The Open Field System and Beyond

The Open Field System and Beyond PDF Author: Carl J. Dahlman
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521228817
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 252

Get Book Here

Book Description
In this book, Professor Dahlman applies modern economic methodology to an old historical problem. He demonstrates how the quaint institutions of the ancient English open field system of agriculture can be understood as an intelligent and rational adaptation to a particular problem of production and to certain historical circumstances. He argues that the two major characteristics of this type of agriculture - scattered strips owned by individual peasants and extensive areas of common land - both fulfilled vital economic functions. This overturns the traditional view of the open field system as inefficient and rigidly bound by tradition, and throws light on the behaviour of medeival peasants. Professor Dahlman also offers some generalisations about the economic theory of institutions and institutional change, refuting the idea that an economic analysis of institutions must necessarily be deterministic. As a challenge to some of the fundamental criticisms of the application of economic theory to historical problems, the book will be of great interest to agrarian historians and to economic historians generally, as well as to specialists in the medieval period.

Field Systems and Farming Systems in Late Medieval England

Field Systems and Farming Systems in Late Medieval England PDF Author: Bruce M.S. Campbell
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1000938387
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 388

Get Book Here

Book Description
The later Middle Ages was an overwhelmingly rural world, with probably three out of four households reliant upon farming for a living. Yet conventional accounts of the period rarely do justice to the variety of ways in which the land was managed and worked. The thirteen essays collected in this volume draw upon the abundant documentary evidence of the period to explore that diversity. In the process they engage with the issue of classification - without which effective generalisation is impossible - and offer a series of solutions to that particularly thorny methodological challenge. Only through systematic and objective classification is it possible to differentiate between and map different field systems, husbandry types, and land-use categories. That, in turn, makes it possible to consider and evaluate the relative roles of soils and topography, institutional structures, and commercialised market demand in shaping farm enterprise both during the period of mounting population before the Black Death and the long era of demographic decline that followed it. What emerges is an agrarian world more commercialised, differentiated, and complex than is usually appreciated, whose institutional and agronomic contours shaped the course of agricultural development for centuries to come.

British Economic and Social History

British Economic and Social History PDF Author: R. C. Richardson
Publisher: Manchester University Press
ISBN: 9780719036002
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 296

Get Book Here

Book Description


The Great Meadow

The Great Meadow PDF Author: Brian Donahue
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 9780300123692
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 356

Get Book Here

Book Description
In 'The Great Meadow', Brian Donahue examines the farming practices of the early settlers at Concord in Massachusetts. He argues against the long held belief that these farmers used methods that degraded the land & shows how the Concord community in fact achieved a successful & sustainable system.

Research in Economic History

Research in Economic History PDF Author: Christopher Hanes
Publisher: Emerald Group Publishing
ISBN: 1789733030
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 211

Get Book Here

Book Description
In this new volume of Research in Economic History, editors Christopher Hanes and Susan Wolcott bring together a cast of expert contributors to vigorously interrogate and analyze historic economics questions, looking across the political economy of the US, European history, and longstanding economic debates.

Beyond the Medieval Village

Beyond the Medieval Village PDF Author: Stephen Rippon
Publisher: OUP Oxford
ISBN: 0191548022
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 336

Get Book Here

Book Description
The varied character of Britain's countryside provides communities with a strong sense of local identity. One of the most significant features of the landscape in Southern Britain is the way that its character differs from region to region, with compact villages in the Midlands contrasting with the sprawling hamlets of East Anglia and isolated farmsteads of Devon. Even more remarkable is the very 'English' feel of the landscape in southern Pembrokeshire, in the far south west of Wales. Hoskins described the English landscape as 'the richest historical record we possess', and in this volume Stephen Rippon explores the origins of regional variations in landscape character, arguing that while some landscapes date back to the centuries either side of the Norman Conquest, other areas across southern Britain underwent a profound change around the 8th century AD.

