Everyday Life in Medieval England

by Dyer, Christopher

• ISBN13: 9781852852016
• ISBN10: 1852852011
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2003-02-05
• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic

Summary

Everyday Life in Medieval England captures the day-to-day experience of people in the middle ages -- the houses and settlements in which they lived, the food they ate, their getting and spending -- and their social relationships. The picture that emerges is of great variety, of constant change, of movement and of enterprise. Many people were downtrodden and miserably poor, but they struggled against their circumstances, resisiting oppressive authorities, to build their own way of life and to improve their material conditions. The ordinary men and women of the middle ages appear throughout. Everyday Life in Medieval England is an outstanding contribution to both national and local history.

Author Biography

Christopher Dyer is Professor of Medieval Social History at the University of Birmingham. He is the author of Standards of Living in the Late Middle Ages.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements	vi
Illustrations	vii
Tables	viii
Preface	ix
Introduction	xi
Power and Conflict in the Medieval English Village	1	(12)
`The Retreat from Marginal Land': The Growth and Decline of Medieval Rural Settlements	13	(14)
Deserted Medieval Villages in the West Midlands	27	(20)
Dispersed Settlements in Medieval England: A Case Study of Pendock, Worcestershire	47	(30)
Changes in Diet in the Late Middle Ages: The Case of Harvest Workers	77	(24)
The Consumption of Freshwater Fish in Medieval England	101	(12)
Gardens and Orchards in Medieval England	113	(20)
English Peasant Buildings in the Later Middle Ages (1200-1500)	133	(34)
Wages and Earnings in Late Medieval England: Evidence from the Enforcement of the Labour Laws (with Simon A.C. Penn)	167	(24)
The Social and Economic Background to the Rural Revolt of 1381	191	(30)
The Rising of 1381 in Suffolk: Its Origins and Participants	221	(20)
Towns and Cottages in Eleventh-Century England	241	(16)
The Consumer and the Market in the Later Middle Ages	257	(26)
The Hidden Trade of the Middle Ages: Evidence from the West Midlands	283	(22)
Were there any Capitalists in Fifteenth-Century England?	305	(24)
Index	329