- Town and Countryside in the Age of the Black Death: Essays in Honour of John Hatchered. by Mark Bailey and Stephen Rigby
This collection of essays about the effects of the Black Death on medieval European demography is the result of a congress held in honour of the retirement of Professor John Hatcher. The essays take a ‘Quantitative History’ approach, which uses statistical data collection and analysis tools to create a sort of ‘primary source’ of information from which conclusions may be drawn. The collection, as outlined in the Introduction, attempts to answer two particular questions. One is why did the population in England show no signs of improvement in the two centuries after the plague, and the other is how different was the demographic structure of the late Middle Ages from that of the early modern period.
The first section of the volume deals directly with the medieval demographic system. This section contains three articles that approach their subject from the premise, prevalent not only in this collection but rather popular in demographic research generally, that two distinct demographic systems existed, one in the late Middle Ages and the other in the early modern period. Maryanne Kowaleski’s article stands out within this section. Kowaleski suggests comparing statistical analysis results of partial medieval society data with results from the same type of society, namely settlements off the sea, in the modern period, from which much more data is available. There is much similarity in the demographic expressions of the two periods.
The second section of the collection deals with various relationships between landlords and farmers. The data discussed in the various articles does not come from censuses but rather from lists describing various population activities at the time: court rolls; reports of agricultural produce allowing changes in crop and livestock types and sizes to be observed; workers’ salary levels, a rise in which points to lack of working hands; and produce planning affected by the understanding that risk taking must be reduced during crisis. These works of research, individually impressive, collectively point to a period of crisis and economic shrinkage.
The third section deals with trade and industry. Two of the articles in this section are focused in a specific, small location and the third tries to analyse a rather thin data set regarding fairs and markets. This section does examine [End Page 261]various aspects that can contribute to the bigger demographic picture but is lacking in scope and detail.
Despite the answers given to the two questions raised in the Introduction being partial and inconclusive, the strength of the collection is in its very existence. This collection makes an impressive attempt to deal with the problem of a lack of demographic data by diversifying the areas of research, leaving the reader both impressed with the data collection work and its analysis, and desiring tools to enhance further research. It is only disappointing that the collection does not include location indexes, demographic and other lists, and especially a table and chart index, which could aid readers and researchers more easily to locate needed data within such a hefty, detailed volume.