Agricultural History Review, Volume 60 Part 2 (2012), p. 309

The present volume, celebrating the career of Richard Britnell, brings together twelve exciting and innovative studies by some of the leading authorities on the social and economic history of medieval England. Each study represents an original piece of research, based, in most cases, on archival sources.

The volume opens with John Hatcher’s study of rural wage earners and their living standards in the post-Black Death period. Here Hatcher challenges the prevailing view of the (long) fifteenth century as a ‘Golden Age of the Labourer’ and offers a new perspective on the topic, arguing that this period, and especially c.1440–80, was also an era of economic decline and depression. In particular, he points out the inability of manorial accounts, recording agricultural wages, to reflect the real income of rustic inhabitants. In reality, it is essential to distinguish between real (daily) wages and real (annual) income. A close analysis reveals that there was an apparent gap between the two, and that an average rustic could not have been employed for the 260 days a year left after cultivating his own landholding: an unrealistically high figure proposed by some historians.

John Langdon offers a most valuable contribution to the history of late medieval wages. Unlike other historians, who were satisfied with ‘average’ wages paid to male workers, Langdon, utilizing royal building accounts (in itself a unique source), sets out to learn about the wages of ‘marginal’ workers, that is, women and children. In addition, he differentiates between ‘mean’, ‘median’ and ‘mode’ wages paid to the same employees. Basal (that is, minimum) wages for all groups remained constant for a long period of time. Intriguingly, the 1290s saw a sudden disappearance of women from building gangs, which may be explained by the ensuing period of ‘baby boom’ and unemployment.

Derek Keene compares three major instances of grain shortage and famine in London in the later middle ages, focusing on the difference in reaction to three crises. Thus, during the famine of 1256–59, food relief came largely from the initiative of a single person, Richard of Cornwall, who secured imports of corn from Germany and Holland. On the other hand, there is archaeological evidence of the emergency establishment of mass burial grounds, perhaps devised by the Bishop of London. During the years of the Great Famine (1315–17), Edward II extended privileges to alien merchants, while urban authorities enacted new market regulations. In the course of the 1438–40 crisis, the civic authorities used more sophisticated measures, which included the exploitation of the public reserve to purchase grain and build the first city granary between 1438 and 1444.

John Lee’s study on grain shortages in early sixteenth-century towns (despite the somewhat misleading title ‘Grain Shortage in Late Medieval Towns’) represents a complementary paper to the previous article by Keene. Like Keene, Lee focuses on governmental (both central and local) responses to urban grain shortages, giving special attention to early Tudor Coventry. These measures included forced sales of surpluses, regulation of begging, control of ale-houses and unlawful games, tight supervision of markets, import of grain and construction of central granaries. Food riots were provoked not by hunger, but by the failure of civic authorities to provide an adequate supply of corn.

Lee’s paper merges nicely into James Davis’s article on market regulation in fifteenth-century England, through the prism of a single legislative document, the so-called ‘Lansdowne Assizes’ of the late fifteenth century. In effect, the ‘Lansdowne Assizes’ were a synthesis of earlier central (royal) statutes and assizes and local (civic, manorial) by-laws, related to various traders and their merchandize. This document attempted to regulate trade and traders and prevent forestalling, speculation and other mercantile frauds. It should be viewed as a part of a wider process of gradual standardization of assize legislation, which was a major element in the late medieval English market economy.

Davis’s paper on trade legislation is followed by Mark Bailey’s article on self-government in small towns in the late medieval period. Here, Bailey challenges the old wisdom that dwellers of small towns had little or no autonomy and that they lacked control mechanisms as an urban community. A close analysis of institutional arrangements within ‘mesne’ (seigneurial) towns reveals that burgesses managed to attain a fair number of liberties and control, particularly through the piecemeal leasing-out of towns by their lords. Although this phenomenon became especially widespread after the Black Death, there are numerous pre-Black Death instances, too.

