Theme 9: Population, Environment and Economy Flashcards
Explain the population-resources model
Postan’s (1966) model of population growth (see next week for theories about limits to growth):
- argued that a rising population would eventually hit a ‘resource ceiling’ - suggests this process was already underway
- argued that the core lands were becoming exhausted
- assumed static agricultural technology;
- also, saw a high population level already in 1086, with limited additional ‘headroom’;
- some further scope for growth via expansion of land for settlement and agriculture;
- but some colonization driven more by exhaustion of ‘core’ lands;
- and many colonized lands ‘marginal’ i.e. less fertile
Issues with Postan’s model
concentrates on the relationship between people and land, did not give much weight to other factors (agricultural innovation, for example, which could have made land more productive). also did not give much weight to the idea that there was significant commercialisation, which could have led to higher agricultural productivity and prompted specialisation and exchange
In this analysis, population growth was continuing in the 12th and 13thc, but were based on precarious foundations
Explain Langdon and Masschaele’s alternative model
- Argue against steady rate of demographic growth 900-1300;
- Instead, most rapid growth took place in early 13th century;
- Commercial development in 12th century provided employment opportunities and the confidence for family formation and thus fertility; (commercialisation critical in understanding why population growth happened)
- Implicitly rejects the notion of a medieval ceiling on population;
- Similarly, while saying little about agriculture they implicitly allow for considerable increases in agricultural output per head; - other historians have filled in some of the details (e.g. Bruce Campbell)
- ^ an increasingly efficient agricultural economy fits well with view of commercialisation
- ‘Externals’ play a muted role.
How might warfare and conquest impacted the population?
areas exposed to warfare might suffer negative consequences - in parts of Yorkshire after the Norman conquest, we find evidence in doomsday book of lands which are wasted and depopulated (harrying of the north - collective punishment in wake of rebellions). its also possible that warfare and conquest had a positive impact on population - Danish invasion: around a third of place names in northern and eastern Yorkshire contain Scandinavian elements - might suggest significant Scandinavian settlement. Norman conquest probably added fewer numbers of people to population levels due to its nature of an elite takeover rather than mass settlements. But, William Rufus engaged in a deliberate process of settlement in Cumbria, changing distribution pf local populations. e.g. in parts of south Wales in HI’s reign, communities of Flemings are brought in
How might the environment impacted population levels?
environmental conditions were not stable across this period. during early 14th c, climate became more volatile, summers became wetter and colder, along with a series of harvest failures. the central (11th, 12th, 13th) medieval centuries often described as the medieval climate anomaly (or medieval warm period). relatively few outbreaks of epidemic disease in this period. this period not free of environmental issues - chronicles list several instances of food shortages, disease (BUT frequency of these issues in these centuries lower than in the later middle ages)
Written sources of demographic change
- Poll taxes, especially that of 1377 (see previous lecture)
- Lay subsidy (Tudor wealth tax) of 1524-5: tax on land, wealth, wages
- Manorial records, especially court rolls (some information about deaths and marriages)
- Wills
- Inquisitions post mortem (for lay tenants in chief) - inquiries conducted after the death of a landholder into their holdings - number of individuals who would have had an inquisition post mortem is small, but we can still draw inferences from these
- Records of mortality and morbidity for some Benedictine monastic populations (Canterbury, Westminster, Durham) - closed communities
- very little written evidence regarding children, and far greater evidence of mortality than births
Example of a local case study that reflects demographic change
Halesowen, Worcestershire:
1271-5 - 331 adult males
1311-15 - 485
13215 - 412
^ gradual increase until the Great Famine
Coltishall, Norfolk:
1349 - 168 male tenants
1359 - 74
^ sharp increase in mortality due to BD
Why does Postan’s model fail to explain 15thc demography?
