Standards of Living in the Later Middle Ages: Social Change in England, c.1200-1520

Cambridge Medieval Textbooks

by Christopher Dyer

Between 1200 and 1520 medieval English society went through a series of upheavals--wars, pestilence, and rebellion. This book looks at aristocrats, peasants, townsmen, wage-earners, and paupers, and examines how they obtained and spent their incomes. Did the aristocracy practice conspicuous consumption? Did the peasants really starve? The book focuses on the varying fortunes of different social groups in the inflation of the thirteenth century, the crises of the fourteenth, and the apparent depression of the fifteenth. Dr. Dyer explains the changes in terms of the dynamics of a social and economic system subjected to stimuli and stresses.

Genres: History, Medieval, Medieval History, Nonfiction

337 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1989

About the author

Christopher Charles Dyer CBE FBA (born 1944) is Leverhulme Emeritus Professor of Regional and Local History and director of the Centre for English Local History at the University of Leicester. He was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2008 Birthday Honours.

Dyer is well known as the historian of everyday life, a recurring theme in his publications. Dyer looks at the economic and social history of medieval life, with an emphasis on the English Midlands from the Saxon period through to the 16th century. He was invited to deliver the Ford Lectures in the University of Oxford in a lecture series entitled 'An Age of Transition? Economy and Society in England in the Later Middle Ages'.

Reviews

[E]

A solid read. It's not a slog but it is pretty dry.

Well researched material covering this 300-year period.

Its a look into living expenditures between urban vs. country life aristocracy vs. peasant and the moral issues of poverty and charity.

It was hard to finish.

[José Luís Fernandes]

A very important synthesis on late medieval English standards of living, that is still in many ways a model for historians working on the field not only in England, but also in Continental Europe.

[Jago Lynch]

I read the chapters 'Introduction,' 'Late Medieval Society,' 'Peasant Living Standards: Modelling the Peasant Economy,' 'Peasants as Consumers,' 'Urban Standards of Living,' 'The Wage-Earners,' Poverty and Charity,' The Weather and Standards of Living.'

[Elena]

A bit dry, but quite interesting and thorough.

[Richard Anderson]

Worthy, dry.