New Perspectives on the Medieval ‘Agricultural Revolution’
New Perspectives on the Medieval ‘Agricultural Revolution’

Author: Helena Hamerow

Publisher: Liverpool University Press

Published: 2022-11-01

Total Pages: 308

ISBN-13: 1802079041

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An Open Access edition is available on the LUP and OAPEN websites. Across Europe, the early medieval period saw the advent of new ways of cereal farming which fed the growth of towns, markets and populations, but also fuelled wealth disparities and the rise of lordship. These developments have sometimes been referred to as marking an ‘agricultural revolution’, yet the nature and timing of these critical changes remain subject to intense debate, despite more than a century of research. The papers in this volume demonstrate how the combined application of cutting-edge scientific analyses, along with new theoretical models and challenges to conventional understandings, can reveal trajectories of agricultural development which, while complementary overall, do not indicate a single period of change involving the extension of arable, the introduction of the mouldboard plough, and regular crop rotation. Rather, these phenomena become evident at different times and in different places across England throughout the period, and rarely in an unambiguously ‘progressive’ fashion. Presenting innovative bioarchaeological research from the ground-breaking Feeding Anglo-Saxon England project, along with fresh insights into ploughing technology, brewing, the nature of agricultural revolutions, and farming practices in Roman Britain and Carolingian Europe, this volume is a critical new contribution to environmental archaeology and medieval studies in England and beyond. Contributors: Amy Bogaard; Hannah Caroe; Neil Faulkner; Emily Forster; Helena Hamerow; Matilda Holmes; Claus Kropp; Lisa Lodwick; Mark McKerracher; Nicolas Schroeder; Elizabeth Stroud; Tom Williamson.

Early Medieval English Life Courses
Early Medieval English Life Courses

Author:

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2021-11-22

Total Pages: 381

ISBN-13: 900450186X

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How did the life course, with all its biological, social and cultural aspects, influence the lives, writings, and art of the inhabitants of early medieval England? This volume explores how phases of human life such as childhood, puberty, and old age were identified, characterized, and related in contemporary sources, as well as how nonhuman life courses were constructed. The multi-disciplinary contributions range from analyses of age vocabulary to studies of medicine, name-giving practices, theology, Old English poetry, and material culture. Combined, these cultural-historical perspectives reveal how the concept and experience of the life course shaped attitudes in early medieval England. Contributors are Jo Appleby, Debby Banham, Darren Barber, Caroline R. Batten, James Chetwood, Katherine Cross, Amy Faulkner, Jacqueline Fay, Elaine Flowers, Daria Izdebska, Gale R. Owen-Crocker, Thijs Porck, and Harriet Soper.

Sentient Archaeologies
Sentient Archaeologies

Author: Courtney Nimura

Publisher: Oxbow Books

Published: 2023-07-15

Total Pages: 280

ISBN-13: 1789259347

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Archaeology in the past century has seen a major shift from theoretical frameworks that treat the remains of past societies as static snapshots of particular moments in time to interpretations that prioritize change and variability. Though established analytical concepts, such as typology, remain key parts of the archaeologist’s investigative toolkit, data-gathering strategies and interpretative frameworks have become infused progressively with the concept that archaeology is living, in the sense of both the objects of study and the discipline as a whole. The significance for the field is that researchers across the world are integrating ideas informed by relational epistemologies and mutually constructive ontologies into their work from the initial stage of project design all the way down to post-excavation interpretation. This volume showcases examples of such work, highlighting the utility of these ideas to exploring material both old and new. The illuminating research and novel explanations presented contribute to resolving long-standing problems in regional archaeologies across Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe, and Oceania. In this way, this volume reinvigorates approaches taken towards older material but also acts as a springboard for future innovative discussions of theory in archaeology and related disciplines.

The Cambridge Economic History of Modern Britain
The Cambridge Economic History of Modern Britain

Author: Roderick Floud

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2014-10-09

Total Pages: 515

ISBN-13: 1107038456

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A new edition of the leading textbook on the economic history of Britain since industrialization. Combining the expertise of more than thirty leading historians and economists, Volume 1 tracks Britain's economic history in the period ranging from 1700 to 1870 from industrialisation to global trade and empire. Each chapter provides a clear guide to the major controversies in the field and students are shown how to connect historical evidence with economic theory and apply quantitative methods. New approaches are proposed to classic issues such as the causes and consequences of industrialisation, the role of institutions and the state, and the transition from an organic to an inorganic economy, as well as introducing new issues such as globalisation, convergence and divergence, the role of science, technology and invention, and the growth of consumerism. Throughout the volume, British experience is set within an international context and its performance benchmarked against its global competitors.