abundance of land, shortage of labour driving up wages SHOULD have led the population to start to rise again, but this clearly does not happen (Population had not recovered to its 1377 level by the 1520s)
Why does the population level remain low? -
The population does not bounce back because further epidemic disease keeps population low
Narrative sources give us a sense that this may be the case - not just plague, but also a disease called the flux (1470s), the sweat (1480s)
1361-2 and 1369 outbreaks hit young men particularly hard - skewed demographic with not enough younger men in the population
Exogenous factors
Disease, climate, warfare
Endogenous factors
Agriculture/food production (seignurialism, technology, capitalist/enterprising behaviour, expansion of land under cultivation, use of marginal land, soil exhaustion)
^ all of these factors interrelated (e.g. the more soil is exhausted, the further you would have to expand into marginal land)
Commercialisation
Fertility
Urbanisation
Labour (e.g. movement of workforce from rural to urban areas)
Some models that may explain population trends
Adam Smith - invisible hand, production line —> specialisation which has driven economic efficiency
Marx - history as a pattern of class struggle (seignurialism, Marxist development)
Issue with Postan’s population-resources model - assumes human passivity, won’t respond to a challenge (does not allow for human innovation and technological development)
Is the 14thc a Malthusian crisis? -
Famine = crisis of distribution? (rather than there simply just being no food)
^ people dying in the 14thc not because there was no food but because they couldn’t afford it (huge spike in food prices in 1314/15)
Stats to show the devastation brought about by the Black Death
Black Death: killed over 1/3 of England’s population - England’s population does not seem to have recovered for over 150 years after this disaster (few signs of sustained growth until the sixteenth century)
1348-9 Black Death, combined with poor weather and failing harvests, reduced the population by around 46% in 3 years
^ further instances of epidemic diseases in 1361-2, 1369 and 1375 - by 1377, the population had almost halved
1370s - 2.8 million people in England
1520s - 2.3 million
Historians generally agree that continuous instances of epidemic disease contributed to the low levels of population growth - studies of north-western Europe corroborate this theory
What does Hatcher argue about the pace of population recovery?
Hatcher argues that the slow pace of population recovery was determined by high mortality levels
^ evidence of this = obituary book of Canterbury Cathedral Priory - reveals several events of ‘crisis mortality’ among its residents in the 15thc
^ study of the monks of Westminster Abbey in the late 15thc - significant drop in life expectancy (again, due to ‘crisis mortality’)
Issues with Hatcher’s case studies
- monastic communities not representative of the rest of the population - could argue that they were both over or under representative
- they lived comfortable lives with enough food - death rates may be lower than the general populace?
- but, they also lived in close proximity to one another in densely populated urban areas - more likely to contract communicable diseases?
There is a lack of evidence about other social groups - sources like wills and court rolls are not ‘of sufficient statistical quality’ (Bailey’s quote)
What do historians generally accept about the economic conditions of the 15thc?
Historians generally accept that in the fifteenth century, real wages were high and rents relatively low
The availability of cheap land and well-paid employment implies that early marriage would have been commonplace (thus, the fertility rate would have been high)
Do living standards directly correlate to birth rates?
In order to establish the idea that fertility was quite low in fifteenth century England, we must dismiss the idea that rising living standards directly correlated to rising birth rates - e.g. the trauma of the Black Death may have encouraged survivors to protect their new wealth (a gradual increase in living standards may have the effect of raising birth rates over time, but sudden changes may have the opposite effect)
Nature of female employment after the BD
Shortage of workers after the BD led women to be increasingly included in England’s labour market - would have discouraged them from marrying early (or at all)
In the aftermath of the BD, there was a fall in prices relative to wages - increased the purchasing power of peasants (also created demand for a wider range of goods, including non-essential items like woollen textiles or finished leather goods) - the increase in demand could only be satiated by drawing on female employment
^ Smith - ‘labour shortages in England gave rise to a substantial expansion of unmarried women working’
Goldberg’s research into late medieval York - argues that after the mid-fourteenth century, more women began to work outside their households, creating a tendency to marry late, or not at all
Issues with Goldberg’s model
Goldberg’s model is not backed up by statistical evidence, but draws upon indirect evidence (e.g. wills)
Issue with using York as a case study - it was an economic centre, benefitting from growing foreign demand for woollen textiles
To accept Goldberg’s hypothesis, we would need to establish that female servanthood grew significantly- lack of evidence of the extent of servanthood before the BD from which we could draw comparisons, no substantial evidence that women stayed in servanthood until their mid-twenties (delaying marriage) - Poos concedes that this can’t be proven
What does Goldberg’s model rely on?
