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How were the field boundaries created and cultivated by the farmers of prehistoric and Roman Britain transformed into the open fields of medieval England? Historians and archaeologists have posited a complete physical break between the field systems of Roman Britain and the common or open fields of medieval England.
Susan Oosthuizen's fascinating research into the landscape history of the Bourn Valley, just west of Cambridge (an area which has been intensively cultivated for at least the last 3,000 years), has uncovered preserved prehistoric field patterns in the medieval furlongs there – startling in the context of 'champion' England. If it were possible to unravel the relationships between pre-open-field and open-field boundaries in the Valley between about 600 and 1100 AD, then a significant step forward might be taken in our understanding of the origins of medieval open-field systems in general. We might begin to understand the processes by which the fields, woods and pastures that developed over the prehistoric millennia and during the Roman centuries were organised into the completely new landscape of the medieval open fields.
The unexpected discovery of what appears to be an 8th- or 9th-century proto-open-field pattern seems to indicate a fossilising of the process of development from prehistoric to medieval fields, which Susan Oosthuizen seeks to explain by examining the social, administrative and political contexts within which these changes took place. The newly uncovered evidence allows Oosthuizen to propose a new model for the introduction of common fields in England. -

Acknowledgements -- Contents -- Abbreviations -- Chapter 1: The Historical Climatology of Late Medieval England -- Chapter 2: The Keeping of Agricultural Records in Late Medieval England -- 2.1 Late Medieval Agriculture and Manorial Accounts -- 2.2 Norwich Cathedral Priory -- 2.2.1 Norwich Cathedral Priory and Its Temporalities Until c.1300 -- 2.2.2 The Making of Manorial Accounts and Their Economic Context -- 2.2.3 Archival History of Norwich Cathedral Priory -- 2.3 Supplementary Series -- Chapter 3: The Medieval Grain Harvest -- 3.1 Climatological Significance -- 3.2 Management and Accounting Practices -- 3.3 Data Density and Security -- 3.4 Potential Non-climatic Influences on the Harvest Date -- 3.5 Dating the Harvest: Calendar, Work Management and Communication -- 3.5.1 The Ecclesiastical Calendar -- 3.5.2 The Working Week -- 3.5.3 The Harvest Date on Selected Manors of Norwich Cathedral Priory -- 3.5.4 Harvest Date and Calendar -- Chapter 4: Farming in Norfolk Around 1800 -- 4.1 Langham Farm -- 4.1.1 The Working Week -- 4.1.2 The Break in the Langham Series -- 4.2 Fritton Estate -- 4.3 Snettisham -- 4.4 Wymondham -- 4.5 Medieval Versus Early Modern Grain Harvests -- Chapter 5: A Reconstruction of Medieval April-July Temperatures for East Anglia -- 5.1 Reconstruction Methodology -- 5.2 Reconstructed Medieval April-July Mean Temperatures -- 5.3 Comparison with Other Documentary Reconstructions -- 5.4 Comparison with William Merle's Weather Diary 1337-1344 -- Chapter 6: Temperature Extremes 1256-1431: Independent Evidence and Context -- 6.1 Temperature Extremes and Agricultural Production -- 6.2 Warm Growing Seasons 1256-1431 -- 6.2.1 Weather Conditions in 1267 -- 6.2.2 Weather Conditions in 1297 and 1298 -- 6.2.3 Weather Conditions in 1304-1307 -- 6.2.4 Weather Conditions in 1318 -- 6.2.5 Weather Conditions in the Mid-1320s

Intro -- THE MAKING OF FEUDAL AGRICULTURES? -- CONTENTS -- FOREWORD -- L'EVOLUTION DES TECHNIQUES -- HISTOIRE ET TECHNIQUES: L'OUTIL AGRICOLE DANS LA PERIODE DU HAUT MOYEN-AGE (Ve-Xe S.) -- LES TECHNIQUES DE TRACTION ANIMALE DE L'ANTIQUITÉ AU MOYEN AGE* -- LES CÉRÉALES DU BAS-EMPIRE AU MOYEN AGE -- FARMING IN MEDITERRANEAN FRANCE AND RURAL SETTLEMENT IN THE LATE ROMAN AND EARLY MEDIEVAL PERIODS -- THE MISSING WATER-MILL: A QUESTION OF TECHNOLOGICAL DIFFUSION IN THE HIGH MIDDLE AGES* -- INDEX.

This collection addresses the concept of gender in the middle ages through the study of place and space, exploring how gender and space may be mutually constructive and how individuals and communities make and are made by the places and spaces they inhabit. From womb to tomb, how are we defined and confined by gender and by space? Interrogating the thresholds between sacred and secular, public and private, enclosure and exposure, domestic and political, movement and stasis, the essays in this interdisciplinary collection draw on current research and contemporary theory to suggest new destinations for future study.

This collection addresses the concept of gender in the middle ages through the study of place and space, exploring how gender and space may be mutually constructive and how individuals and communities make and are made by the places and spaces they inhabit. From womb to tomb, how are we defined and confined by gender and by space? Interrogating the thresholds between sacred and secular, public and private, enclosure and exposure, domestic and political, movement and stasis, the essays in this interdisciplinary collection draw on current research and contemporary theory to suggest new destinations for future study.

