inquisitiones of contracting arable lands in
England during the early fourteenth century’, EcHR 19 (1966) [electronic:
JSTOR]
Campbell, B., ed., Before the Black Death. Studies in the ‘Crisis’ of the early
fourteenth century (1991), esp. **‘Introduction’ by B. Harvey.
*Campbell, B., ‘The agrarian problem in the early fourteenth century’, Past and
Present 188 (2005) [electronic: JSTOR]
*Campbell, B., and Bartley, K., England on the Eve of the Black Death. An Atlas of
Lay Lordship, Land and Wealth, 1300-49 (2006) [chapters 1-3 to
understand underlying source material, then e.g. chaps. 7-10, 16]
Dyer, C., ‘The crisis of the early fourteenth century: some material evidence from
Britain’, in D. Boisseuil et al., eds., Écritures de l’espace social (2010)
[Moodle]
Dyer, C., ‘The Midland economy and society, 1314-1348: insights from changes in
the landscape’, Midland History, 42 (2017) [electronic]
Hallam, H.E. Rural England, 1086-1348 (1981), chapters 2 and 12
*Harvey, B.F. ‘The population trend in England between 1300 and 1348’, TRHS 5th
ser., 16 (1966) [electronic: JSTOR]
Hilton, R.H., ‘Was there a general crisis of feudalism?’ [pub 1951], reprinted in Hilton,
Class Conflict and the Crisis of Feudalism (1985, revised edn. 1990)
[Moodle]
Jordan, W.C., The Great Famine. Northern Europe in the Early Fourteenth Century
(1996), esp. Part I.
*Kershaw, I. ‘The Great Famine and agrarian crisis in England 1315-1322’ Past and
Present (1973) [electronic: JSTOR], also reprinted in R.H. Hilton, Peasants,
Knights and Heretics (1976)
*Postan, M.M. ‘Medieval agrarian society in its prime: England’, in Cambridge
Economic History of Europe I, ed. Postan (1966), pp. 548-633.
(A classic argument in favour of the key role of population in economic
development.).
Titow, J.Z. English Rural Society 1200-1350 (1969), ch. 3

Environmental shocks

**Campbell, B.M.S., ‘Nature as a historical protagonist: environment and society in

pre-industrial England’, EcHR, 63 (2010) [electronic: ejournals]

19
*Campbell, B.M.S., ‘Physical shocks, biological hazards, and human impacts: the
crisis of the fourteenth century revisited’, in S. Cavaciocchi, ed., La
interazione fra economia e ambiente biologico nell’Europa preindustriale secc.
XIII-XVIII [Economic and Biological Interactions in Preindustrial Europe from
the 13th to the 18th centuries] (2010) [In UL; also on Moodle site]
Slavin, P., ‘The Great Bovine Pestilence and its economic and environmental
consequences in England and Wales, 1318-50’, EcHR, 65 (2012)
[electronic: ejournals]
Stone, D., ‘The impact of drought in early fourteenth-century England’, Economic
History Review, 2014 [electronic: ejournals]

Warfare

Briggs, C., ‘Taxation, warfare, and the early fourteenth-century “crisis” in the North:
Cumberland lay subsidies, 1332-1348’, Economic History Review 58 (2005)
[electronic: JSTOR]
**Maddicott, J.R., ‘The English peasantry and the demands of the Crown, 1294-
1341’, supplement to P&P (1975), also in T.H. Aston (ed.), Landlords,
peasants and politics in medieval England (1987)
Mate, M., ‘The Impact of the War on the Economy of Canterbury Cathedral Priory,
1294-1340’, Speculum, 57 (1982) [electronic: JSTOR]
McNamee, C., The Wars of the Bruces. Scotland, England and Ireland 1306-1328
(1997), esp. chap. 3
Prestwich, M., ‘Currency and the economy of early fourteenth-century England’, in N.
Mayhew ed., Edwardian monetary affairs (1977) (useful short piece)

20
10. The Black Death and later fourteenth-century epidemics

Themes and debates:

1. To what extent was mortality in the Black Death and subsequent fourteenth-
century plague outbreaks similar for all social groups and regions?
2. How successful was legislation to deal with labour shortages after the Black
Death?
3. Were the effects of the Black Death (including mortality levels) exaggerated by
contemporaries?

Primary sources

Horrox, R., The Black Death (1994) [a very useful collection. See, for example, the
description of the plague by Henry Knighton]

General and introductory:

Benedictow, O., The Black Death 1346-1353. The Complete History (2004)
*Hatcher, J., Plague, population and the English Economy, 1348-1530 (1977)
**Hatcher, J., ‘England in the aftermath of the Black Death’, P&P (1994)
Herlihy, D., The Black Death and the Transformation of the West (1997)
Ormrod, M. & Lindley, P., eds., The Black Death in England (1996) [see especially
chapter by *Bolton]
Platt, C., King Death. The Black Death and its Aftermath in late-medieval England
(1996)
The Medieval Globe, 1 (2014) [this online journal’s first issue was a special edition
on plague: http://scholarworks.wmich.edu/medieval_globe/1/]

The debate about the nature of the disease

Bolton, J.L., ‘Looking for Yersinia Pestis: scientists, historians, and the Black Death’
in Linda Clark and Carole Rawcliffe eds., The Fifteenth Century XIII: Society
in an Age of Plague (2013)
Cohn, S.K., ‘The Black Death: the end of a paradigm’, American Historical Rev., 107
(2002) [electronic; for the view that the medieval plague was not the same
disease as modern plague]
Theilmann, J., and Cate, F., ‘A plague of plagues: the problem of plague diagnosis in
medieval England’, Journal of Interdisciplinary History 32 (2007) [electronic]

The effects of Black Death on prices and wages, including legislative responses:

*Bailey, M., and Rigby, S., Town and Countryside in the Age of the Black Death
(2012). Studies by *Stone, *Campbell
Braid, R., ‘Behind the Ordinance of Labourers: economic regulation and market
control in London before the Black Death’, Journal of Legal History 34 (2013)
[online]
*Farmer, D., ‘Prices and wages, 1350-1500’, chapter 5 in E. Miller, ed., The Agrarian
History of England and Wales, III, 1348-1500 (1991), esp. pp. 432-43.

21
*Given-Wilson, C., ‘Service, serfdom and English labour legislation 1350-1500’, in
Concepts and Patterns of Service in the Later Middle Ages, ed. A. Curry and
E. Matthew (Woodbridge, 2000), 21-37
Munro, J., ‘Before and after the Black Death: money, prices, and wages in
fourteenth-century England’, in T. Dahlerup and P. Ingesman (eds.), New
Approaches to the History of Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe
(2009).
*Putnam, B., The Enforcement of the statute of labourers during the first decade
after the Black Death 1349-59 (1908) [online at archive.org; comprehensive
& detailed]

Further studies

*Britnell, R.H., ‘The Black Death in English towns’, Urban History, 21 (1994)
[electronic]
Dohar, W.J., Black Death and Pastoral Leadership: the diocese of Hereford in the
fourteenth century (1995)
Fryde, E., ‘The tenants of the Bishop of Coventry and Lichfield and of Worcester
after the plague of 1348-9’, in R.F. Hunnisett and J.B. Post, eds., Medieval
Legal Records (1978)
Levett, A.E., The Black Death on the estates of the See of Winchester (Oxford
Studies in Social and Legal History, 1916)
James, T.B., ‘The Black Death in Hampshire’ (Hampshire Papers, 18 (1999) [order
West Room, L479.b.270]
Lomas, R.A., ‘The Black Death in county Durham’, Journal of Medieval History, 15
(1989) [electronic]
Rees, W., ‘The Black Death in Wales’, TRHS, 4th series, 3 (1920) [electronic],
reprinted in R.W. Southern, ed,. Essays in Medieval History (1968)
Sloane, B., The Black Death in London (2011)

22
11. Population stagnation: the later middle ages

Themes and debates:

-What are strengths and weaknesses of the available primary sources for population
trends after 1350?
-Can we determine the chronological, social and spatial incidence of epidemic
disease after c. 1390?
-How can we best characterize the relationship between population and economy in
the fifteenth century?

Important older studies:

Bean, J., ‘Plague, population and economic decline in the later middle ages,
EcHR, 15 (1963) [electronic: JSTOR]
*Hatcher, J., Plague, Population and the English Economy 1348-1530 (1977) [E-
book]
Russell, J.C., British Medieval Population (1940)
Thrupp, S., ‘The problem of replacement rates in late medieval English population’,
EcHR (1965) [electronic: JSTOR]

Studies placing late medieval population in wider perspective:

Smith, R.M., ‘Human resources’, in G. Astill and A. Grant, eds., The countryside of
medieval England (1988)
Smith, R.M., ‘Plagues and peoples: the long demographic cycle, 1250-1670’, in P.
Slack and R. Ward (eds.), The Peopling of Britain (2002)
Wrigley, E.A., and Schofield, R.S., The Population History of England 1541-1871: a
Reconstruction (1981) – while principally about the parish register era (post-
1538) there is an important discussion in appendix 5 of how estimates of
English population totals might be made for the early sixteenth century

Key studies on later medieval English population change

**Bailey, M., ‘Demographic decline in late medieval England: some thoughts on

recent research’, EcHR (1996) [electronic: JSTOR – a critical review of the
influence of changes in fertility on demographic trends]
Bolton, J., ‘ “The world upside down”. Plague as an agent of economic and social
change’, in M. Ormrod and P. Lindley, eds., The Black Death in England
(1996), pp. 29-40, a mid-1990s review of the debate.
Goldberg, P.J.P., Women, Work and Life-Cycle in a Medieval Economy: Women and
Work in Yorkshire, c.1300-1520 (1992), esp. chap. 8. Uses wills, church court
cases and poll taxes
Poos, L.R., A Rural Society after the Black Death: Essex 1350-1525 (1991), Part III,
esp. pp. 111-15
Rigby, S.H. ‘Urban population in late medieval England: the evidence of the lay
subsidies’, Economic History Rev., 63 (2010) [electronic: via EJournals]

23
Studies of mortality using wills

Goldberg, P.J.P., ‘Mortality and economic change in the diocese of York, 1390-
1514’, Northern History 24 (1988)
Gottfried, R.S., Epidemic Disease in Fifteenth-Century England (1972) - a will-based
study which has been subject to criticism

Studies of mortality in monastic communities

*Hatcher, J. Piper, A.J., and Stone, D., ‘Monastic mortality: Durham Priory 1395-
1529’, EcHR 59 (2006) [electronic: JSTOR; summarizes the work on monastic
sources; for more detail, see the next two items]
Hatcher, J., ‘Mortality in the fifteenth century: some new evidence’, Economic History
Review 39 (1986) [electronic: JSTOR]
Harvey, B.F., Living and Dying in Medieval England 1100-1540. The Monastic
Experience (1993) [chap IV]

Recent work from the Cambridge Group for the History of Population and Social
Structure on the Inquisitions Post Mortem (IPMs)

Poos, L.R., Oeppen, J., and Smith, R.M, ‘Re-assessing Josiah Russell’s
measurements of late medieval mortality using the Inquisitions Post Mortem’,
in M. Hicks (ed.), The Fifteenth Century Inquisitions Post-Mortem: A
Companion (2012)
Smith, R.M, ‘Measuring adult mortality in an age of plague: England 1349-1540’, in
M. Bailey and S. Rigby (eds), Town and Countryside in the age of the Black
Death: Essays in honour of John Hatcher (2012)

24
12. The peasant household

Themes and debates:

-How strong is the evidence for an improvement in peasant diets after c.1350?
-How important is evidence of the material environment for our understanding of
peasant living standards?
-Did peasants display a distinctive pattern of consumption and expenditure?