This model also rests on two premises - that ‘economic growth’ after the BD led to more women joining the workforce and that servanthood was preferable to wage labour
Issues with these premises -
- the period after the BD was not one of stable economic growth (e.g. decline in aggregate demand)
- not necessarily an increase in purchasing power - this may have been the case for wage-earners, but peasants would have been negatively impacted by a fall in food prices
- incomes did not increase indefinitely - there would have been a ceiling of demand for many goods (many ‘growth industries’ seem to have peaked then declined by the early fifteenth century)
- external economic problems - depression in overseas markets, shortage of credit etc…
- annual contracts of servanthood would not have been preferable to workers - they would have had strict terms of employment and a lower rate of pay than daily work - Bailey argues that women would likely rather have taken up wage labour to supplement their family income rather than committing themselves to servanthood
Brenner’s view on population trends
Marxist school of thought (Brenner) - the failure of agricultural production to sustain the growing population was due to the ‘feudal’ system of landholding, which was inherently exploitative and failed to encourage agricultural innovation
^ this view has been challenged by recent scholarship - argued that lords were not as exploitative as has often been suggested, but rather it was the warfare caused by militaristic kings and nobles that caused the most damage in the fourteenth century
^ war provoked recession, raised taxation and disrupted capital markets
What does Campbell refer to climate patterns as?
‘Major exogenous shocks’
What does Campbell identify as the 5 dilemmas of agrarian economies?
- ‘tenurial dilemma’ of how to most effectively divide land (rate of tenurial reform far slower than the speed at which economic circumstances might change - rooted in local custom)
- ^ issues - some tenants owed heavy labour service to their lords, others owed fixed money rents that failed to reflect the value of the land (1300 - inquisitiones post mortem revealed that most tenants held land in free tenure)
- ‘ecological dilemma’ of how to maximise agrarian output without damaging the soil (essential to maintain the nutrient balance in the soil) - crop rotation was one solution to this
- ^ tragedy of the commons - individuals used the land as they pleased without regard for the common good, leading to the hypothesis that arable soils tended to become exhausted (lack of conclusive evidence here) - plenty of evidence of harvest failure, but this could have been down to a number of factors, including poor soil quality, bad weather, plant diseases, lack of labour etc….
- ‘Ricardian dilemma’ of how to raise output without leading to diminishing returns to land (arising from farming on inferior land as a result of population growth) and labour (by driving down the average productivity of labour)
- ‘Malthusian dilemma’ of how to prevent the growth of population from exceeding the rate of agricultural output (pre-industrial populations could grow at a rate of 1.5%, but agrarian output was unlikely to grow at a higher rate than 0.5%)
‘entitlements dilemma’ of who should have a share of the spoils of production
Solutions to the Malthusian dilemma
- ^ potential solution - emigration (12th and 13th centuries saw plenty of movement to Wales, Ireland and the royal burghs of Scotland)
- ^^ had the subsequent effect of lowering female marriage rates, as emigrants were largely male, leaving many areas with a lack of male partners (slowed population growth)
What has dendrochronology identified?
Dendrochronology (tree-ring dating) has identified two major environmental shocks in the middle ages: 1163-1189 and 1315-1353
How had the population changed from 1300 to 1377?
Between 1086 and 1300, the population seems to have at least doubled (to around 4.5 million)
^ by 1377, this number had been reduced by 40-60% due to:
- famine (1315-22, 1330-1 and 1346-7)
- war (with Scotland and France)
- plague (1348-9, 1361-2, 1369 and 1375)
By the mid-15thc, the population decreased to under 2 million (no signs of full recovery until past the mid-16thc)
How might agricultural producers responded to population changes?