The topic of small towns is continued in Christine Newman’s article on the marketing and trading networks of three late medieval towns in County Durham. The three episcopal towns (Gateshead, Sunderland and Darlington) differed in their success and fate, largely dictated by their physical location, degree of commercialization and local specialisms. Thus, Gateshead and Darlington were important local trade centres that coped with the post-Black Death crisis fairly well, while Sunderland, whose commercial activities were rather limited, underwent an ‘urban decline’ in the post-plague era and it was not until the late sixteenth century that it was revived, thanks to the expansion of its salt industry and trade.

The fate of late medieval Durham is pursued in Peter Larson’s paper on peasant opportunities in rural Durham in the fifteenth century. On the basis of court records of the Durham bishopric, Larson shows that the post-Black Death era saw an upsurge in peasant land-market activities, with peasants accumulating larger holdings of land, mostly from the demesne. Later on, entire demesnes and even villages were being leased. This process led to an inevitable stratification within local communities. Other economic opportunities included newly opened coal-mines and demesne mills, leased to local peasants.

Maryanne Kowaleski’s study on shipmasters as entrepreneurs takes us from Durham to the southern counties. Late medieval shipmasters not only possessed all the essential navigation skills, but were also involved in an array of entrepreneurial activities. They played an important part in long-distance international trade. Some of them were employed by ship-owners and merchants, while some others were themselves ship-owners, and in particular owners of commercial vessels. Ship-mastering seems to have been a particularly rewarding profession in times of war, when shipmasters expected to receive a share of any prizes while on the king’s naval service.

Martha Carlin’s article deals with hitherto neglected, but fascinating anti-embezzlement instructions for manorial officials, compiled by one Robert Carpenter in the 1260s. There are six possible frauds, connected to sheep management and cheese production. Whatever Carpenter’s motives in putting together these instructions were, it is clear that they reflect the fact that embezzlement was a widespread practice in the late medieval rural economy. One important implication is that employee theft seems to have contributed to the late medieval shadow economy. An (accurate) translation is followed by an (equally accurate) critical edition of the treatise.

James Masschaele offers an article on the place of private charters in public land disputes in late medieval England. The success and validity of a charter were obviated by a number of challenges, including forgeries, and the age and physical and mental condition of its compiler. Charters were validated by being placed on an altar and read publicly at local courts. These ‘legitimizing’ rituals derive from kindred royal practices of validating royal writs. Charter witnesses played an important role in litigation concerning land disputes, either as local juries, or as evidence to each side’s claims. The expansion of private charters reflects the expansion of other facets of socio-economic and cultural life in late medieval England.

The final essay, by Christopher Dyer, is concerned with the place of luxury goods in medieval English society and economy, over the very longue durée (c.650–1540). Dyer’s findings are based upon both written sources and archaeological evidence. As he shows, between c.650 and 1100, nascent urban centres, patronized by kings, played the dominant role in importing foreign luxury goods, chiefly reserved for local aristocracy. Proliferation and disposal of luxury articles were rather limited. After c.1100, and mainly because of the concurrent processes of urbanization and commercialization, there was an increased proliferation of luxury consumables, in both small and large towns. In all cases, luxury goods were no longer limited to the aristocracy, but also enjoyed by various members of the urban elite.

The volume closes with a comprehensive bibliography of Britnell’s works, down to 2010. These include 23 authored monographs and edited volumes, 91 articles and ten shorter notes and entries: a most impressive amount by any standard.

This festschrift has many apparent good points. First, it contains some important methodological and thematic contributions, whose quality reflects the high academic standards set by Richard Britnell himself and modelled here. For instance, there is no doubt that Langdon’s article sets new methodologies for studying the history of wages. Similarly, Dyer’s article is an important reminder that, in many cases, a full picture cannot be assembled, unless both textual and archaeological sources are brought together. Second, the internal structure of the volume is very clear and easy to follow, with many papers flowing one into another thematically or conceptually. Finally, most papers are written on topics that Britnell has had a profound interest in during the course of his career. These include urban history (Keene, Lee, Bailey), trade (Davis, Newman), and the local history of County Durham (Newman, Larson), just to name a few. This volume is indeed a fitting way to pay homage to Richard Britnell and appreciate his impact on the scholarship of late medieval economy and society.