General and introductory:

Dyer, C., Standards of living in the later middle ages (rev. ed., 1998), chs 5 & 6
Dyer, C., An Age of Transition? Economy and Society in England in the later middle
ages (2005), esp. chs. 2 and 4
Gilchrist, R., Medieval life: archaeology and the life course (2012)., ch. 4
Goldberg, P.J.P., ‘The fashioning of bourgeois domesticity in later medieval England:
a material culture perspective’, in M. Kowaleski and P.J.P. Goldberg, eds.,
Medieval Domesticity: Home, Housing and Household in Medieval England
(2008)
*Hanawalt, B., The ties that bound. Peasant families in medieval England (1986)
esp. chs I and III
Jaritz, G., ‘The material culture of the peasantry in the late middle ages: “image” and
“reality”’, in D. Sweeney, ed., Agriculture in the Middle Ages: Technology,
Practice, and Representation (1995).
*Kowaleski, M., ‘A consumer economy’, in R. Horrox and M. Ormrod, eds., A Social
History of England, 1200-1500 (2006) [e-book]

Families and households: structure and character

Macfarlane, A., The Origins of English Individualism (1978)

Schofield, P.R., Peasant and community in medieval England (2003)

Housing

Alcock, N., ‘The medieval peasant at home: England, 1250-1550’, in C. Beattie, A.

Maslakovic, and S. Rees Jones, eds., The Medieval Household in Christian
Europe c.850-c.1550. Managing Power, Wealth and the Body (2003)
**Dyer, C., ‘English peasant buildings in the later middle ages’, Medieval
Archaeology 30 (1986), reprinted in Dyer, Everyday Life in Medieval
England 1994)
*Grenville, J., Medieval Housing (1997). chapter on peasant housing

Diet

*Dyer, C., ‘Changes in diet in the later middle ages: the case of harvest workers’,
AgHR, 36 (1988), [electronic, via JSTOR; also in Dyer, Everyday life in
medieval England (1994)]
Dyer, C., ‘English diet in the later middle ages’, in T.H.Aston et al., Social Relations
and Ideas (1983)

25
Woolgar, C.M., Serjeantson, T., and Waldron, D., eds., Food in Medieval England
(2006) [useful studies by Dyer, Schofield, and Stone]

Material possessions and clothing

*Field, R.K., ‘Worcestershire peasant buildings, household goods and farming

equipment in the later middle ages’, Medieval Archaeology, 9 (1965).
Hinton, D.A., ‘Deserted medieval villages and the objects from them’, in C. Dyer and
R. Jones, eds., Deserted Medieval Villages Revisited (2010)

26
13. Serfdom

Themes and debates:

-How and why did serfdom/villeinage emerge in the later twelfth and early thirteenth
centuries?
-When and why did serfdom decline?
-To what extent did serfdom/villeinage have detrimental economic effects?

General and introductory:

On the growth of the common law

Hudson, J., The formation of the English common law (1996), esp. Introduction and
ch. 7

Key contributions to the debate on villenage

*Bailey, M., ‘Villeinage in England: a regional case study, c.1250-c.1349’, EcHR, 62

(2009) [electronic: ejournals]
*Hatcher, J. ‘English serfdom and villeinage: towards a reassessment’, Past &
Present, 90 (1981) [electronic: JSTOR; also in T.H. Aston (ed.), Landlords,
peasants and politics in medieval England (1987)]
*Hilton, R.H. ‘Freedom and villeinage in England’, P&P, 31 (1965) [electronic:
JSTOR; also reprinted in Hilton, ed., Peasants, knights and heretics
(1976)]
*Hyams, P., King, lords and peasants in Medieval England (1980). Try starting with
parts I and IV
Kanzaka, J., ‘Villein rents in thirteenth-century England: an analysis of the Hundred
Rolls of 1279-80’, EcHR, 55 (2002) [electronic: JSTOR]
*Razi, Z., ‘Serfdom and freedom in medieval England: a reply to the revisionists’, in
C. Dyer, P. Coss and C. Wickham, (eds.), Rodney Hilton’s middle ages (2007)
[electronic: ejournals]

More detailed studies of the period c.1050-c.1200

Faith, R., The English Peasantry and Growth of Lordship (1997), esp. ch. 10.
Pelteret, D.A.E., Slavery in Early Medieval England: from the reign of Alfred until the
Twelfth Century (1995).

Other useful studies on different aspects of freedom and villeinage

Carpenter, D.A., ‘English peasants in politics, 1258-67’, Past & Present, 136 (1992).
[electronic: JSTOR; villeins and the law]
Dyer, C., ‘Memories of freedom: attitudes towards serfdom in England, 1200-1350’,
in M. Bush (ed.), Serfdom and slavery: studies in legal bondage (1996)
[analyzes lawsuits in which villeins claimed to be tenants of ‘ancient
demesne’]
Smith, R.M., ‘Some thoughts on hereditary and proprietary rights in land under
customary law’, Law and History Review, 1 (1983) [electronic: JSTOR]

27
Smith R.M., ‘The English peasantry, 1250-1650’, in T. Scott, ed., The peasantries of
Europe from the fourteenth to the eighteenth centuries (1998)

For a recent discussion of the issues, see also:

Briggs, C., ‘English serfdom, c.1200-c.1350: towards an institutionalist analysis’, in

Cavaciocchi, S., ed., Schiavitu e servaggio nell’economia europea. secc. XI-
XVIII. / Slavery and serfdom in the European economy from the 11th to the
18th centuries (2014) available at:
https://cambridge.academia.edu/ChrisBriggs

The decline of villeinage:

**Bailey, M., The decline of serfdom in late medieval England: from bondage to
freedom (2014) [e-book]

Important older studies on villeinage in its heyday, and in decline:

Davenport, F., ‘The decay of villeinage in East Anglia’, TRHS, 14 (1900) [electronic:
via ejournals UL catalogue]
Gray, H.L., ‘The commutation of labour services in England before the Black Death’,
EHR 29 (1914) [electronic: JSTOR]
Hilton, R., The Decline of Serfdom in Medieval England (1969; 2nd ed., 1983)
*Pollock F. and Maitland, F.W., The History of English Law before the Time of
Edward I (2 vols., 1895), vol. I, sections on ‘unfree tenure’ and ‘the unfree’
[available online at archive.org]
Poole, A.L., The Obligations of Society in XII and XIII centuries (1946). Ch. II.

28
14. Towns, markets and trade 1050-c.1350

Themes and debates:

-How extensive was urban growth in this period and how should we account for it?
-How great an impact did overseas trade have on the wider economy?
-What was the relative importance of informal and formal trade and marketing?

General and introductory:

Beresford, M., New towns of the middle ages. Town Plantation in England, Wales
and Gascony (1967)
Britnell, R., ‘Urban demand in the English economy, 1300-1600’ in J.A. Galloway,
ed., Trade, urban hinterlands and market integration c.1300-1600 (2000)
[importance of demand from small towns]
Britnell, R., ‘England: Towns, Trade and Industry’, in S. Rigby, ed., A companion to
Britain in the late middle ages (2009 edition) [e-book]
Dyer, C., ‘Small places with large consequences: the importance of small towns in
England, 1000-1540’, Historical Research, 75 (2002) [electronic]
Dyer, C. ‘How urbanized was medieval England?’ in J-M. Duvosquel and E. Thoen,
eds., Peasants and Townsmen in Medieval Europe (1995) [on Moodle]
Lynch, M., Spearman, M., and Stell, G., eds. The Scottish Medieval Town (1988)
*Miller, E., and Hatcher, J., Medieval England: Towns, Commerce and Crafts 1086-
1348 (1995) [whole book is relevant; ch. 2 on industries especially good]
**Palliser, D.M. (ed.), The Cambridge Urban History of Britain Volume I 600-1540
(2000) [e-book], Part II, esp. chs. 5 and **6
Platt, C., The English Mediaeval Town (1979) [a bit dated, but an ‘easy’ introduction]
*Reynolds, S., Introduction to the History of English Medieval Towns (1977)

NB for case studies of specific towns try the essays at:

http://www.historictownsatlas.org.uk/ (also useful for economic history topic 15 and
social history 9), and for primary sources G. Rosser, Towns in medieval England:
selected suorces (2016)

Markets & fairs

**Britnell, R.H., ‘The proliferation of markets in England, 1200-1349’, EcHR, 34

(1981) [electronic: JSTOR]
Britnell, R.H., The Commercialisation of English Society 1000-1500 (2nd edition,
1996), part 2 esp. ch. 4
Dyer, C., ‘Market towns and the countryside in late medieval England’, Canadian
Journal of History 31 (1996) [useful here even though it considers the period
after as well as before 1348]
Masschaele, J., Peasants, merchants and markets. Inland Trade in Medieval
England 1150-1350 (1998) [a strong statement of the intensification of trade in
the countryside and the importance of rural markets in this period]
Moore, E.W., The Fairs of Medieval England: An Introductory Study (1985)

