Some Middle English Sermon Verse and its Transmission in Manuscript and Print

Special volume: Preaching the Word in Manuscript and Print in Late Medieval England: Essays in Honour of Susan Powell, ed. by Martha Driver and Veronica O’MaraSpecial volume: Preaching the Word in Manuscript and Print in Late Medieval England: Essays in Honour of Susan Powell, ed. by Martha Driver and Veronica O’MaraSpecial volume: Preaching the Word in Manuscript and Print in Late Medieval England: Essays in Honour of Susan Powell, ed. by Martha Driver and Veronica O’Mar

Postan, Population, and Prices in Late-Medieval England and Flanders

This paper re-examines the classic demographic or 'real' model, essentially based on a Malthusian-Ricardian model, that the late Michael Postan (Cambridge) utilized to explain the behaviour of the later-medieval western European economy, and in particular the behaviour of price movements. In essence, Postan had argued that just as population growth, with a relatively static agrarian technology, and thus with the inevitable Law of Diminishing returns, had drive up grain prices during the 'long thirteenth century' (c. 1180- c.1320), so, in reverse fashion, population decline during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries led to a fall in grain prices. The drastic alteration in the land:labour ratio also led to a rise in real wages and a fall in rents; and in general to rising living standards. This in turn led to a rise in relative prices for non-grain food prices, especially in livestock products, and in industrial prices. In Postan's strongly pronounced views, monetary changes played no role in late-medieval price movements nor in any of the changes that the economy underwent during the late Middle Ages. Utilising new and revised sets of price and wage data for late-medieval England and Flanders, unavailable to Postan, this paper seeks to prove that 'money mattered', and in particular that the oscillations in price levels (as measured by a consumer price index), from inflation to deflation to inflation and then again to deflation have to be explained by monetary changes, both in money stocks and flows. The evidence, in both tables and graphs, will demonstrate that the prices for grains, livestock products, and industrial goods generally rose together during the inflationary periods in later medieval England and Flanders and then fell together, if never precisely in tandem, during the deflationary periods. Analyses of relative price changes and of livestock:grain price and industrial:grain price do not vindicate Postan's predictions of price divergencies, except during a few, rare, and brief periods. Since another recent and lengthy publication is devoted to the question of real-wage changes, this paper provides only a cursory overview of those changes: to demonstrate, first, that real wages, which had been declining before the Black Death, did not rise immediately following the Black Death, did not recover their former levels until the late 1360s, and did not begin their sustained rise, in England, until the late 1370s; and in Flanders, not until the 1390s. The subsequent rise in real wages was fundamentally, if not exclusively, the consequence of nominal wage-stickiness combined with prolonged and deep deflation; and thus real wages also fell during inflationary periods in the fifteenth century, particularly in Flanders, where such inflations were the consequence of much more frequent coinage debasements. Money does indeed matter.Ricardo, Malthus, population, agriculture, money, prices, wages

Apocalyptic Mentalities in Late-Medieval England

Apocalypticism, defined by expectation of an imminent End, assumes many forms and proves influential in the second half of the Fourteenth Century in England. Throughout my study, I demonstrate that a rich apocalyptic environment emerges in works of the period, including those of Chaucer, Gower, Langland, and the Pearl-poet. In this period, apocalypticism has provided explanations for plague, narratives that make evil more vivid, and arguments for urgent action. It gives contemporary phenomena special meaning. My study is organized around conspicuous centers of meaning that work reciprocally with the apocalyptic, simultaneously defining the End and defined by it. First, I center on death, which as a theological last thing in itself necessarily shares a sense of anxiety with the apocalypse. In connection with both death and apocalypse, fear and hope are often invoked. And as forms of death are tied to the apocalyptic, this means that data from the late-medieval world are used to tell a vivid story with implications for the future of daily life. My second chapter deals with how the meaning of the apocalyptic is interrelated with ecclesiastical authority. In an apocalyptic context, authority delineates not only power but also the important matters of good and evil. In this period in which notions of power and evil are intensely debated, apocalypticism proves adaptable to different circumstances and different perspectives while still remaining grounded in predictive ancient prophecy. Third, I maintain that the period\u27s still-developing practices of confession (which claim to regulate all human activity) are given a special urgency by the sense of impending doom. Then I close my study with an examination of how writing embodies a curious tension with the apocalyptic in mind: writing is confined to time, but it also must serve as a witness to eternal matters. The apocalypse, while it argues for ephemerality of earthly things, requires a qualified permanence of texts that spread its explanations and stories. Overall, I maintain that the richness and variety of apocalyptic meaning in this period is best understood through the apocalyptic\u27s interaction with key cultural terms, including mortality, authority, confession, and textual permanence