Agricultural producers responded to population changes by bringing land into or withdrawing it from use (occasionally accompanied by large-scale settlement or abandonment)
e.g. recolonisation of Yorkshire and other wasted lands in the north
e.g. desertion of farms in Kent and Sussex (coastal marshland), withdrawal from villages on the edge of Dartmoor
What was the biggest stimuli of agricultural expansion in this period?
Stimuli of agricultural expansion - ‘concentrated urban demand’
Growth of large towns stimulated changes in technology and drove specialisation, as well as creating greater agricultural demand in their surrounding lands
London supplied by hinterlands of approximately 4000 square miles (e.g. Faversham = leading grain supplier)
Livestock procured from surrounding counties - e.g. Cambridgeshire, Huntingdonshire (and some counties further away, like Somerset and Gloucestershire)
Levels of rent fell in these hinterlands (London’s population fell to about 55,000 by 1500, a decrease of about 25% from its peak)
^ changes in products demanded from these lands - Londoners wanted more what, white bread etc… (old specialisms, like rye in the lower Thames valley, fell into decline)
Author argued that agriculture may have developed further if there had been higher demand (low population hindered development)
Scotland’s population in the early 14thc
seems to have followed a similar pattern of growth and contraction as England
Long term economic issues revealed by three documents valuing the property of the Church - the ‘ancient assessment’ (antiqua taxatio), Bishop Halton’s assessment (from approx 1300) and the ‘true value’ (verus valor) from after the Black Death
From the ancient assessment to Halton’s assessment, valuations doubled - e.g. the diocese of St Andrews rose from a value of £8,000 to almost £14,000, Glasgow saw an ever sharper rise from £4,000 to £11,000
^ in the ‘true value’ assessment, valuations came well below those of Halton’s survey, some even below the ‘ancient assessment’
^ local example - bishopric of Moray -
1300 - £2,496
mid-14thc - £928
1366 - £559
Church incomes made up of tithe contributions, so the decrease in this income is indicative of an economy (and population) in decline
What does Dyer offer as potential explanations of demographic trends?
Climate
Fluctuations in the supply of money
Exploitative nature of the medieval social structure
War
Dyer’s potential explanations of demographic trends: climate
- the climate was unstable in the period between 1290 and 1375 - increase in wet summers particularly damaging to cereal production. Disrupted hay harvest (bad for livestock) and the damp ground could cause diseases, such as liver fluke in sheep. Also created favourable conditions for pests and plant diseases
- ^ author argues that changes in the climate did not necessarily cause economic decline, but simply exposed the shortcomings of a weak economy (comparison to third world countries today which are particularly vulnerable to natural disasters due to lack of infrastructure) - further evidence of this = the fact that the climate stabilised and harvests succeeded in the later middle ages and yet the economy did not return to the levels of growth of the 13thc
Dyer’s potential explanations of demographic trends: fluctuations in the supply of money
- the climate was unstable in the period between 1290 and 1375 - increase in wet summers particularly damaging to cereal production. Disrupted hay harvest (bad for livestock) and the damp ground could cause diseases, such as liver fluke in sheep. Also created favourable conditions for pests and plant diseases
- ^ author argues that changes in the climate did not necessarily cause economic decline, but simply exposed the shortcomings of a weak economy (comparison to third world countries today which are particularly vulnerable to natural disasters due to lack of infrastructure) - further evidence of this = the fact that the climate stabilised and harvests succeeded in the later middle ages and yet the economy did not return to the levels of growth of the 13thc
Dyer’s potential explanations of demographic trends: exploitative nature of the medieval social structure
- marcher lords in particular exploited those under their authority (e.g. earls of Arundel, Gloucester and Hereford) - rights to extract revenues from mills, rights to judicial authority used to extract income (e.g. in 1321, around 2,700 people in Caernarfonshire were fined a total of £27 for failing to attend a marcher lord’s court). Also could use tallage to extract more money from inhabitants e.g. in the lordship of Chirk, the tenants paid 1,600 marks in 1324 for a charter that would give them hunting rights and access to pastures and woods
- ^ extractions of this kind were only common in certain regions
- ^ social inequalities may have exacerbated the struggles of the peasantry, but did not cause the economic crisis