A Bibliography of Historical Economics to 1980

A Bibliography of Historical Economics to 1980 PDF Author: Deirdre N. McCloskey
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521403276
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 536

Get Book Here

Book Description
Historians and economists will find here what their fields have in common - the movement since the 1950s known variously as 'cliometrics', 'economic history', or 'historical economics'. A leading figure in the movement, Donald McCloskey, has compiled, with the help of George Hersh and a panel of distinguished advisors, a highly comprehensive bibliography of historical economics covering the period up until 1980. The book will be useful to all economic historians, as well as quantitative historians, applied economists, historical demographers, business historians, national income accountants, and social historians.

Gentlemen and Poachers

Gentlemen and Poachers PDF Author: Munsche
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521232845
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 280

Get Book Here

Book Description
The eighteenth-century English game laws have long been synonymous with petty tyranny. By imposing a property qualification on sportsmen, they effectively denied all but country gentlemen the right to take game or even to possess a gun. Those who challenged the gentry's monopoly were fined or imprisoned, usually after only a summary hearing by the local justice of the peace. In the early nineteenth century, it was claimed that one out of every four inmates in England's prisons was an offender against the game laws. Bitterly denounced at the time, they have continued to be condemned by historians as arbitrary, savage and unjust. This book is the first full scholarly examination of the English game laws. Based on material drawn from over two dozen archives - including judicial records, estate correspondence and personal diaries - it attempts to explain what the laws actually were, why they were passed, how they were enforced and why they were eventually repealed. The picture which emerges from this investigation challenges the conventional wisdom about the game laws in a number of important respects.

The Anglo-Saxons from the Migration Period to the Eighth Century

The Anglo-Saxons from the Migration Period to the Eighth Century PDF Author: John Hines
Publisher: Boydell Press
ISBN: 9781843830344
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 492

Get Book Here

Book Description
The culture of early Anglo-Saxon England explored from an inter-disciplinary perspective. A stimulating contribution to the field of Anglo-Saxon studies. MEDIEVAL ARCHAEOLOGY A mind-stretching read. NOTES AND QUERIES The papers contained in this volume, by leading researchers in the field, cover a wide range of social, economic and ideological aspects of the culture of early Anglo-Saxon England, from an inter-disciplinary perspective. The status of `Anglo-Saxondom' and `Englishness' as cultural and ethnic categories are a recurrent focus of debate, while other topics include the reconstruction of settlement patterns; social and political structures; farming in medieval England; and the spiritual world of the Anglo-Saxons. As a whole, the contributionsoffer fascinating insights into key contemporary research questions and projects, and into the character and problems of interdisciplinary approaches. Dr JOHN HINES is Reader in the School of History and Archaeology atthe University of Wales, Cardiff. Contributors: WALTER POHL, IAN WOOD, DELLA HOOKE, DOMINIC POWLESLAND, HEINRICH HÄRKE, THOMAS CHARLES-EDWARDS, PATRIZIA LENDINARA, PETER FOWLER, CHRISTOPHER SCULL, JANE HAWKES, D.N. DUMVILLE, JOHN HINES, GIORGIO AUSENDA

The Solar System Beyond Neptune

The Solar System Beyond Neptune PDF Author: M. Antonietta Barucci
Publisher: University of Arizona Press
ISBN: 9780816527557
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 644

Get Book Here

Book Description
A new frontier in our solar system opened with the discovery of the Kuiper Belt and the extensive population of icy bodies orbiting beyond Neptune. Today the study of all of these bodies, collectively referred to as trans-Neptunian objects, reveals them to be frozen time capsules from the earliest epochs of solar system formation. This new volume in the Space Science Series, with one hundred contributing authors, offers the most detailed and up-to-date picture of our solar systemÕs farthest frontier. Our understanding of trans-Neptunian objects is rapidly evolving and currently constitutes one of the most active research fields in planetary sciences. The Solar System Beyond Neptune brings the reader to the forefront of our current understanding and points the way to further advancement in the field, making it an indispensable resource for researchers and students in planetary science.