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  • §7 - England

  • from Chapter VII - Medieval Agrarian Society in its Prime
  • Edited by M. M. Postan
  • Book:
    The Cambridge Economic History of Europe from the Decline of the Roman Empire
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    02 January 1966, pp 548-632

  • Summary

    This chapter discusses the medieval agrarian society in England. It focuses on the agricultural land, colonization of the population, manorial estates, the landlords, and the peasants and the villagers. The course of English agriculture in the medieval period was dominated by the history of the land itself, its productivity, its relative abundance or scarcity, its use and distribution. In the Middle Ages of England, internal colonization went in step with the contemporary population trends: as population increased or declined, so settlement expanded and contracted. Some manors did not dominate the countryside as much as others, had fewer functions or a more rudimentary organization and exercised a more remote control over the lives and the lands of the tenants. For a time in the thirteenth century, the economic conditions provided the landlord with both the incentive and the means for maintaining his claims where the claims were still worth maintaining.