Everyday Life in Medieval England

Christopher Dyer

• Publisher: Hambledon Continuum
• Year: 2001
• Print ISBN: 9781852852016
• eBook ISBN: 9780826419828
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: World History
• Index: History

Everyday Life in Medieval England captures the day-to-day experience of people in the middle ages - the houses and settlements in which they lived, the food they ate, their getting and spending - and their social relationships. The picture that emerges is of great variety, of constant change, of movement and of enterprise. Many people were downtrodden and miserably poor, but they struggled against their circumstances, resisting oppressive authorities, to build their own way of life and to improve their material conditions. The ordinary men and women of the middle ages appear throughout. Everyday life in Medieval England is an outstanding contribution to both national and local history.

Table of contents

• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Illustrations
• Tables
• Preface
• Introduction
• 1 Power and Conflict in the Medieval English Village
• 2 'The Retreat from Marginal Land': The Growth and Decline of Medieval Rural Settlements
• 3 Deserted Medieval Villages in the West Midlands
• 4 Dispersed Settlements in Medieval England: A Case Study of Pendock, Worcestershire
• 5 Changes in Diet in the Late Middle Ages: The Case of Harvest Workers
• 6 The Consumption of Freshwater Fish in Medieval England
• 7 Gardens and Orchards in Medieval England
• 8 English Peasant Buildings in the Later Middle Ages (1200–1500)
• 9 Wages and Earnings in Late Medieval England: Evidence from the Enforcement of the Labour Laws
• 10 The Social and Economic Background to the Rural Revolt of 1381
• 11 The Rising of 1381 in Suffolk: Its Origins and Participants
• 12 Towns and Cottages in Eleventh-Century England
• 13 The Consumer and the Market in the Later Middle Ages
• 14 The Hidden Trade of the Middle Ages: Evidence from the West Midlands
• 15 Were there any Capitalists in Fifteenth-Century England?
• Index