29
 Towns in Domesday Book

Darby, H.C., Domesday England (1977), ch. 10

Palliser, D., Domesday York (Borthwick Paper, 1990) [31 pages]
Reynolds, S., ‘Towns in Domesday Book’ in J. Holt, ed., Domesday Studies (1987)

Studies of particular towns/regions in this period: a selection

London

Keene, D., ‘Medieval London and its region’, London Journal 14 (1989) [Moodle]
Williams, G., Medieval London: From Commune to capital (1963)

Other:

Bailey, M., ‘The economy of towns and markets, 1100-1500’, in T.R. Slater and N.
Goose, eds., A county of small towns: the development of Hertfordshire’s
urban landscape to 1800 (2008)
Britnell, R., ‘Boroughs, markets and trade in northern England, 1000-1216’, in R.
Britnell and J. Hatcher eds., Progress and Problems in Medieval England
(1996)
Carus-Wilson, E. ‘The first half century of the borough of Stratford upon avon’,
EcHR, 18 (1965) [JSTOR; also in Holt, R., and Rosser, G. eds., The English
Medieval Town. A Reader in English Urban History 1200-1540 (1990)]
*Goddard, R., ‘Small boroughs and the manorial economy: enterprise zones or urban
failures?’, P&P, 210 (2011) [electronic]
Rawcliffe, C., and Wilson, R., eds., Medieval Norwich (2004) see esp. chapters by
Campbell and Rutledge

Overseas trade (for inland trade see under ‘markets and fairs’, above):

Carus-Wilson, E., and Coleman, O., England’s export trade, 1275-1547 (1963)
Lloyd, T.H., The English wool trade in the middle ages (1977)
Power, E., The wool trade in English medieval history (1941)

30
15. Towns, markets and trade c.1350-c.1500

Themes and debates:

-To what extent did the role of markets and marketing change in this period?
-In what ways did changes in the textile industry affect the fortunes of towns?
-Did British towns suffer economic deline in this period?

Introductions to medieval towns which include coverage of this period:

Dyer, A., Decline and Growth in English Towns 1400-1640 (1995)

Holt, R., and Rosser, G., eds., The English Medieval Town. A Reader in English
Urban History 1200-1540 (1990) (reprints some classic studies on towns in
this period; Also some useful further reading suggestions at the end of
each chapter)
Reynolds, S., An Introduction to the History of English Medieval Towns (1977)
Swanson, H., Medieval British Towns (1999)

NB for case studies of specific towns try the essays at:

http://www.historictownsatlas.org.uk/ (also useful for economic history topic 14 and
social history 9), and for primary sources G. Rosser, Towns in medieval England:
selected suorces (2016)

The Cambridge Urban History of Britain:

*Palliser, D., (ed.) The Cambridge Urban History of Britain Vol. 1, 600-1540 (2000)
[e-book], Part III, especially chapters 12, 14, 17, 18, 20. Chapters 22 and 23
concern Welsh and Scottish towns.

The debate about later medieval ‘urban decay’:

Dobson, R.B., ‘Urban decline in late medieval England’, TRHS (1977) [electronic; via
ejournals (UL catalogue) ; also reprinted in Holt and Rosser, eds., The
English Medieval Town (see above)
Dyer, A., ‘ “Urban decline” in England, 1377-1525’, in T.R. Slater, ed., Towns in
Decline AD 100-1600 (2000)
Palliser, D., ‘Urban decay revisited’, in J.A.F. Thomson, ed., Towns and
Townspeople in the Fifteenth Century (1988)
Phythian Adams, C., ‘Urban decay in late medieval England’, in P. Abrams and E.A.
Wrigley (eds.), Towns in Societies (1978)
Rigby, S.H., ‘Late medieval urban prosperity: the evidence of the lay subsidies’,
EcHR, 39 (1986) [electronic: JSTOR]
*Rigby, S.H., ‘Urban population in late medieval England: the evidence of the lay
subsidies’, EcHR, 63 (2010) [electronic: via Ejournals; this article goes beyond
the issue of urban decay]

Local and regional trade

*Dyer, C., ‘The consumer and the market in the later middle ages’, EcHR, 42 (1989)
[electronic: JSTOR; also available in Dyer, Everyday Life in Medieval
England (1994)]

31
Dyer, C., and Laughton, J., ‘Seasonal patterns of trade in the later middle ages:
buying and selling at Melton Mowbray, Leicestershire, 1400-1520’,
Nottingham Medieval Studies, 46 (2002)
Hicks, M. (ed.), English inland trade 1430-1540: Southampton and its region (2015)
Lee, J.S., ‘The trade of fifteenth-century Cambridge and its region’, in M. Hicks, ed.,
Revolution and Consumption in Late Medieval England (2001)
Mate, M., ‘The rise and fall of markets in southeast England’, Canadian Journal of
History, 31 (1996)

The later medieval cloth industry

*Bailey, M., Medieval Suffolk: an Economic and Social History, 1200-1500 (2007),
chapters 11 and 12, which are also good on general changes in trade and
markets, 1349-1500
Bridbury, A.R., Medieval English Clothmaking: an Economic Survey (1982)
*Carus-Wilson, E., ‘Evidences of industrial growth on some fifteenth-century
manors’, EcHR 12 (1959) [JSTOR], reprinted in Carus-Wilson, ed., Essays in
Economic history Volume II(1962)
Hare, J.N., ‘Growth and recession in the fifteenth-century economy: the Wiltshire
textile industry and the countryside’, EcHR, 52 (1999) [electronic: JSTOR]
Hare, J., A Prospering Society: Wiltshire in the Later Middle Ages (2011), chapters
10 and 11
Oldland, J., ‘Wool and cloth production in late medieval and early Tudor England’,
EcHR, 67 (2014) [online]

Overseas trade in wool and cloth

Carus-Wilson, E., and Coleman, O., England’s Export Trade, 1275-1547 (1963)
Carus-Wilson, E., Medieval Merchant venturers (2nd ed., 1967), esp. ch. VI
Kermode, J., Medieval Merchants: York, Beverly and Hull in the Later Middle Ages
(1998)
Power, E., ‘The wool trade in the fifteenth century’, in E. Power and M. Postan, eds.,
Studies in English Trade in the Fifteenth century (1933)

Other aspects of overseas trade

Childs, W., ‘England’s iron trade in the fifteenth century’, EcHR, 34 (1981)
Childs, W., Anglo-Castilian Trade in the Later Middle Ages (1978)
Hatcher, J., English Tin production and trade before 1550 (1973)
James, M.K., Studies in the Medieval Wine Trade (1971)

Some studies of particular towns

Amor, N., Late medieval Ipswich: Trade and Industry (2011) [UL & Seeley]
Bailey, M., ‘A tale of two towns: Buntingford and Standon in the late middle ages’,
Journal of Medieval Hist. (1993) [electronic: via CUL catalogue, ejournals]
Barron, C. London in the Later Middle Ages. Government and People 1200-1500
(2004)
*Britnell, R.H., Growth and Decline in Colchester 1300-1525 (1986)
*Kowaleski, M., Local Markets and Regional Trade in Medieval Exeter (1995)

32
Lee, J.S., Cambridge and its Economic Region 1450-1560 (2005)
Palliser, D., Medieval York 600-1540 (2014) [e-book], chs. 6 and 7
Phythian-Adams, C., Desolation of a City. Coventry and the Urban Crisis of the Late
Middle Ages (1979)
Platt, C., Medieval Southampton. The port and trading community, AD 1000-1600
(1973), parts III and IV
Rigby, S.H., Medieval Grimsby, Growth and Decline (1993)

33
16. Money and credit

Themes and debates:

-In what ways did the supply of money change between 1150 and 1500 and how did
these changes affect the economy?
-How important was credit and in what ways did this change over time?
-To what extent was the economy in this period completely ‘monetized’?

General and introductory:

*Bolton, J.L., ‘What is money? What is a money economy? When did a money
economy emerge in medieval England?’, in Webb, D., ed., Medieval Money
Matters (2004)
Bolton, J.L. Money in the medieval English economy: 973-1489 (2012)
*Dyer, C., ‘Peasants and coins: the uses of money in the middle ages’, British
Numismatic Journal, 67 (1997)
Spufford, P., Money and its uses in Medieval Europe (1989) [e-book]
Wood, D., ed., Medieval Money Matters (2004; all studies relevant)

On the mints and the coinage:

Challis, C., ed., A New History of the Royal Mint (1992), ch. 2, by Mayhew.

For discussion of a ‘monetarist’ interpretation of the medieval economy:

Mayhew, N.J., ‘Population, money supply and the velocity of circulation in England,
1300-1700’, EcHR, 2nd ser. 48 (1995) [JSTOR]
Munro, J.H., ‘Wage-stickiness, monetary changes, and real incomes in late medieval
England and the Low Countries, 1300-1500: did money matter?’, Research in
Economic History, 21 (2003), 185-297 [P220.b.116; not for the faint-hearted
but good example of work by a major advocate of the importance of money in
medieval economic change]

On changes in the quantity of money in medieval England and their effects:

*Allen, M., ‘The volume of the English currency, 1158-1470’, EcHR, 54 (2001)
[electronic: JSTOR: for a slightly updated version see: M. Allen, Mints and
Money in Medieval England (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012),
chapter 10. – e-book]
Mate, M., ‘The role of the gold coinage in the English economy, 1338-1400’,
Numismatic Chronicle, 18 (1978)
Mayhew, N.J., ‘Numismatic evidence and falling prices in the fourteenth century’,
EcHR, 2nd ser. 27 (1974) [electronic: JSTOR]
*Nightingale, Pamela, ‘Gold, credit and mortality: distinguishing deflationary
pressures on the late medieval English economy’, EcHR, 63 (2010)
[electronic: JSTOR]

34
On credit:

Bolton, J.L., ‘Was there a “crisis of credit” in fifteenth-century England?’, British

