Before the Black Death

Abstract

MTM HE simulta neous publication oftwo fresh assessments ofthe early fourteenthcentury economy marks a significant departure from recent discussions of problems raised by conditions in countryside before Black Death.1 Everyone has his own ideas as to what happened to economy after Black Death. But any attempt to account for what happened then by attributing it to simple causes is bound to be suspect. Consequently, historians have looked for predisposing factors to which they can assign some share of responsibility for momentous subversion of accepted order of things that took place once Black Death had run its course, and have perceived symptoms of excessive strain or debility in changes they find on land or in farming policy during half-century or so before its coming. Prof. Postan has always contended that economy was failing well before days of Black Death; and his views have always commanded widespread support.2 Dr Baker has concluded, for example, from his examination of JNfonarum Inquisitiones that the high tide of medieval land colonisation ... [was] ... on turn in early decades of fourteenth century;' and Dr Kershaw, who has contributed a pastoral crisis in this period to saga of crop failures with which H. S. Lucas has made us all so familiar, firmly corroborates his findings.4 Widespread support, however, is not unanimity. There are dissentients. Miss Harvey, using very similar records to those cited by Prof. Postan and by those who share his views, comes to very different conclusions;5 and Dr Watts has added his proffer to range of her arguments and examples.6 1 E. Miller, 'War, Taxation and English Economy in Late Thirteenth and Early Fourteenth Centuries', in J. M. Winter, ed. War and Economic Development (Cambridge, I975); J. R. Maddicott, 'The English Peasantry and Demands of Crown, 1294-I34I', Past and Present, supp. I (I 975). 2 M. M. Postan, Essays on Medieval Agriculture and General Problems of Medieval Economy (Cambridge, 1973), pp. I4,20I if. 3 A. R. H. Baker, 'Evidence in Nonarum Inquisitiones of Contracting Arable Lands', Economic History Review, 2nd ser. xix (1 966), 5 I 8. 4 I. Kershaw, 'The Great Famine and Agrarian Crisis in England, 13 I 5-22', Past and Present, LIX (I 973) . 5 B. Harvey, 'The Population Trend in England between 1300 and 1348', Transactions Royal Historical Society, 5th ser. xvi (i966). 6 D. G. Watts, 'A Model for Early Fourteenth Century', Econ. Hist. Rev. 2nd ser. xx (i967).