Those Who Worked, the second volume of Peter Speed's three-volume series of medieval sources in English translation includes a wide variety of readings from Britain and the Continent, is richly illustrated and provides an ideal introduction to classic sources and new trends in medieval studies for the student and general reader alike. Chapter topics include: agriculture from the late Roman Empire to the late Middle Ages; the village; towns; shopkeepers and craftspeople; conducting business; town government; trade, money and banking; families; food and drink; pastimes; the poor; the sick; plague and rebellion. 234 readings cover records; inventories; calendars, chronicles and histories; travelers' accounts; scientific treatises; biographies; letters and notebooks; poetry and plays. Preface, glossary, bibliography, and index. 95 illustrations, 2 maps

Intro -- Contents -- Note on Names -- Acknowledgements -- List of Figures and Tables -- Abbreviations -- Notes on Contributors -- Introduction Hungarian Medieval Economic History: Sources, Research and Methodology -- Part 1 Structures -- Chapter 1 Long-Term Environmental Changes in Medieval Hungary: Changes in Settlement Areas and Their Potential Drivers -- Chapter 2 Demographic Issues in Late Medieval Hungary: Population, Ethnic Groups, Economic Activity -- Chapter 3 Mobility, Roads and Bridges in Medieval Hungary -- Part 2 Human-Nature Interaction in Production -- Chapter 4 Agriculture in Medieval Hungary -- Chapter 5 Animal Exploitation in Medieval Hungary -- Chapter 6 Mining in Medieval Hungary -- Chapter 7 Salt Mining and Trade in Hungary before the Mongol Invasion -- Chapter 8 Salt Mining and Trade in Hungary from the mid-Thirteenth Century until the End of the Middle Ages -- Chapter 9 The Extent and Management of Woodland in Medieval Hungary -- Chapter 10 Water Management in Medieval Hungary -- Part 3 Money, Incomes and Management -- Chapter 11 Royal Revenues in the Árpádian Age -- Chapter 12 Seigneurial Dues and Taxation Principles in Late Medieval Hungary -- Chapter 13 Minting, Financial Administration and Coin Circulation in Hungary in the Árpádian and Angevin Periods (1000-1387) -- Chapter 14 Coinage and Financial Administration in Late Medieval Hungary (1387-1526) -- Part 4 Spheres of Production -- Chapter 15 The Ecclesiastic Economy in Medieval Hungary -- Chapter 16 The Urban Economy in Medieval Hungary -- Chapter 17 The Medieval Market Town and Its Economy -- Chapter 18 Crafts in Medieval Hungary -- Chapter 19 The Economy of Castle Estates in the Late Medieval Kingdom of Hungary -- Part 5 Trade Relations -- Chapter 20 Domestic Trade in the Árpádian Age

Frontmatter -- Contents -- List of Illustrations -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- Part 1: Limits -- 1 The Measure of Production -- 2 The Power of Distribution -- 3 The Limits of Individual Access -- Part II: Disruptions -- 4 Two Shortages of Lesser Magnitude -- 5 The Famine of 1374-75 -- Conclusion -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index

This book demolishes the widely held view that the phrase 'medieval business' is an oxymoron. The authors review the entire range of business in medieval western Europe, probing its Roman and Christian heritage to discover the economic and political forces that shaped the organization of agriculture, manufacturing, construction, mining, transportation and marketing. Businessmen's responses to the devastating plagues, famines, and warfare that beset Europe in the late Middle Ages are equally well covered. Medieval businessmen's remarkable success in coping with this hostile new environment was 'a harvest of adversity' that prepared the way for the economic expansion of the sixteenth century. Two main themes run through this book. First, the force and direction of business development in this period stemmed primarily from the demands of the elite. Second, the lasting legacy of medieval businessmen was less their skillful adaptations of imported inventions than their brilliant innovations in business organization

This volume aims to define the changing nature of lordship in Viking and early medieval Scandinavia. Advances in settlement archaeology and cultural geography have revealed new aspects of social power in Viking Age and early medieval Scandinavia. New sources and approaches allow us to question the traditional view that Scandinavian aristocrats developed from Viking raiders into Christian landlords. Seventeen thematic chapters by leading scholars survey and assess the state of research and provide a new baseline for interdisciplinary discussions. How were social ties structured? How did lordship and dependency materialize in modes of agriculture, settlement, landscape, and monuments? The book traces the power of tributary relations, forged through personal ties, gifts, duties, and feasting in great halls, and their gradual transformation into the feudal bonds of levies and land-rent

This excellent and concise summary of the social and economic history of Europe in the Middle Ages examines the changing patterns and developments in agriculture, commerce, trade, industry and transport that took place during the millennium between the fall of the Roman Empire and the discovery of the New World. After outlining the trends in demography, prices, rent, and wages and in the patterns of settlement and cultivation, the author also summarizes the basic research done in the last twenty-five years in many aspects of the social and economic history of medieval Europe, citing French, Ge

Beyond Boundaries: Religion, Region, Language and the State is a research initiative hosted by the British Museum and the British Library in London. Moving beyond geographical, chronological, disciplinary and historiographical boundaries, the books in this series explore the interactions of India and her neighbors from late antiquity to the close of the medieval.