Numismatic Journal 81 (2011) [Moodle]
Briggs, C., ‘The availability of credit in the English countryside, 1400-1480’,
AgHR 56 (2008) [electronic: via www.bahs.org.uk]
Briggs, C., Credit and Village Society in Fourteenth-Century England (2009)
Goddard, R., Credit and Trade in Later Medieval England, 1353-1532 (2016)
Jenkinson, H., ‘William Cade, a financier of the twelfth century’, EHR, 28 (1913)
[electronic]
Nightingale, P., ‘Monetary contraction and mercantile credit in later medieval
England’, EcHR, 2nd ser. 43 (1990), 560-75.
Nightingale, P., ‘The impact of crises on credit in the late medieval English
economy’, in A.T. Brown, A. Burn and R. Doherty (eds.), Crises in economic
and social history (2015)
Postan, M.M., ‘Credit in medieval trade’, in Postan, Medieval Trade and Finance
(1973)

On Jewish lending, 1066-1290:

Mundill, R.R., England’s Jewish Solution. Experiment and Expulsion, 1262-1290

(1998), esp. Chs. 5 and 7.
Stacey, R.C., ‘Jewish lending and the medieval economy’, in A Commercialising
economy. England 1086 to c. 1300, ed. R.H. Britnell and B.M.S. Campbell
(1995)

On coinage and money in Scotland

Gemmill, E., and Mayhew, N.J., Changing values in medieval Scotland: A study of
prices, money, and weights and measures (1995), ch. 4
Mayhew, N.J., ‘Scotland: economy and society’, in S.H. Rigby, ed., A companion to
Britain in the later middle ages (2009 ed.) [e-book] esp. pp. 111-15, and see
also further reading suggestions therein.

35
 SOCIAL HISTORY

1. The structure of medieval society: contemporary theories

Medieval ideas about society in their wider European context; the scriptural and
philosophical bases for these ideas; views about society as a hierarchy, especially
the concept of the three orders; contemporary vocabulary used to describe social
groups; the relationship between elite and clerical theories of social hierarchy and
order, and social reality.

Medieval social thought in the wider European context:

Constable, G., ‘The orders of society’, in his Three studies in medieval religious and
social thought (1995) [e-book via UL catalogue], esp. Introduction (pp. 251-
66)

Duby, G., The three orders: feudal society imagined (1978)

Freedman, P., Images of the medieval peasant (1999), esp. Ch. 1.

England, especially the later middle ages:

Dyer, C., Standards of living in the later middle ages (rev. ed., 1998), chapter 1

*Keen, M., English society in the later middle ages, 1348-1500 (1990) [e-book via UL
catalogue], esp. ch. 1

**Rigby, S.H., ‘Introduction: social structure and economic change in late medieval
England’, in R. Horrox and W.M. Ormrod, eds., A Social History of England
1200-1500 (2006) [e-book]

2. The structure of medieval society: modern theories

Theories about the sources of social inequality, especially those of Marx and Weber;
classes and status groups; functionalist social theory and medieval history.

Introductory:

**Rigby, S.H., ‘Introduction: social structure and economic change in late medieval
England’, in R. Horrox and W.M. Ormrod, eds., A Social History of England
1200-1500 (2006) [e-book]

Rigby, S.H., English Society in the Later Middle Ages (1995)

Rigby, S. H., ‘Approaches to pre-industrial social structure’, in J. H. Denton, ed.,

Orders and Hierarchies in Late Medieval and Renaissance Europe (1999)
[summarizes some key ideas from Rigby’s 1995 book, above]
General introductions to the relevant social theories:

36
Burke, P., History and Social Theory (1992)

Crone, P., Pre-industrial Societies (1989)

Giddens, A., Capitalism and Modern Social Theory (1979)

For Marxist and Weberian views of social structure, see:

Rigby, S.H., Marxism and History (1987)

Gerth, H.H., and C. Wright Mills (eds.), From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology
(1991), esp. pp. 180-94

Parsons, T., Essays in Sociological Theory (1958)

On peasantry:

Hilton, R.H., The English Peasantry in the Later Middle Ages (1975), esp. chs. 1 & 2

Homans, G.C., English Villagers of the Thirteenth Century (1941). George Caspar
Homans (1910-1989) was a US sociologist and medieval historian.

Schofield, P.R., Peasants and historians: debating the medieval English peasantry
(2016)

3. Trends: a chronological overview

The Norman conquest and English society; the growth of urban and mercantile
society and the professions; English society in 1379; social mobility and the later
middle ages.

Introductory and general:

*Crick, J., and Van Houts, E. (eds.), A Social History of England 900-1200 (2011).

*Bailey, M., ‘Rural society’, in Fifteenth Century Attitudes ed. R Horrox (1994)

Coss, P., ‘An age of deference’, in Horrox, R., and Ormrod, W.M., eds., A Social
History of England, 1200-1500 (2006) [e-book]

Social mobility and the later middle ages:

*Carocci, S., ‘Social mobility and the middle ages’, Continuity & Change, 26 (2011)
[electronic: ejournals]

Du Boulay, F.R.H., An Age of Ambition: English Society in the Later Middle Ages
(1970).

37
Bennett, M.J., ‘Careerism in late medieval England’, in J. Rosenthal and C.
Richmond, eds., People, politics and community in the later middle ages
(1987)

Hilton, R.H., ‘Ideology and social order in late medieval England’, in Hilton, Class
conflict and the crisis of feudalism (revised 2nd ed., 1990) [commentary on Du
Boulay]

*Maddern, P., ‘Social mobility’, in Horrox, R., and Ormrod, W.M., eds., A Social
History of England, 1200-1500 (2006) [e-book]

*Payling, S., ‘Social Mobility, Demographic Change and Landed Society in Late
Medieval England’, Economic History Rev., 1992 [JSTOR]

Rigby, S.H., ‘English society in the later middle ages: deference, ambition and
conflict’, in P. Brown, ed., A companion to medieval English literature and
culture (2007) [e-book via UL catalogue]

4. Debates, sources and methods

Primary sources for social history; the development of medieval social history as a
field of study; some debates: the individual and community; kin and family.

For an introduction, try:

Goldberg, P.J.P., Medieval England: A Social History 1250-1550 (2004) esp. Part I

A controversial yet influential book that has informed many debates in medieval
social history is:

*Macfarlane, A., The Origins of English Individualism (1978)

On community, family and kinship:

Dyer, C., Power and conflict in the medieval English village’, in Dyer, Everyday Life
in Medieval England (1994)

Dyer, C., ‘The English medieval village community and its decline’, Journal of
British Studies 33 (1994) [jstor]

*Fleming, P., Family and Household in Medieval England (2001)

Razi, Z., ‘The myth of the immutable English family’, P&P, 140 (1993) [electronic:
JSTOR]

*Schofield, P.R., ‘England: the family and the village community’, in S. Rigby, ed., A
Companion to Britain in the later middle Ages (2009 ed.) [e-book]

38
Smith, R.M. ‘“Modernization” and the corporate medieval village community in
England: some sceptical reflections’, in A.R.H. Baker and D. Gregory (eds.),
Explorations in Historical Geography (1984)

39
5. The monasteries and religious orders in English society c.1066-1215

Themes and debates:

-Why were so many religious houses founded in the twelfth century and why did the
rate of foundation decline towards the end of that century?
-How is the popularity of the friars in the thirteenth century to be explained?

European Context
Lawrence, C.H., Medieval Monasticism (2nd ed., 1989)

Monks, Canons and Hermits in the British Isles

Burton, J., Monastic and Religious Orders in Britain 1000-1300 (1994)
Burton, J., The Monastic Order in Yorkshire, 1069-1215 (1999)
Burton, J., and Kerr, J., The Cistercians in the Middle Ages (2011). For the
development of the order in European context.
Burton J., and Stöber, K., (eds), The Regular Canons in the British Isles, (2011).
Burton, J., and Stöber, K. eds., Monastic Wales: new approaches, ed. J (2013)
Cownie, E., Religious Patronage in Anglo-Norman England 1066-1135 (1998)
Golding, B., ‘Burials and Benefactions: an aspect of monastic patronage in
thirteenth-century England’, in W.M. Ormrod (ed), England in the Thirteenth
Century (1985)
Harper-Bill, C., ‘The Piety of the Anglo-Norman Knightly Class, in R.A. Brown (ed),
Proceedings of the Battle Conference (1979)
Hill, B.D., English Cistercian Monks and their Patrons in the Twelfth Century (1968)
Licence, T., Hermits and Recluses in English Society, 950-1200 (2011).
Matthew, D.J.A., The Norman Monasteries and their English Possessions (1962)
Thompson, S., Women Religious: the Foundation of English Nunneries after the
Norman Conquest (1991)
Wood, S., English Monasteries and their Patrons in the Thirteenth Century (1955)

Friars
Brooke, R., The Image of St Francis, 2006.
Burton, J., The Monastic and Religious Orders in Britain 1000-1300 (1994), ch. 6.
D’Avray, D., The Preaching of the Friars (1985)
Hinnebusch, W.A., The Early English Friars Preachers (1951)
Lawrence, C.H., The Friars: the impact of the early mendicant movement on
Western society (1994)
Little, L.K., Religious Poverty and the Profit Economy in Medieval Europe (1978)
Mayr-Harting, H., Religion, Politics and Society in Britain 1066-1272, 2011.
Moorman, J.R.H., A History of the Franciscan Order from its Origins to 1517 (1968),
Parts I and II.

Primary Sources
Brooke, R., The Coming of the Friars (1975)
Jones, D., (transl), Friars' tales: thirteenth-century exempla from the British Isles
(2011)

40
6. Church, parish and people 1050-1300

Themes and debates:

- How much can be known about the religion of ‘ordinary believers’ in the period
c.1050 to c.1215?
- What was the role of the saints in twelfth- and thirteenth-century religious culture?
- When, and why, did the parish emerge as the focus of lay religious practice?

Introductory

Brown, A., Church and Society in England, 1000-1500 (2003) [e-book].

Mayr-Harting, H., Religion, Politics and Society in Medieval Britain 1066-1272 (2011)
Tanner, N. and S. Watson, 'Least of the laity: the minimum requirements for a
medieval Christian', Journal of Medieval History 32 (2006)
Watkins, C.S., ‘Religion and Belief’ in A Social History of England, 900-1200, ed.
E.M.C. Van Houts and J. Crick (2011).