Dyer’s potential explanations of demographic trends: war (direct impacts)
- wars fought by British rulers for at least 40 of the years between 1290 and 1350 (on a larger scale and longer term than had been the case previously)
- Edward I’s campaigns in war established a system of raising armies involving wages for soldiers and permanent conquest of territory - castles built, settlements established at huge expense
- (deliberate) destruction of countryside towns by armies - devastated the Scottish borders in particular. e.g. the land around Carlisle was attacked by the Scots in 1297 who burnt the land and killed peasants. In 1337, Aberdeen was burnt by English invaders, and much of its best agricultural land was destroyed
- ^ extent of damage caused by the series of raids - by 1345, it was accepted that 64 towns would be unable to pay their taxes in full
- in 1294, the English themselves burnt the town of Flint due to fear of Welsh attack - offered £521 in compensation for the loss of their property, but this most likely was not sufficient
Dyer’s potential explanations of demographic trends: war (indirect impacts)
- war also affected taxpayers in general - total revenue of lay subsidies between 1290 and 1348 = £1,055,300
- ^ author argues that warfare was not a major strain on the English economy (e.g. 1297 - the king raised £80,000 in extraordinary taxation - under 2% of estimated GDP). Taxation wasn’t necessarily oppressive - valuations carried out by locals and the poorest in society were exempt
- however, some people did suffer heavily from taxation - e.g. Canterbury Cathedral Priory paid so much that by the mid-1290s it was in debt, unable to continue building operations
- tax collections did not take into account the conditions of the peasantry, continuing in times of bad harvest (such as in the mid-1290s) - subsidy collected in 1316-17, during the Great Famine
- ^ author argues that direct taxation to pay for war was a considerable strain on the people (but did not cause economic crisis itself) - unlike factors such as the climate or the exploitation by specific lords, government taxation was a universal issue
Alternative evidence of the impact of the BD
Lands left vacant - e.g. the lands belonging to Robert le Heyr were left vacant as he, both of his sons and his grandson all died
Some activities temporarily halted - e.g. building works at Exeter Cathedral came to a halt due to the extent of deaths among the workforce
Very few settlements abandoned - e.g. Tusmore in Oxfordshire reported deserted, but this was already in decline prior to the Black Death
Wool exports hardly impacted? - 35,000 sacks exported in 1350-1, very similar level as the 1330s and early 1340s
Evidence of further epidemic diseases
Further outbreaks of plague frequent enough to halt demographic recovery - 1361-2, 1369, 1375. Chroniclers recorded 8 plagues in Scotland between 1349 and 1420
From 1485, the ‘sweating sickness’ caused further mortality
Evidence of child mortality
Deaths in this period better recorded than births - evidence suggests 15thc families were small and that there lacked high numbers of young people (suggests high rates of child mortality)
Plague caused high mortality in those aged between twenty and forty - created a ‘missing generation’ of those that would have been born in the 1350s and 1360s
1361-2 = ‘the children’s plague’ - impacted birth rate of the 1380s and 1390s
^ direct evidence of low youth population - number of children recorded in a sample of wills in Kent declined from 2.08 in the 15thc to 1.9 in 1501-30
^ could reflect either a rise in child mortality or a change in fertility levels (perhaps due to an increase in the age of marriage)
Evidence of falling life expectancy during the 15thc
Life expectancy fell during the 15thc - e.g. monks at Westminster had been recorded to have a life expectancy ‘after the age of twenty of twenty-nine to thirty years’ in the early 15thc, but this fell to ‘twenty years after reaching twenty’ towards the end of the century. Similar trend evident at Canterbury Cathedral Priory - author points out that monks would have led healthier lives than average (good diets etc…) but lived in unhealthy towns
Essex - peasants in the late 14th century had a life expectancy of about 54 (if they reached the age of 12), but this had dropped to 48 by the later 15thc
Dyer’s argument for a low fertility rate
women in towns had better job opportunities after the BD, so may have spent more time in employment before getting married (however, not necessarily a strong argument - employees after the BD tended to favour short-term employment rather than servanthood and women could continue to work after they had been married)
Factors driving population growth prior to 1300
- Agricultural Expansion: Large areas of woodland, moorland, and fenland were cleared for cultivation.
