Overview

The third volume of The Agrarian History of England and Wales, dealing with the last century and a half of the middle ages, follows the general pattern of the second volume which described the generations of agricultural expansion between the time of Domesday and of the Black Death. The third volume, however, concerns itself with the new demographic and economic circumstances created in large measure by endemic plague, and how these circumstances influenced patterns of settlement in the countryside, farming practices and the structure of rural society, both at the level of landlords and in the villages. An attempt is made to distinguish the special influence of general circumstances in the different regions of late medieval England and Wales. The volume includes a study of the marketing of agricultural produce in the period 1200-1500, detailed analyses of the movements of prices and wages in the countryside, a review of peasant rebellions and discontent centered on the revolts of 1381, and a chapter devoted to rural building in England and Wales.