Parishes and Pastoral Care

Blair, J. (ed), Minsters and parish churches: the local church in transition, 950-
1200 (1988).
Blair, J., and Sharpe, R., Pastoral Care Before the Parish (1992).
Blair, J., The Church in Anglo-Saxon Society (2005), chapters 6-9.
Brentano, R., The Two Churches: England and Italy in the thirteenth century (1968).
Brett, M., The English Church under Henry I (1971).
Hamilton, S., Church and People in the Medieval West (2013)
Murray, A., 'Confession before 1215', Transactions of the Royal Historical Society

Sixth Series, Vol. 3 (1993) (JSTOR)

Mason, E., ‘The Role of the English Parishioner, 1100-1500’, Jnl. of Ecclesiastical
History 27 (1976) [electronic]
Lawrence, C.H., ‘The English Parish and its Clergy in the Thirteenth Century’, in The
Medieval World, ed. P. Linehan and J. Nelson (2000)
Thomas, H.M., ‘Lay Piety in England from 1066 to 1215’, Anglo-Norman Studies, 29
(2006).
Warner, P., ‘Shared Churchyards: freemen church-builders and the development of
parishes in medieval East Anglia’, Landscape History, 8 (1986), 39-52.

Saints and Relics

Crook, J., English Medieval Shrines (2011), chapters 5-8.

Finucane, R.C., Miracles and Pilgrims: popular beliefs in medieval England (1977)
Vincent, N., The Holy Blood: Henry III and the Westminster Blood Relic (2001)
Ward, B., Miracles and the Medieval Mind: theory, record and event (1982)
Webb, D., Pilgrimage in Medieval England (2000)
Yarrow, S., Saints and their Communities: miracle stories in twelfth-century England
(2005)

41
7. Church, parish and people 1300-1500

Themes and debates:

-Was the adaptability of the late medieval church to the needs of the laity its chief
source of strength?
-Was provision for the souls of the dead the defining characteristic of late medieval
lay piety?

Introductory

Brown, A., Church and Society in England, 1000-1500 (2003) [e-book].

Duffy, E., ‘Religious Belief’, in R. Horrox and W.M. Ormrod, eds., A Social History of
England 1200-1500 (2006) [e-book]
Harper-Bill, C., The Church in Pre-Reformation England (rev edn, 1996).

General Studies

Bernard, G.W., The Late Medieval English Church: vitality and vulnerability before
the break with Rome (2012).
Brown, A.D., Popular Piety in Late Medieval England: the diocese of Salisbury,
1250-1550 (1995) [e-book]
Duffy, E., The Stripping of the Altars: traditional religion in England 1400-1580, 1993,
introduction and part I.
Duffy, E., The Voices of Morebath: religion and rebellion in an English village (2002),
chapters 1-4.
Hughes, J., Pastors and Visionaries: religion and secular life in late medieval
Yorkshire (1988)

Aspects of Religious Culture

Kümin, B., The Shaping of a Community: the rise and reformation of the English
Parish c.1400-1560 (1996)
Burgess, C., ‘“A Fond Thing Vainly Invented”: an essay on Purgatory and pious
motive in late medieval England’, in Parish, Church and People, ed. S. Wright
(1988)
Gibson, G.M., The Theater of Devotion: East Anglian drama and society in the
late middle ages (1983)
Peters, C., Patterns of Piety: women, gender and religion in late medieval and early
modern England.
Rosser, G., ‘Communities of Parish and Guild in the Late Middle Ages’ in Parish,
Church and People, ed. S. Wright (1988)
Rosser, G., ‘Parochial Conformity and Popular Religion in Late Medieval England’,
TRHS (1991).
Rubin, M., Charity and Community in Medieval Cambridge (1987)
Sumption, J., Pilgrimage: an image of medieval religion (1975)
Webb, D., Pilgrimage in Medieval England (2000)

Carpenter, C., ‘Religion’, in Gentry Culture in Late Medieval England, ed.

R.Radulescu and A. Truelove (2005)

42
Carpenter, C., ‘The Religion of the Gentry of Fifteenth-Century England’ in England
in the Fifteenth Century, ed. D. Williams (1987).
Saul, N., Death, Art, and Memory in Medieval England. The Cobham Family and
their Monuments 1300-1500 (2001)
Saul, N., Lordship and faith: the English gentry and the parish church in the middle
ages (2017) [e-book]
Thompson, B., ‘Monasteries and their Patrons at Foundation and Dissolution’, TRHS
(1994)

Marks, R., Image and Devotion in Late Medieval England (2004)

Marks, R., and Williamson, P., (eds), Gothic: art for England (2003), chapters 16, 18,
19, 20.

Primary Sources

Medieval Popular Religion, 1000-1500, ed, J. Shinners (1999)

Pastors and the Care of Souls in Medieval England, ed. J. Shinners and W.J. Dohar
(1998)
Catholic England: faith, religion and observance before the Reformation, ed. R.N.
Swanson (1993)

E. Peacock (ed), John Myrc’s Instructions for Parish Priests, EETS, 1868
T.F. Simmons (ed), Lay Folks Mass Book, EETS, 1879
Lay Folks Catechism, EETS, 1901

The leading English mystics are available in Penguin Classics, including Richard
Rolle, Julian of Norwich, Margery Kempe and Walter Hilton.

43
8. Heresy and heterodoxy 1300-1500

Themes and debates:

-Was Lollardy ever a serious threat to the late medieval Church?

-How sharp was the dividing line between ‘Lollards’ and ‘orthodox’ believers?
-Does the term ‘heterodoxy’ rather than ‘orthodoxy’ or ‘heresy’ best describe the
beliefs of late medieval parishioners?

Introductory

Rex, R., The Lollards (2002) [e-book]

Lollardy

Aston, M., and Richmond, C. (eds), Lollardy and the Gentry in the Later Middle Ages
(1997)
Aston, M., Faith and Fire: popular and unpopular religion 1350-1600 (1993)
Aston, M., Lollards and Reformers: images and literacy in late medieval religion,
(1984)
Biller, P., and Dobson, R.B. (eds), The Medieval Church: universities, heresy and the
religious life. Essays in honour of Gordon Leff (1999)
Biller, P., and Hudson, A., eds., Heresy and Literacy 1000-1530 (1994), chapters 13
and 16.
Davies, R.G., ‘Lollardy and Locality’, TRHS (1991)
Forrest, I., The Detection of Heresy in Late Medieval England (2005)
Hudson, A., The Premature Reformation: Wycliffite texts and Lollard History (1988)
Jurkowski, M., ‘Lollardy and social status in East Anglia’, Speculum, 82 (2007)
Lutton, R., Lollardy and Orthodox Religion in pre-Reformation England (2006)
McFarlane, K.B., Lancastrian Kings and Lollard Knights (1972), Part 2.
McSheffrey, S., ‘Heresy, Orthodoxy and English Vernacular Religion 1480–1525’,
P&P, 186 (2005)
Somerset, F. (ed),The Lollards and their Influence in Late Medieval England (2003)
Thomson, J.A.F., ‘Orthodox Religion and the Origins of Lollardy’, History, (1989)
[online via ejournals]
Thomson, J.A.F., The Later Lollards,1414-1520 (1965).

Sources
English Historical Documents, volume 4, section G (texts dealing with Lollardy).
Selections from English Wycliffite Writings, ed. A, Hudson (1978)

44
9. Town life

Themes and debates:

-what distinguished town life from its rural counterpart?

-is the term ‘oligarchy’ a useful one for understanding medieval British towns?
-to what extent did the structure of urban society change between the 12th and 15th
centuries?

General and introductory:

**Britnell, R., ‘Town life’, in R. Horrox and W.M. Ormrod, eds., A Social History of
England 1200-1500 (2006) [e-book]
Holt, R., and Rosser, G., eds., The English Medieval Town. A Reader in English
Urban History 1200-1540 (1990)
Platt, C., The English Mediaeval Town (1979) [esp. ch. 4; a bit dated, but an ‘easy’
introduction]
*Reynolds, S., Introduction to the History of English Medieval Towns (1977) ch. 8
Rigby, S., and E. Ewan, ‘Government, power and authority, 1300-1540’, in D.
Palliser, ed., Cambridge Urban History of Britain (2000)

NB for case studies of specific towns try the essays at:

http://www.historictownsatlas.org.uk/ (also useful for economic history topics 14-15),
and for primary sources G. Rosser, Towns in medieval England: selected suorces
(2016)

Studies of specific issues and places

Bailey, M., ‘Self-government in the small towns of late medieval England’, in B.

Dodds and C.D. Liddy, (eds.), Commercial Activity, Markets and
Entrepreneurs in the Middle Ages (2011).
Hibbert, A., ‘The origins of the medieval town patriciate’, P&P, 3 (1953).
Horrox, R., ‘The urban gentry in the fifteenth century’, in Towns and Townspeople in
the Fifteenth Century, ed., J.A.F. Thomson (1988).
Horrox, R., ‘Urban patronage and patrons in the fifteenth century’, in R.A. Griffiths
(ed.), Patronage, the Crown and the Provinces in Later Medieval England
(1981).
James, M. ‘Ritual drama and the social body in the late medieval English town’, P&P,
98 (1983).
Kermode, J.I., ‘Urban decline? The flight from office in late medieval York’, EcHR, 35
(1982).
Kowaleski, M. ‘The commercial dominance of a medieval provincial oligarchy: Exeter
in the later 14th century’, Mediaeval Studies, 46 (1984), also in Holt and
Rosser, G. (eds.), The English Medieval Town (above).
Liddy, C., Contesting the City: the Politics of Citizenship in English Towns, 1250-
1530 (2017)
McRee, B.R., ‘Religious gilds and civic order: the case of Norwich in the late middle
ages’, Speculum, 67 (1992).
Miller, E., ‘Rulers of thirteenth-century towns: the cases of York and Newcastle-
upon-Tyne’, in P. Coss and S. Lloyd (eds.), Thirteenth-Century England I

45
 (1986).
Ormrod, M., McDonald, N. & Taylor, C. (eds.), Resident Aliens in Later Medieval
England, Studies in European Urban History: 42 (Turnhout, 2018), esp.
chapters by Bolton (London), Guidi-Bruscoli & Lutkin (London and
Southampton), Liddy & Lambert (Great Yarmouth), and Kowaleski (Exeter).
Palliser, D., Medieval York 600-1540 (2014) [e-book], chs. 6 and 7
Reynolds, S., ‘The rulers of London in the twelfth century’, History, 57 (1972).
Rigby, S. ‘Urban “oligarchy” in late medieval England’, in J. Thomson (ed) Towns
and Townspeople in the Fifteenth Century (1988).
Rigby, S.H., English Society in the Late Middle Ages: Class, Status and Gender
(1995), ch. 4.
Rosser, G., ‘The essence of Medieval urban communities: The vill of Westminster’,
TRHS, 34 (1984), also in Holt and Rosser, G. (eds.), The English Medieval
Town (above).
Swanson, H., Medieval Artisans: an Urban Class in Late Medieval England (1989).
Thrupp, S., The Merchant Class of Medieval London (1948).