The origins of intensive marine fishing in medieval Europe: the English evidence

The catastrophic impact of fishing pressure on species such as cod and herring is well documented. However, the antiquity of their intensive exploitation has not been established. Systematic catch statistics are only available for ca. 100 years, but large-scale fishing industries existed in medieval Europe and the expansion of cod fishing from the fourteenth century (first in Iceland, then in Newfoundland) played an important role in the European colonization of the Northwest Atlantic. History has demonstrated the scale of these late medieval and post-medieval fisheries, but only archaeology can illuminate earlier practices. Zooarchaeological evidence shows that the clearest changes in marine fishing in England between AD 600 and 1600 occurred rapidly around AD 1000 and involved large increases in catches of herring and cod. Surprisingly, this revolution predated the documented post-medieval expansion of England's sea fisheries and coincided with the Medieval Warm Period-when natural herring and cod productivity was probably low in the North Sea. This counterintuitive discovery can be explained by the concurrent rise of urbanism and human impacts on freshwater ecosystems. The search for 'pristine' baselines regarding marine ecosystems will thus need to employ medieval palaeoecological proxies in addition to recent fisheries data and early modern historical records

Trinkets and Charms: the use, meaning and significance of later medieval and early post-medieval dress accessories

This is a thematic study of dress accessories of late medieval to early post-medieval date from two regions of mainland Britain. It is an investigation of everyday objects which aims to re-engage the material world with past individuals. An interdisciplinary approach is used to understand how dress accessories were often more than ornaments, and how they intersected with and were integral to social, political and religious life. Accessories recovered from a range of excavated archaeological sites, chance finds and data recorded by the Portable Antiquities Scheme (PAS), have been catalogued and investigated. Documentary evidence, paintings and tomb effigies are sources of evidence drawn upon throughout to supplement the archaeological evidence, to enhance the interpretations and to place the accessories into a wider social context. The accessories have been analysed using object biographies in thematic discussions based on aspects of daily life. The results demonstrate the overall homogenous nature of dress accessories used in the two border regions and there is little evidence to suggest that they were consciously used by later medieval and early-post medieval people to display a border identity. Chance finds and PAS results have extended our knowledge of the types of adornments worn and revealed types not frequently found in excavations. Some variation between and within regions is identified, such as an unusual distribution of dress hooks, the possible presence of ‘Hanseatic’ material in the northeast of England, and purposeful deposits of accessories of monetary value in the north-east of England. Long-term biographies are also identified where a number of accessory types had different meanings depending on their context of use. The themes of memory, heirlooms, and gift giving feature throughout the thematic discussions of the accessories. By viewing archaeological artefacts as things, this thesis endeavours to expand our knowledge of medieval dress accessories and past lives

Excavations and the afterlife of a professional football stadium, Peel Park, Accrington, Lancashire: towards an archaeology of football

Association football is now a multi-billion dollar global industry whose emergence spans the post-medieval to the modern world. With its professional roots in late 19th-century industrial Lancashire, stadiums built for the professionalization of football first appear in frequency in the North of England. While many historians of sport focus on consumerism and ‘topophilia’ (attachment to place) regarding these local football grounds, archaeological research that has been conducted on the spectator experience suggests status differentiation within them. Our excavations at Peel Park confirm this impression while also showing a significant afterlife to this stadium, particularly through children’s play

Participatory reading in late-medieval England

This book explores how modern media practices can illuminate participatory reading in England from the late-fourteenth to the early-sixteenth centuries. Nonlinear apprehension, immersion and embodiment are practices intimately familiar to readers of Wikipedia, players of video games and users of multi-touch mobile devices. But far from being unique to digital media, they have clear analogues in the pre-modern era. Participatory reading in late-medieval England traces how the affinities between old and new media can reveal fresh insights not only about the digital, but also about the long history of media forms and practices. It thus casts new light on the literary practices of a period pre- and post-print to demonstrate how participatory reading vitally contributed to and shaped these negotiations of fragile authority