Suchergebnisse

First published in 1934, this historical survey of the application of the Poor Law in Cambridgeshire covers the period from its codification under Queen Elizabeth I to the Amendment Act of 1834. Resulting from the author's extensive analysis of parish records, accounts and court proceedings, the examination of a largely agricultural county marks it out from many other such studies. Cambridgeshire is a unique area; although under a strong metropolitan influence due to its geographical proximity to London and its links to the capital via the University of Cambridge, it contains few towns or large villages. The scattered population meant efforts to group areas for the purposes of administration during the period in question were largely unsuccessful. Instead, E.M. Hampson's study reveals that local autonomy led to large variations in the application of the Poor Law

Improvement writers argued that drainage would bring prosperity and population growth to fenland communities; locals counter-argued that their communities were already thriving. The detailed surviving records from early modern Whittlesey, in the Isle of Ely, are analysed here to test the accuracy of these opposing claims. Using the returns of the 1523 Lay Subsidy, the 1563 ecclesiastical census, the Lady Day 1674 Hearth Tax records and the 1676 Compton Census, together with bishops' transcripts and probate inventories, this article finds that although the population did indeed increase after drainage, the pre-drainage population was also increasing. The Michaelmas 1664 Hearth Tax records are analysed to uncover something of the character of the inhabitants and the 1674 Lady Day returns are then used to test the relative wealth of the community compared with that of sub-regions throughout England identified by Tom Arkell. Finally, there is a discussion of Whittlesey's housing stock.

Agriculture was the largest and most important sector of the medieval English economy. Yet although peasants comprised the majority of the population, and were responsible for the greater part of land use, surprisingly little is known about peasant cropping patterns and production strategies. Taking the Crowland Abbey manor of Oakington, Cambridgeshire as a case study, this article examines peasant land use and agricultural strategies. Using data collected from the Oakington tithe accounts and manor court rolls, this article demonstrates that peasants used their land more extensively than did the lord, raising their output per acre above that of the demesne. This was driven by peasant need for fodder crops, and the strain placed on agricultural systems that required peasants to use their land to produce grains and legumes for consumption, fodder, and sale.

For most of the present century economic and social historians have intermittently debated the question of the standard of living during the first phase of the Industrial Revolution, 1780–1830. As both the "pessimists" and the "optimists" acknowledge, too much emphasis can easily be placed on wage levels and the more easily measured aspects of the question, to the neglect of the quality of life and its non-quantifiable aspects. Insufficient explicit attention has also been paid to the divergent experience of different occupations and different districts of the country.