46
10. Women, men and gender

Themes and debates:

-how far did medieval women enjoy ‘agency’?
-to what extent did the law constrain women’s social role?
-were the social experiences of urban women different from those of rural women?

Primary sources

*Goldberg, P.J.P., Women in England c.1275-1525: Documentary Sources (1995)

[Useful and accessible collection of sources with a helpful Introduction]

Ward, J., Women of the English Nobility and Gentry 1066-1500 (1995); like Goldberg
1995 above, a collection of primary sources with introduction)

General and introductory:

*Bennett, J.M., ‘England: women and gender’, in S.H. Rigby, ed., A Companion to
Britain in the later middle ages (2009 ) [e-book; includes a very full and
useful bibliography]
Bennett, J.M., ‘Medieval Women in Modern Perspective’, in B.G. Smith (ed.),
Women’s History in Global Perspective, vol 2 (2005) [useful historiographical
overview]
Bennett, J. & Karras, R. Mazo (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Women and Gender
in Medieval Europe (2013) [up-to-date collection of introductory articles on a
wide range of topics; read selectively for general theory and British examples].

*Goldberg, P.J.P., ed., Woman is a worthy wight (1992), reprinted 1997 under the
title Women in Medieval English Society; good collection of essays
Jewell, H.M., Women in Medieval England (1996)
*Leyser, H., Medieval Women. A Social History of Women in England 450-1500
(1995) Part 3
Power, E., Medieval Women (1975)
*Rigby, S.H., English Society in the Later Middle Ages: Class, Status and Gender
(1995), ch. 7 [excellent for exploring the notion of gender as the basis for
social inequality.]
Wilkinson, L., Women in Thirteenth-Century Lincolnshire (2007) [useful study which
looks at women at all social levels in a single county]

Aristocratic women (nobility and gentry)

Archer, R., chapter in Goldberg, ed., Woman is a Worthy Wight (see above)
*Coss, P., The Lady in Medieval England 1000-1500 (1998)
Green, J.A. ‘Aristocratic women in early twelfth-century England’, in C. Warren
Hollister, ed., Anglo Norman political culture (1997)
Harris, B.J., English aristocratic women 1450-1550: Marriage, family, property and
careers (2002)

47
Women in the countryside

*Bennett, J.M., Women in the Medieval English Countryside: Gender and

Household in Brigstock before the Plague (1987)
Bennett J.M., A Medieval Life: Cecilia Penifader of Brigstock, c. 1297-1344 (1998)
Bennett, J.M., Ale, Beer and Brewsters in England: Women’s Work in a Changing
World, 1300-1600 (1996) [e-book]
Bennett, J.M., ‘Writing fornication: Medieval leyrwite and its historians’, TRHS (2003)
[electronic]
Briggs, C., ‘Empowered or marginalized? Rural women and credit in later thirteenth-
and fourteenth-century England’, C&C, 19 (2004) [electronic]
Forrest, M., ‘Women manorial officers in late medieval England’, Nottingham
Medieval Studies, 57 (2013)
Smith, R.M., ‘Coping with uncertainty: women’s tenure of customary land in England
c.1370-1430’, in J. Kermode, eds. Enterprise and Individuals in Fifteenth-
century England (1991)

Women in towns

[see also Goldberg, Women, work (1992) – below]

Barron, C., and Sutton, A., eds., Medieval London Widows (1994)
Ewan, E., and Meikle, M., Women in Scotland 1100-1750 (1998)
Kowaleski, M., ‘Women’s work in a market town: Exeter in the later fourteenth
century’, in B. Hanawalt, ed. Women and Work in Pre-Industrial Europe
(1986)
McIntosh, M.K., Working women in English society, 1300-1620 (2005)
McIntosh, M.K., ‘The benefits and drawbacks of femme sole status, 1300-1630’,
Journal of British Studies 44 (2005) [electronic]

Women and religion

French, K.L., The Good Women of the Parish: Gender and Religion after the Black
Death (2008) [on this topic see also French’s chapter on ‘Women in the late
medieval English parish’ in M.C. Erler and M. Kowaleski, eds., Gendering the
Master Narrative (2003)]
Gilchrist, R., and Oliva, M., Religious women in medieval East Anglia (1993)
Wood, D., ed., Women and religion (2003)

Women after the Black Death, 1350-c.1500

Beattie, C., Medieval Single Women: the politics of social classification in late
medieval England (2007)
*Barron, C., ‘The “Golden Age” of women in medieval London’, Reading Medieval
Studies 15 (1989) [CDB to put on Moodle]
*Bennett, J.M., ‘Medieval women, modern women: across the great divide’, in D.
Aers, ed., Culture and History, 1350-1600: essays on English communities,
and identities, and writing (1992)
*Goldberg, P.J.P., Women, work and life-cycle in a medieval economy. Women in
York and Yorkshire c.1300-1520 (1992) [E-Book]

48
Mate, M., Daughters, Wives and Widows after the Black Death: Women in Sussex
1350-1535 (1998)
Rigby, S.H., ‘Gendering the Black Death: women in later medieval England’, Gender
and History, 12 (2000) [electronic; useful review article]

Men / Masculinity

Lewis, K.J., Kingship and Masculinity in late medieval England (2013).

Mazo Karras, R., From Boys to Men: Formations of masculinity in late medieval
Europe (2002) [focus on English examples, and read in conjunction with
review on ‘Reviews in History’: http://www.history.ac.uk/reviews/review/358]
Moss, R., Fatherhood and its Representations in Middle English Texts (2013).
Neal, D., The Masculine self in late medieval England (2008).
Ormrod, W.M., ‘Monarchy, martyrdom and masculinity: England in the later middle
ages’, in Holiness and masculinity in the middle ages, ed. P.H. Cullum and
K.J. Lewis (2004).
There is also useful material in Bennett, J. & Karras, R. Mazo (eds.), The Oxford
Handbook of Women and Gender in Medieval Europe (2013).

49
11. Poverty and charity

Themes and debates:

-How can we best characterize medieval attitudes to the poor?
-Which played the biggest role in the relief of poverty: family and kin, the community,
or formal institutions?
-How effective was medieval charity and poor relief?

Bennett, J.M. ‘Conviviality and Charity in Medieval and Early Modern England’, P&P,
1992.
Brown, A., Popular Piety in Late-Medieval England (1995) [e-book], chap. 8.
Clark, E. ‘The Quest for Security in Medieval England’, M. Sheehan (ed.), Aging and
the Aged in Medieval Europe (1990).
Clark, E. ‘Some Aspects of Social Security in Medieval England’, Journal of Family
History, 7 (1982).
Clark, E. ‘Social Welfare and Mutual Aid in the Medieval Countryside’, Journal of
British Studies, 33 (1994). [jstor]
Clark E., ‘Institutional and legal responses to begging in medieval England’, Social
Science History, 26 (2002).
Cullum, P.H., “‘And hir name was charite”: charitable giving by and for women in late
medieval Yorkshire’, in Woman is a worthy wight: women in English society
c.1200-1500, ed. P.J. P. Goldberg (1992).
Cullum, P.H., and Goldberg, P.J.P. ‘Charitable Provision in Late Medieval York’,
Northern History (1993).
Dyer, C., Standards of Living in the later middle ages (rev. ed., 1998), ch 9
*Dyer, C., ‘Poverty and its relief in late medieval England’, P&P, 216 (2012).
McIntosh, M.K. ‘Local Responses to the Poor in Late-Medieval and Tudor England’,
Continuity and Change, 1988.
*McIntosh, M.K., Poor relief in England, 1350-1600 (2011)
McRee, B.R. ‘Charity and Gild Solidarity in Late Medieval England’, Journal of British
Studies, 1993. [jstor]
Mollat, M., The Poor in the Middle Ages (1986).
Orme N., and Webster, M. The English Hospital, 1070-1570 (1995).
Rawcliffe, C., Medicine for the Soul: the life, death and resurrection of an English
medieval hospital (1999).
Rubin, M., ‘The poor’, in Fifteenth-century attitudes. Perceptions of society in late
medieval England ed. R. Horrox (1994).
Rubin, M., Charity and Community in Medieval Cambridge (1987).
Rushton, N.S., ‘Monastic charitable provision in Tudor England : quantifying and
qualifying poor relief in the early sixteenth century’, C&C, 16 (2001).
Scott, A. ed., Experiences of poverty in late medieval and early modern England and
France (2012)
Sheehan, M.M. ed. Ageing and the Aged in Medieval Europe (1990).
Smith, R.M. ‘The Manorial Court and the Elderly Tenant in Late Medieval England’,
M. Pelling and R.M. Smith (eds.), Life, death, and the elderly: historical
perspectives (1991)

50
12. Education, language and literacy

Themes and debates:

- Evolution of levels of and types of literacy; their impact on society (social
structures, political culture, religion).
- ‘School revolution’ and the development of universities; their social impact;
education of the laity vs. education of the clergy; education of women.
- A multilingual society: shifting balance between French, English and Latin; the
emergence of Middle English as a written language.