- Example: In Lincolnshire, reclamation efforts led to a sixfold increase in recorded households at Spalding and an elevenfold increase at Pinchbeck between 1086 and 1287.
- Example: The Isle of Ely saw land expansion, with some areas adding over 2,000 acres of newly reclaimed farmland.
- Colonization of New Lands: Settlements spread into previously underpopulated areas, especially in the north and upland regions.
- Example: Yorkshire’s population grew at one of the fastest rates, with an estimated sevenfold increase between 1086 and 1377.
- Example: The northern counties of Lancashire, Northumberland, and Durham saw landholding populations grow twelve- to thirteenfold in the 12th and 13th centuries.
- Technological and Economic Advancements:
- The widespread adoption of the three-field system improved yields.
- Increased use of water mills and windmills enhanced efficiency in grain processing.
- The wool trade expanded, bringing prosperity to regions like the Cotswolds and East Anglia.
- Warmer Climate (Medieval Warm Period, c. 950–1250): Longer growing seasons and milder winters supported higher food production.
Impact of the Great Famine
- Excessive rains led to crop failures for multiple years, causing mass starvation.
- Food prices soared, with wheat prices tripling between 1315 and 1317.
- Livestock suffered due to disease and lack of fodder.
- Chronic malnutrition made the population more susceptible to disease.
By 1325, population growth had likely halted, and there were localized declines.
Mortality rates of the BD
- Many areas saw death rates of 50% or more.
- The clergy, particularly vulnerable due to their role in caring for the sick, suffered mortality rates of up to 60% in some dioceses.
- Large towns like London, Norwich, and York saw two-thirds of their population perish.
- Example: In the Bishop of Winchester’s manor of Taunton, tenant numbers dropped from 1,448 in 1311 to about 700 by 1377.
Recurring plague outbreaks
- Unlike previous centuries, the population did not recover quickly due to frequent plague recurrences.
(1361, 1369, 1375, 1390s)
- Each new epidemic killed 10–20% of the remaining population.
- By 1400, England’s population had likely fallen to around 2.5 million, roughly half of what it had been in 1300.
Economic and social consquences of depopulation
- Labor Shortages:
- Wages rose sharply as landlords competed for scarce labor.
- Example: Agricultural wages increased by up to 100% in some regions by 1380.
- Example: At Hinderclay (Suffolk), wages rose by only 5% between 1270 and 1320, but jumped 25% in the following decades.
- Land Abandonment and Agricultural Shifts:
- Many villages were deserted; Example: Wharram Percy (Yorkshire), once a thriving settlement, was abandoned.
- Marginal lands were reverted to pasture, leading to an expansion of sheep farming and a greater focus on the wool trade.
- Collapse of the Feudal System:
- Serfdom declined as laborers could negotiate better conditions or flee to towns.
- Peasant bargaining power increased, leading to rent reductions and the commutation of labor services into money payments.
Government attempts to freeze wages (Statute of Labourers, 1351) led to growing discontent.
Reasons for slow population growth
- Continued Plague Outbreaks: The disease never disappeared, with new waves in 1430s, 1460s, and 1480s preventing sustained growth.
- Changes in Marriage and Birth Rates:
- Late marriage and lower birth rates reduced natural population growth.
- Example: The average age at marriage for women rose from early 20s to mid-to-late 20s.
- Fewer children per family compared to pre-1300.
- Economic Changes:
- With abundant land and fewer mouths to feed, living standards improved for survivors.
- The economy shifted towards pastoral farming and market-based production, with less reliance on subsistence agriculture.
Did the BD cause a delay in marriage?
- Before the plague, women generally married earlier, which allowed them to have more children.
- After the population collapse, marriage was often delayed, reducing the number of childbearing years available to women.
