Making a Living in the Middle Ages: The People of Britain 850-1520 (The New Economic History of Britain Series)

Dramatic social and economic change during the middle ages altered the lives of the people of Britain in far-reaching ways, from the structure of their families to the ways they made their livings. In this masterly book, preeminent medieval historian Christopher Dyer presents a fresh view of the British economy from the ninth to the sixteenth century and a vivid new account of medieval life. He begins his volume with the formation of towns and villages in the ninth and tenth centuries and ends with the inflation, population rise, and colonial expansion of the sixteenth century. This is a book about ideas and attitudes as well as the material world, and Dyer shows how people regarded the economy and responded to economic change. He examines the growth of towns, the clearing of lands, the Great Famine, the Black Death, and the upheavals of the fifteenth century through the eyes of those who experienced them. He also explores the dilemmas and decisions of those who were making a living in a changing world—from peasants, artisans, and wage earners to barons and monks. Drawing on archaeological and landscape evidence along with more conventional archives and records, the author offers here an engaging survey of British medieval economic history unrivaled in breadth and clarity. Dramatic social and economic change during the middle ages altered the lives of the people of Britain in far-reaching ways, from the structure of their families to the ways they made their livings. In this masterly book, preeminent medieval historian Christopher Dyer presents a fresh view of the British economy from the ninth to the sixteenth century and a vivid new account of medieval life. He begins his volume with the formation of towns and villages in the ninth and tenth centuries and ends with the inflation, population rise, and colonial expansion of the sixteenth century.

This is a book about ideas and attitudes as well as the material world, and Dyer shows how people regarded the economy and responded to economic change. He examines the growth of towns, the clearing of lands, the Great Famine, the Black Death, and the upheavals of the fifteenth century through the eyes of those who experienced them. He also explores the dilemmas and decisions of those who were making a living in a changing world—from peasants, artisans, and wage earners to barons and monks. Drawing on archaeological and landscape evidence along with more conventional archives and records, the author offers here an engaging survey of British medieval economic history unrivaled in breadth and clarity. "In this survey, Christopher Dyer reviews our thinking about the economy of Britain in the middle ages. By analysing economic development and change, he allows us to reconstruct, often vividly, the daily lives and experiences of people in the past. The period covered here saw dramatic alterations in the state of the economy; and this account begins with the forming of villages, towns, networks of exchange and the social hierarchy in the ninth and tenth centuries, and ends with the inflation and population rise of the sixteenth century.". "This is a book about ideas and attitudes as well as the material world, and Dyer shows how people regarded the economy and how they responded to economic change. We see the growth of towns, the clearance of woods and wastes, the Great Famine, the Black Death and the upheavals in the fifteenth century through the eyes of those who lived through these great events."--BOOK JACKET. Contents 5 Illustrations 7 Preface 9 Introduction: Approaching the economic history of medieval Britain 11 Part One: Origins of the medieval economy, c.850–c.1100 23 Chapter One: Living on the land, c.850–c.1050 23 Chapter Two: Crisis and new directions, c.850–c.1050 53 Chapter Three: Conquest c.1050–c.1100 81 Part Two: Expansion and crisis, c.1100–c.1350 116 Chapter Four: Lords, c.1100–c.1315 116 Chapter Five: Peasants, c.1100–c.1315 165 Chapter Six: Towns and commerce, c.1100–c.1315 197 Chapter Seven: Crisis, c.1290–c.1350 238 Part Three: Making a new world, c.1350–c.1520 281 Chapter Eight: The Black Death and its aftermath, c.1348–c.1520 281 Chapter Nine: Towns, trade and industry, c.1350–c.1520 308 Chapter Ten: The countryside, c.1350–c.1520 340 Conclusion 373 Further reading 376 Index 400