General and introductory:

**Clanchy, M.T., From Memory to Written Record (3rd edition, 2012) [e-book via UL
catalogue].

Literacy

Arlinghaus, F.-J. et al., eds., Transforming the medieval world. Uses of pragmatic
literacy in the Middle Ages (2006).
*Briggs, C.F., ‘Literacy, Reading and Writing in the Medieval West’, Journal of
Medieval History, 26 (2000).
Britnell, R (ed.), Pragmatic Literacy, East and West, 1200-1330 (1997).
Clanchy, M.T., ‘Remembering the Past and the Good Old Law’, History, 55 (1970)
[ejournals]
Galloway, A. (ed.), A. The Cambridge Companion to Medieval Culture, (2011) [e-
book] chaps. 8-10.
Krug, R., Reading Families: Women's Literate Practice in Late Medieval England
(2002).
Morgan N.J., and Thomson, R., eds., The Cambridge History of the Book in Britain,
vol. 2: 1100-1400, ed. (2008) [e-book] esp. chaps. 1-2, 7-8, 13 and 15.
Parkes, M.B., ‘The Literacy of the Laity’, in D. Daiches (ed), Literature and Western
Civilisation (1973), reprinted in Parkes, Scribes, Scripts and Readers (1991).
Pryce, H., ed., Literacy in Medieval Celtic Societies (1998).
Strohm, P., ‘Writing and Reading’ in R. Horrox and W.M. Ormrod (eds.), A Social
History of England, 1200-1500 (2006).
Trapp, J.B., ‘Literacy, books and readers', in The Cambridge History of the Book in
Britain, vol. 3: 1400–1557, ed. L. Hellinga and J.B. Trapp (1999) [e-book]

A multilingual society

*Catto, J., ‘Written English: the making of the language’, Past & Present 179 (2003)
*Crane, S., ‘Anglo-Norman Cultures in England, 1066-1460”, The Cambridge History
of Medieval English Literature, ed. D. Wallace (1999) [e-book], p. 35-60.
Crane, S., ‘Social Aspects of Bilingualism in the Thirteenth Century’, Thirteenth
Century England 6 (1997), 103-11
Fisher, J.H., ‘Chancery and the Emergence of Standard Written English in the
Fifteenth Century’, Speculum, 52 (1977)

51
Frankis, J., “The Social Context of Vernacular Writing in Thirteenth Century England:
The Evidence of the Manuscripts”, Thirteenth-Century England 1 (1986), p.
175-184.
Lodge, R.A., ‘Language Attitudes and Linguistic Norms in France and England in the
Thirteenth Century’, Thirteenth Century England, 4 (1991), p. 73-83
Machan, T. W., English in the Middle Ages (2003)
Richardson, M., ‘Henry V, the English Chancery, and Chancery English’, Speculum,
55 (1980)
*Short, I., ‘Patrons and Polygots’, Anglo-Norman Studies, 14 (1991).
*Trotter, D.A., ed., Multilingualism in Later Medieval Britain (2000)
Voigts, L.E., ‘What’s the Word? Bilingualism in late medieval England’, Speculum, 71
(1996).

Education, schools and universities

Barron, C.M., ‘The expansion of education in fifteenth-century London', in The

Cloister and the World: Essays in Medieval History in Honour of Barbara
Harvey, ed.J. Blair and B. Golding (1996)
Jewell, H.M., ‘Bringing up Children in Good Learning and Manners’, Northern
History, 18 (1982).
McFarlane, K.B., ‘The Education of the Nobility’, in The Nobility of Later Medieval
England (1973).
Moran, J.A.H., The Growth of English Schooling 1340-1598 (1985).
Orme, N., ‘Schoolmasters’, in C.H. Clough (ed), Profession, Vocation and Culture
(1982).
Orme, N., ‘The Education of the Courtier’, in English Court Culture, ed. V.J.
Scattergood and J.W. Sherborne (1983).
*Orme, N., English Schools in the Middle Ages (1973).
*Orme, N., From Childhood to Chivalry (1984).

Baldwin, J. W., “Studium et regnum . The penetration of University Personel into

French and English Administration at the Turn of the Twelfth Century”, Revue
des études islamiques, 44 (1976), p. 199-215
Cobban, A.B., English University Life in the Middle Ages (1999).
*Cobban, A.B., The Medieval English Universities: Oxford and Cambridge to c.1500
(1988).
Courtenay, W.J.. Schools and Scholars in Fourteenth Century England (1987).
*Southern, R.W., Scholastic Humanism and the Unification of Europe. Volume I:
Foundations (1995)
Aston, T.H. ‘Oxford’s Medieval Alumni’, P&P, 74 (1977).
Aston, T.H. ‘The Medieval Alumni of the University of Cambridge’, P&P, 86 (1980).
Cobban, A.B., English University Life in the Middle Ages (1999).
*Cobban, A.B., The Medieval English Universities: Oxford and Cambridge to c.1500
(1988).

Cobban, A.B., ‘English University Benefactors in the Middles Ages’, History, 2001.
Leader, D.R., A History of the University of Cambridge, I: The University to 1546
(1988).
Lytle, G.F., ‘Patronage Patterns and Oxford Colleges c. 1300- c.1530’, in The
University in Society, ed L. Stone (1975).

52
Pantin, W.A.. Oxford Life in Oxford Archives (1972).
Southern, R. W., ‘The Place of England in the 12th Century Renaissance’, in his
Medieval Humanism and other studies (1970).
Southern, R. W., ‘England’s First Entry into Europe’, in his Medieval Humanism
and other studies (1970).
Swanson, R.. ‘Universities, Graduates, and Benefices in Late Medieval England’,
P&P, 106 (1985).
Thomson, R., ‘England in the 12th century Renaissance’, P&P, 1983

The History of the University of Oxford: vol I The Early Oxford Schools (1984), ed.
J.I. Catto; vol II Late Medieval Oxford (1992), ed. J.I. Catto and R. Evans.

53
13. Art, architecture and society

Themes and debates:

- what were the most significant changes in artistic and architectural style and output
in this period?
- What social role did art and architecture play in this period?
- how significant were the effects of artistic patronage?

General and introductory

Alexander, J., and Binski, P., Age of Chivalry: Art in Plantagenet England 1200-1400
(1987).
Platt, C., The Architecture of Medieval Britain: a Social History (1990).
English Romanesque Art, 1066-1200, ed. G. Zarnecki, J. Holt and T. Holland (1984)
Gothic: Art for England, 1400-1547, ed. R. Marks and P. Williamson (2003).
The Cambridge Guide to the Arts in Britain, vol. 2: The Middle Ages, ed. B. Ford
(1988).

Art, images and society

Images, idolatry and Iconoclasm in late Medieval England, ed. J. Dimmick et al

(2002)
Gilchrist, R., Contemplation and Action: the other monasticism (1995)
Marks, R., Image and Devotion in Late Medieval England (2004)
Saul, N., Death, Art, and Memory in Medieval England. The Cobham Family and
their Monuments 1300-1500 (2001).
Rubin, M., Corpus Christi (1991).
Duffy, E., The Stripping of the Altars. Traditional Religion in England 1400-1580
(1992).

Architecture and sculpture

Fernie, E., ‘The Effect of the Norman Conquest on Norman Architectural Patronage’,
Anglo-Norman Studies, 9 (1986).
*Goodall, J., The English Castle 1066-1650 (2011).
Plant, R., ‘Ecclesiastical Architecture, c. 1050 to c.1200’, in A Companion to the
Anglo-Norman World, ed. C. Harper-Bill and E van Houts (2003)
English Romanesque Art 1066-1200, ed. G. Zarnecki et al. (Catalogue of the
Hayward Romanesque Exhibition) (1984).
*Stone, L., Sculpture in Britain: the Middle Ages (1972).

Manuscripts and illuminations

*de Hamel, C., A History of Illuminated Manuscripts (1986).

The Cambridge Illuminations, ed. P. Binski and S. Panayatova (exhibition catalogue,
2005).
Camille, M., Image on the Edge: The Margins of Medieval Art (1992).
Camille, M., Mirror in Parchment: the Luttrell Psalter and the Making of Medieval
England (1998).

54
Gameson, R., The Manuscripts of Early Norman England c.1066-1130 (1999).

Literature

The Riverside Chaucer, ed. L.D. Benson (4th ed., 2008)

Piers Plowman, ed. A.V.C. Schmidt (1978, 1982, 1995)
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, ed. J.A. Burrow (1972),
Malory : complete works, ed. E. Vinaver (2nd.ed., 1977),
The York Mystery Plays, ed. R. Beadle (1982)
*A Book of Middle English, ed. J.A. Burrow and T. Turville-Petre (2nd.ed., 1995)
D. Pearsall, Old English and Middle English Poetry (1977).
The Oxford English Literary History, 2, Reform and Cultural Revolution, ed. J.
Simpson (2002).
Turville-Petre, T., England the Nation: Language, Literature and National Identity
1290-1340 (1996).

Patronage

Binski, P., Westminster Abbey and the Plantagenets (1995).

The Culture of Medieval Monasticism, ed. J.G. Clark (2007).
Eleanor of Aquitaine: patron and politician, ed. W.W. Kibler (1976).
Lindley, P., ‘The Black Death and English Art’, in The Black Death in England, ed. M.
Ormrod and P. Lindley (1996).
Macready S. and Thompson F.H., Art and Patronage in the English Romanesque
(1986).
Gentry Culture in Late Medieval England, ed. R. Radulescu and A. Truelove (2005).
English Court Culture in the Later Middle Ages, ed. V.J. Scattergood and J.W.
Sherborne (1983).
Salter, E., English and International: studies in the literature, art and patronage of
medieval England (1988).

55
14. Popular rebellion and resistance, c.1250-c.1450

Themes and debates:

-To what extent does ‘class conflict’ serve as an accurate description of popular
rebellion and resistance, 1250-c.1451?
-How far is it possible to distinguish political and economic causes of popular
rebellion and resistance?
-To what extent was the 1381 rising a wholly exceptional instance of English social
revolt in this period?

