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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 May 2010
The problem of how North American medievalists should deal with social and economic history is one which seems to have some importance the present time. Two recent articles in the JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC HISTORY are concerned with this matter. So are two others which have just appeared in the American Historical Review and which, since they examine quantitative history in general, throw light on this problem. Because of this kind of current interest, it was decided to hold a special session devoted to social and economic history at the recent semicentennial anniversary meeting of the Mediaeval Academy of America. This session was preceded by a questionnaire sent to 105 medieval historians of the United States and Canada who represented every field study, every age group, and every geographic area of this continent. Seventy replies were received and a lively discussion took place later at the meeting itself, which some thirty scholars attended. This article represents an attempt to sum up the results of both the survey and the subsequent discussion because it should be of value not only to medievalists but also to a wider body of scholars who share an interest in economic and social history in general.
1 Thrupp, Sylvia L., “Comparative Study in the Barnyard,” in The Journal of Economic History, XXXV (1975), pp. 1–7CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Frederic C. Lane, “The Role of Governments in Economic Growth in Early Modern Times,” in Ibid., pp. 8–17.
2 Fogel, Robert W., “The Limits of Quantitative Methods in History,” in The American Historical Review, LXXX (1975), pp. 329–350CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Charlotte Erickson, “Quantitative History,” in Ibid., pp. 351–365.
3 This questionnaire consisted of two questions. First, “What do you see as the principal problems facing those of us concerned with medieval social and economic history?” Second, “What do you suggest as the special research tools and approaches we need to stress now and in the future to meet these problems?”
The questionnaire was sent to 80 Western European specialists and to 23 Islamic and Byzantine and 2 Japanese specialists. Proportionate replies were received from historians from all fields.
4 The most recent (1975) program of The Medieval Institute of Western Michigan University's Kalamazoo conference shows 132 sessions which were attended by almost 2,000 medievalists.
5 Several projects suggested which were thought might lend themselves to a quantitative approach were a survey of landholdings by the British upper class based upon Domesday, the Carta Baronum, and so on, between 1050 and 1200 A.D. and comparative tables of prices concerning Northern France and England in the thirteenth century and of the Islamic and Byzantine Worlds and Western Europe between 1000 and 1500 A.D.
6 An excellent example of an interest in combining social science and literary approaches was provided by a paper delivered at this same meeting by Sylvia L. Thrupp (past president of the Economic History Association) entitled “Links between Historical and Literary Studies.” A number of respondees to the questionnaire referred to in this article also were emphatic on the need to link the insights of American and European schools of Canon and Roman Law to the social and economic history of the Middle Ages. There was even a proposal for the establishment of an Index of Secular Art to make available to the historical profession the materials of medieval art history.
7 Some concrete proposals for the future were that regional sessions of local medievalists (Midwest Medieval Conference, Medieval Association of the Pacific, Southeastern Medieval Conference, New England Medieval Conference, and so on) should examine special approaches in social and economic history on an ad hoc basis in summer seminars and that a new review of social and economic history be established. Not all, however, thought the latter a fruitful suggestion.