The Cambridge Economic History of Modern Britain: Volume 1, Industrialisation, 1700–1870
The Cambridge Economic History of Modern Britain: Volume 1, Industrialisation, 1700–1870

Author: Roderick Floud

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2014-10-09

Total Pages: 515

ISBN-13: 1316061159

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A new edition of the leading textbook on the economic history of Britain since industrialization. Combining the expertise of more than thirty leading historians and economists, Volume 1 tracks Britain's economic history in the period ranging from 1700 to 1870 from industrialisation to global trade and empire. Each chapter provides a clear guide to the major controversies in the field and students are shown how to connect historical evidence with economic theory and apply quantitative methods. New approaches are proposed to classic issues such as the causes and consequences of industrialisation, the role of institutions and the state, and the transition from an organic to an inorganic economy, as well as introducing new issues such as globalisation, convergence and divergence, the role of science, technology and invention, and the growth of consumerism. Throughout the volume, British experience is set within an international context and its performance benchmarked against its global competitors.

The Medieval Antecedents of English Agricultural Progress
The Medieval Antecedents of English Agricultural Progress

Author: Bruce M.S. Campbell

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2023-05-31

Total Pages: 364

ISBN-13: 1000941639

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Until recently, historians tended to stress the perceived technological and ecological shortcomings of medieval agriculture. The ten essays assembled in this volume offer a contrary view. Based upon close documentary analysis of the demesne farms managed for and by lords, they show that, by 1300, in the most commercialized parts of England, production decisions were based upon relative factor costs and commodity prices. Moreover, when and where economic conditions were ripe and environmental and institutional circumstances favourable, medieval cultivators successfully secured high and ecologically sustainable levels of land productivity. They achieved this by integrating crop and livestock production into the sort of manure-intensive systems of mixed-husbandry which later underpinned the more celebrated output growth of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. If medieval agriculture failed to fulfill the production potential provided by wider adoption of such systems, this is more appropriately explained by the want of the kind of market incentives that might have justified investment, innovation, and specialization on the scale that characterized the so-called 'agricultural revolution', than either the lack of appropriate agricultural technology or the innate 'backwardness' of medieval cultivators.

Early Modern Capitalism
Early Modern Capitalism

Author: Maarten Prak

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2005-06-28

Total Pages: 248

ISBN-13: 1134604424

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This volume takes stock of recent research on economic growth, as well as the development of capital and labour markets, during the centuries that preceded the Industrial Revolution. The book underlines the diversity in the economic experiences of early modern Europeans and suggests how this variety might be the foundation of a new conception of economic and social change.

Decision-Making in Medieval Agriculture
Decision-Making in Medieval Agriculture

Author: David Stone

Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA

Published: 2005-09-29

Total Pages: 322

ISBN-13: 0199247765

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David Stone uses contemporary sources to reconstruct the world of the medieval farmer, and argues against the traditional interpretation of the Middle Ages as economically backward.

Agricultural Revolution in England
Agricultural Revolution in England

Author: Mark Overton

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 1996-04-18

Total Pages: 276

ISBN-13: 9780521568593

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This book is the first available survey of English agriculture between 1500 and 1850. It combines new evidence with recent findings from the specialist literature, to argue that the agricultural revolution took place in the century after 1750. Taking a broad view of agrarian change, the author begins with a description of sixteenth-century farming and an analysis of its regional structure. He then argues that the agricultural revolution consisted of two related transformations. The first was a transformation in output and productivity brought about by a complex set of changes in farming practice. The second was a transformation of the agrarian economy and society, including a series of related developments in marketing, landholding, field systems, property rights, enclosure and social relations. Written specifically for students, this book will be invaluable to anyone studying English economic and social history, or the history of agriculture.

Why Europe?
Why Europe?

Author: Michael Mitterauer

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2010-07-15

Total Pages: 432

ISBN-13: 0226532380

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Why did capitalism and colonialism arise in Europe and not elsewhere? Why were parliamentarian and democratic forms of government founded there? What factors led to Europe’s unique position in shaping the world? Thoroughly researched and persuasively argued, Why Europe? tackles these classic questions with illuminating results. Michael Mitterauer traces the roots of Europe’s singularity to the medieval era, specifically to developments in agriculture. While most historians have located the beginning of Europe’s special path in the rise of state power in the modern era, Mitterauer establishes its origins in rye and oats. These new crops played a decisive role in remaking the European family, he contends, spurring the rise of individualism and softening the constraints of patriarchy. Mitterauer reaches these conclusions by comparing Europe with other cultures, especially China and the Islamic world, while surveying the most important characteristics of European society as they took shape from the decline of the Roman empire to the invention of the printing press. Along the way, Why Europe? offers up a dazzling series of novel hypotheses to explain the unique evolution of European culture.