Primary sources

*Dobson, R.B., The Peasants’ Revolt of 1381 (1970, 1983) [e-book; especially good
for sequence of events and for getting a flavour of some of the sources]

General and introductory:

*Cohn, S., Popular protest in late medieval English towns (2013) [e-book]
Fryde, E.B. and N., ‘Popular rebellion and peasant discontents’, in E. Miller (ed.),
The Agrarian History of England and Wales, III (1991).
Harvey, I., ‘Was there popular politics in fifteenth-century England?’, in R.H. Britnell
and A.J. Pollard (eds.), The McFarlane Legacy (1995).
*Rigby, S.H., and & Whittle, J., ‘England: popular politics and social conflict’, in S.H.
Rigby, ed., A companion to Britain in the Later Middle Ages (2009) [e-book]
Watts, J., ‘The Pressure of the Public on Later Medieval Politics', in Political Culture
in Late Medieval Britain: The Fifteenth Century IV, ed. L. Clark and C.
Carpenter (2004).

Ongoing local lord-peasant conflict before 1381

Franklin, P., ‘Politics in manorial court rolls: the tactics, social composition, and aims
of a pre-1381 peasant movement’, in Z. Razi and R. Smith eds., Medieval
Society and the Manor Court (1996)
**Hilton, R.H., ‘Peasant movements in England before 1381’, in E. Carus-Wilson
(ed.), Essays in Economic History, ii (1962)
Müller, M., ‘Conflict and revolt: the bishop of Ely and his peasants at the manor
Brandon in Suffolk c.1300-81’, Rural History (2010) [electronic: ejournals]
Razi, Z., ‘The struggles between the abbots of Halesowen and their tenants in the
thirteenth and fourteenth centuries’, in T.H. Aston et al. (eds.), Social Relations
and Ideas (1983).

The Rising of 1381

General
*Brooks, N., ‘The organisation and achievements of the peasants of Kent and Essex
in 1381’, in H. Mayr-Harting and R.I. Moore (eds.), Studies in Medieval History
Presented to R.H.C. Davis (1985)
Dyer, C., ‘The rising of 1381 in Suffolk: its origins and participants’, in Dyer,
Everyday Life in Medieval England (1994)

56
*Eiden, H., ‘Joint action against “bad lordship”: the Peasant’s Revolt in Essex and
Norfolk’, History (1998) [ejournals]
*Hilton, R.H., Bond Men Made Free. Medieval Peasant Movements and the English
Rising of 1381 (1973)
*Prescott, A, ‘London in the Peasants’ Revolt: A potrait gallery’, London Journal, 7
(2) (1981), 125-43
The ‘seignorial reaction’, 1349-81, and the labour laws
Bailey, M., ‘The myth of the “seigniorial reaction” in England after the Black Death’, in
M. Kowaleski et al. (eds.), Peasants and lords in the medieval English
economy (2015)
Britnell, R.H. ‘Feudal reaction after the Black Death in the Palatinate of Durham’,
Past & Present , 128 (1990). [JSTOR]
*Dyer, C., ‘The social and economic background to the rural revolt of 1381’, in R.
Hilton & T. Aston (eds.), The English Rising of 1381 (1981), reprinted in Dyer,
Everday Life in Medieval England (1994)
Poos, L.R. ‘The social context of statute of labourers enforcement’ Law and History
review 1 (1983) [HeinOnline; JSTOR]

War and the defence of the realm:

Ormrod, W.M., ‘The Peasants’ Revolt and the Government of England’, Journal of
British Studies (1990).
Searle, E., and Burghardt, R., ‘The defense of England and the Peasants' Revolt’,
Viator, 3 (1972), pp. 365-88

Religion in the rising:

Aston, M., ‘Corpus Christi and corpus regni: heresy and the Peasants’ Revolt’, Past
and Present,, 143 (1994) [JSTOR]
Aston, M. ‘Lollardy and sedition, 1381-1431’, P&P, 17 (1960) [JSTOR]; also in R.
Hilton, ed., Peasants, Knights and Heretics (1976).

The risings of 1450-1:

Hare, J., ‘The Wiltshire rising of 1450: political and economic discontent in mid
fifteenth-century England’, Southern History, IV (1982).
Harvey, I., Jack Cade’s Rebellion of 1450 (1991).
*Mate, M., ‘The economic and social roots of medieval popular rebellion: Sussex in
1450-1451’, EcHR,45 (1992) [JSTOR]

57
15. War and society

Themes and debates:

1. How far did the code of chivalry shape the behaviour of medieval soldiers?
2. Was war profitable in the later middle ages?
3. How far was English society geared towards warfare in the later middle ages?

Primary sources:

J. Froissart, Chronicles, selected and trans. G. Brereton (1968).

C.J. Rogers, The Wars of Edward III: sources and interpretations (1999)

General and introductory:

The Soldier in Medieval England, eds. A. Bell, A. Curry, A. King & D. Simpkin (2013)
[e-book; also see the research website for this project
http://www.medievalsoldier.org/
J. Barnie, War in Medieval Society (1974)
K. Devries, Medieval Warfare, 1300-1450 (2010)
M. Prestwich, Armies and Warfare in the Middle Ages: the English experience (1996)
M. Strickland, War and Chivalry in England and Normandy, 1066-1217 (1996)
M. Strickland, Military Organisation and Warfare (1992)
M. Vale, War and Chivalry (1981)

Chivalry:

P. Coss, The Knight in Medieval England, 1100-1400 (1993), chs. 4-6.

J. Huizinga, The Waning of the Middle Ages (1924)
R. Kaeuper, Medieval Chivalry (2016), ch. 6.
M. Keen, Chivalry (1984)
N. Saul, For Honour and Fame: Chivalry in England, 1066-1500
M. Strickland, War and Chivalry in England and Normandy, 1066-1217 (1996)

Soldiers’ experience:

R. Ambühl, Prisoners of War in the Hundred Years War: ransom culture in the late
middle ages (2013)
A. Ayton, ‘Sir Thomas Ughtred and the Edwardian Military Revolution, The Age of
Edward III, ed. J. Bothwell (2001)
A. Bell, War and the Soldier in the Fourteenth Century (2004)
Journal of Medieval History: Waging War in the Fourteenth Century, eds. A. Bell et
al (Vol. 37, Issue 3, Autumn 2011)
The Soldier Experience in the Fourteenth Century, eds. A. Bell et al (2011)
The Soldier in Medieval England, eds. A. Bell, A. Curry, A. King & D. Simpkin (2013)
A. Chapman, Welsh Soldiers in the Later Middle Ages, 1282-1422 (2015)
K.B. McFarlane, The English Nobility in Later Medieval England (1973)
K.B. McFarlane, England in the Fifteenth Century (1981), chs.VII, IX
R. Partington, ‘The Nature of Noble Service to Edward III’, in J. Watts and B.
Thompson eds., Political Society in Later Medieval England (2015)

58
D. Simpkin, The English Aristocracy at War: from the Welsh Wars of Edward I to the
Battle of Bannockburn (2008)

Hundred Years’ War:

C. Allmand , The Hundred years War: England and France at war, c.1300-c.1450
(1989)
The Battle of Crecy, eds. A. Ayton & P. Preston (2005)
R. Barber, Edward III and the Triumph of England: the battle of Crecy and the
company of the Garter (2013)
J. Barker, Conquest: the English kingdom of France in the Hundred Years’ War
(2010)
A. Curry, The Hundred Years War (1993)
A. Curry, Agincourt: a new history (2005)
H. Hewitt, The Organisation of War Under Edward III (1966)
W.M. Ormrod, ‘The domestic response to the Hundred Years War’, in A. Curry and
M. Hughes (eds.), Arms, armies and fortifications in the Hundred Years War
(Woodbridge, 1994), pp. 83-101.
C.J. Rogers, War Cruel and Sharp: English strategy under Edward III, 1327-1360
(2000)
A.Ruddick, English Identity and Political Culture in the Fourteenth Century (2013),
chs. 4 and 6.
J. Sumption, The Hundred Years’ War (3 vols. 1992-2009)

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16. Landowning society: structure and values
Themes and debates:
1. Was there a crisis in the knightly class in the thirteenth century?
2. How and for what purpose did lords recruit followers from the knights and
gentry?
3. When did the English gentry emerge?
General and introductory:
C. Carpenter, ‘The Nobility and the Gentry, 1100-1500’, A Companion to Britain in
the Later Middle Ages, ed. S. Rigby (2009) [e-book]
P. Coss, The Origins of the English Gentry (2003)
D. Crouch, The English Aristocracy, 1070-1272: a social transformation (2011)
C. Given Wilson, The English Nobility in the Later Middle Ages (1987)
J. Green, The Aristocracy of Normand England (1997)
G.L. Harriss, Shaping the Nation: England, 1360-1461, chs. 4-6
K.B. McFarlane, The Nobility of Later Medieval England (1973)

Feudalism to ‘bastard feudalism’:

C. Carpenter, ‘Who Ruled the Midlands in the Later Middle Ages?’, Midland History
(1994)
D.A. Carpenter, ‘The Second Century of English Feudalism’, P&P (2000)
P. Coss, ‘Bastard Feudalism Revised’, P&P (1989)
P. Coss, D.A. Carpenter and D. Crouch, ‘Debate: bastard feudalism revised’, P&P
(1991)
R. Fleming, King and Lords in Conquest England (1991), Part II
J.C. Holt, ‘Feudal Society and the Family in Early Medieval England’, Presidential
Addresses, TRHS. (1982-5).
M. Hicks, Bastard Feudalism (1995)
S. Reynolds, Vassals and Fiefs (1994)
A.M. Spencer, Nobility and Kingship in Medieval England: the earls and Edward I,
1272-1307 (2014), Part II
F.M. Stenton, The First Century of English Feudalism (2nd edn., 1961)
K.B. McFarlane, England in the Fifteenth Century (1981), chs. I-II
S.L. Waugh, ‘Tenure to Contract: lordship and clientage in thirteenth-century
England’, EHR (1986)

The ‘Crisis of the Knightly Class’:

D.A. Carpenter, ‘Was There a Crisis of the Knightly Class in the Thirteenth
Century?’, EHR (1980)
P. Coss, ‘Sir Geoffrey Langley and the Crisis of the Knightly Class in Thirteenth-
Century England’, P&P (1975)
P. Coss, The Origins of the English Gentry (2003), ch. 4
K. Faulkner, ‘The Transformation of Knighthood in Early Thirteenth-Century
England’, EHR (1996)
R.H. Hilton, A Medieval Society: the west midlands at the end of the thirteenth
century (1996), ch. 2
E. King, ‘Large and Small Landowners in Thirteenth-Century England’, P&P, (1970)

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