- The reduction in available partners due to high male mortality from the plague and war meant that many women never married at all, further lowering fertility.
How did the BD mean that large families were less necessary?
With a smaller population, living standards improved, which ironically reduced the incentive for having large families.
- Before 1350, many families had more children to work the land, as labor was needed for subsistence farming.
- After the Black Death, land became more available, and wages for laborers increased, so families did not need as many children to secure economic survival.
- As fewer children were needed to support households, birth rates naturally declined compared to pre-plague levels.
Families may also have wanted to protect their newfound wealth by keeping their family smaller.
High maternal and infant mortality rates explanation
-Miller and Hatcher highlight that malnutrition, disease, and poor medical care led to a high rate of maternal deaths in childbirth.
- Infant mortality remained very high, as newborns were vulnerable to disease outbreaks and famine.
- Recurring plagues (1361, 1369, 1375, etc.) frequently took a toll on young children and mothers, preventing long-term population recovery.
How did the BD impact land availability and change family structures?
The redistribution of land after the population collapse also played a crucial role in shaping family size and birth rates.
- Before 1350, land was scarce, and inheritance systems encouraged large families to ensure survival.
- After the Black Death, many families had enough land without needing additional children to secure property rights.
- Younger sons, who previously would have been pushed into having families to survive, were now less pressured to marry early because they could inherit land without competition from siblings.
As a result, family sizes shrank, and the birth rate remained low.
How did the BD changes cultural and social attitudes towards childbearing?
Miller and Hatcher suggest that a more cautious approach to family life emerged due to the persistent threat of disease and famine. Some communities deliberately limited family size in response to the instability of the period.
Proportion of women who did not marry
almost 30 percent of all women recorded in the 1377 English poll tax were single, with higher proportions in towns (suggests link between female urban employment and lower fertility rates)
Declining agricultural productivity in the late 13thc/early14thc
- Overuse of land led to soil exhaustion, with older fields becoming less productive while new marginal lands were of poor quality.
- The decline in available manure, due to a decrease in pastureland, further reduced soil fertility.
- The shift towards more intensive farming left communities vulnerable to climatic changes and poor harvests.
Extreme weather events and their impact on agriculture
In 1342, a rare Genoan low-pressure system brought torrential summer rains to central Europe, raising river levels to unprecedented heights and causing massive soil erosion.
- The weakened North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) caused westerly winds to shift erratically, resulting in excessive rainfall in southern Europe in 1346–1347 and in northern Europe in 1349–1351.
- This led to the first recorded back-to-back harvest failure in medieval England, worsening food shortages.
Gregory Clark’s Malthusian Trap Hypothesis
Gregory Clark’s interpretation of the English economy from 1200-1550 is rooted in the classical Malthusian model, which argues that:
- Any economic surplus was absorbed by population growth.
- Real wages remained stagnant due to a balance between population size and food supply.
- Per capita income did not rise, and England was stuck in subsistence-level living standards.
- Clark estimates that agricultural output per capita remained largely unchanged throughout the medieval period.
- He calculates that agricultural output grew at just 0.11% per year between 1300 and 1700, too low to support meaningful economic development.
Who argues against Clark’s hypothesis?
Broadberry, Campbell, Klein, Overton, and van Leeuwen provide an alternative, output-based model that challenges Clark’s Malthusian interpretation. They argue that:
- England was gradually escaping the Malthusian trap before 1550.
- Economic growth was occurring in an uneven but sustained manner.
- Agricultural productivity was improving, albeit slowly.
- The work year and labor intensity were variable, affecting income calculations.
What is the counterargument to Clark’s hypothesis?
- Broadberry et al. argue that Clark underestimates pre-1550 agricultural growth by relying on wage-based estimates rather than actual agricultural output.
- Their estimates show higher agricultural growth than Clark claims:
1400-1500 - Clark estimates a -0.01% rate of agricultural output growth, compared to 0.14% posited by opposing historians.
Key takeaway: The Broadberry et al. model suggests that agricultural output did not stagnate before 1550 but instead grew modestly, allowing for slow economic expansion.
