Essays on Medieval Agriculture and General Problems of the Medieval Economy

Includes The economic foundations of medieval society, The rise of a money economy, The chronology of labour services and The charters of the villeins.

M. M. Postan (Author)

9780521088466, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 30 October 2008

320 pages
23 x 16 x 1.8 cm, 0.47 kg

Professor Postan's work on the social and economic history of the Middle Ages has had an enormous influence upon the study of the subject. His essays represent his major contribution and are an invaluable addition to the literature. Twenty-two essays are gathered together into two volumes. Previously published elsewhere, many in obscure places, over a period from 1928 to 1972, they are still greatly used and referred to today; their appearance in this more accessible form will be warmly welcomed by a wide range of students and scholars in all branches of medieval and economic history as well as by social scientists and economists generally. This volume contains such seminal pieces as The economic foundations of medieval society, The rise of a money economy, The chronology of labour services and The charters of the villeins.

Preface
Acknowledgements
Part I. General: 1. The economic foundations of medieval economy
2. The rise of a money economy
3. The fifteenth century
4. Some social consequences of the Hundred Years War
5. The costs of the Hundred Years War
6. Why was science backward in the Middle Ages?
Part II. Agrarian: 7. The chronology of labour services
8. The charters of the villeins
9. Heriots and prices on Winchester manors with statistical notes on Winchester heriots by J. Longden
10. Some agrarian evidence of a declining population in the later Middle Ages
11. Village livestock in the thirteenth century
12. Glastonbury estates in the twelfth century
13. Legal status and economic condition in medieval villages
Index.

Subject Areas: History [HB]