Essays on Medieval Agriculture and General Problems of the Medieval Economy

by M.M. Postan

Professor Postan's work on the social and economic history of the Middle Ages has had an enormous influence upon the study of the subject. His essays represent his major contribution and are an invaluable addition to the literature. Twenty-two essays are gathered together into two volumes. Previously published elsewhere, many in obscure places, over a period from 1928 to 1972, they are still greatly used and referred to today; their appearance in this more accessible form will be warmly welcomed by a wide range of students and scholars in all branches of medieval and economic history as well as by social scientists and economists generally. This volume contains such seminal pieces as The economic foundations of medieval society, The rise of a money economy, The chronology of labour services and The charters of the villeins.

Genres: History

302 pages, Hardcover

First published June 21, 1973

About the author

Sir Michael Moissey Postan FBA was an economic historian specialising in the economic history of medieval Europe.

He was born to a Jewish family in Bendery, Bessarabia, in the Russian Empire, and studied at the St Vladimir University in Kiev, leaving the USSR after the October Revolution and settling in the UK. He had positions at University College London and at the London School of Economics, before being appointed Professor of Economic History at the University of Cambridge, from 1937. He was known worldwide as an economic historian of medieval Europe.

He was married first to historian Eileen Power, then after her death he remarried to Lady Cynthia Rosalie Keppel.