Great Wave

by Fischer, David Hackett;

  A fourteenth-century equivalent of an administered price model may be inferred from P. D. A. Harvey, A Medieval Oxfordshire Village: Cuxham, 1240–1400 (London, 1965).

  For climatological models, see the works of Beveridge, cited above, and J. Z. Titow, “Evidence of Weather in the Account Rolls of the Bishopric of Winchester, 1209–1350,” Economic History Review 2d ser. 12 (1960) 360–407; idem, “Le climat à travers les rôles de comptabilité de l’évêché de Winchester (1350–1450),” Annales E.S.C. 25 (1970) 312–50; C. E. Britton, A Meteorological Chronology to A.D. 1450 (London, 1937); W. T. Bell and A. E. J. Ogilview, “Weather Compilations as a Source of Data for the Reconstruction of European Climate during the Medieval Period,” Climatic Change 1 (1978) 331–48; H. E. Hallam, “The Climate of Eastern England, 1250–1350,” Agricultural History Review 32 (1984) 124–32. Still useful is C. E. P. Brooks and J. Glasspole, British Floods and Droughts (London, 1928).

  An ecological approach, stressing the history of agriculture and the contraction of arable land, is the subject of R. H. Britnell, “Agricultural Technology and the Margin of Cultivation in the Fourteenth Century,” Economic History Review 30 (1977) 53–66; J. Z. Titow, Winchester Yields: A Study in Medieval Agricultural Productivity (Cambridge, 1972); Alan R. H. Baker, “Evidence in the Nonarum Inquisitiones of Contracting Arable Lands in England during the Early Fourteenth Century,” Economic History Review 2d ed. 19 (1966) 518–32; A. R. Lewis, “The Closing of the Medieval Frontier,” Speculum 33 (1958) 475–83. On problems of marginality, see M. Bailey, “The Concept of the Margin in the Medieval English Economy” Economic History Review 2d ser. 42 (1989) 1–17; idem, A Marginal Economy?: East Anglian Breckland in the Later Middle Ages (Cambridge, 1989).

  On famines, see Hugues Neveux, “Bonnes et mauvaises récoltes du XIVe au XIXe siècle: Jalons pour une enquète systématique,” Revue d’Histoire Économique et Sociale 53 (1975); 177–92; Ian Kershaw, “The Great Famine and Agrarian Crisis in England, 1315–1322,” Past & Present 59 (1973) 3–50; Elisabeth Carpentier, “Famines et epidemies dans l’histoire du XIVe siècle,” Annnales E.S.C. 17 (1962) 1062–92; H. S. Lucas, “The Great European Famine of 1315, 1316, and 1317,” Speculum, 15 (1930) 343–77; H. Van Werweke, “La famine de l’an 1316 en Flandre et dans les régions voisines,” Revue du Nord 41 (1959) 5–14; A. R. Bridbury, “Before the Black Death,” Economic History Review 2d ser. 30 (1977) 393–410; idem, “The Black Death,” Economic History Review 2d ser. 26 (1973) 577–92; Marie-Josèphe Larenaudie, “Les famines en Languedoc aux XIVe et XVe siècles,” Annales du Midi 64 (1952) 27–39; P. J. Capra, “Au sujet des famines en Acquitaine au XIVe siécle,” Revue Historique de Bordeaux et du Département de la Gironde 4 (1955) 1–32; important evidence of the magnitude of the famines of 1315–17 appears in L. R. Poos, “The Rural Population of Essex in the Later Middle Ages,” cited above; on Ireland, see M. E. Crawford, ed., Famine: The Irish Experience, 900– 1900 (Edinburgh, 1989), especially M. Lyons, “Weather, Famine, Pestilence, and Plague in Ireland, 900–1500,” 31–74.

  On nutrition, see C. Dyer, “Changes in Diet in the Later Middle Ages: the Case of Harvest Workers,” Agricultural History Review 2d ser. 36 (1988) 21–37; and Standards of Living in the Later Middle Ages: Social Change in England, c. 1200–1520 (Cambridge, 1989).

  The Black Death and its social and economic impact is the subject of Philip Ziegler, The Black Death (Harmondsworth, 1969), an excellent popular history. On cultural consequences of the Black Death, a classic study is Millard Meiss, Painting in Florence and Siena after the Black Death: The Arts, Religion, and Society in the Mid-Fourteenth Century (1951); New York, 1964). Two helpful essays are Elisabeth Carpentier, “La peste noire: Famines et épidemies au XIVe siècle,” Annales E.S.C. 17 (1962) 1062–92; and Frantisêk Graus, “Autour de la peste noire au XlVe siècle en Bohême,” Annales E.S.C. 18 (1963) 720–24. A large literature on England includes A. E. Levett, “The Black Death on the Estates of the See of Winchester,” Oxford Studies in Social and Legal History 5 (1916) 7–180; A. Ballard, “The Black Death on the Manors of Witney, Brightewell, and Downton,” ibid., 181–216; C. Creighton, A History of Epidemics in Britain from A.D. 664 to the Extinction of Plague (Cambridge, 1891); A. R. Bridbury, “The Black Death,” Economic History Review 2d ser. 26 (1973) 577–92; J. D. F. Shrewsbury, A History of Bubonic Plague in the British Isles (Cambridge, 1970); C. Morris, “The Plague in Britain,” Historical Journal 14 (1971) 205–15; J. Saltmarsh, “Plague and Economic Decline in England in the Later Middle Ages,” Cambridge Historical Journal 7 (1941–43) 23–41; J. M. W. Bean, “Plague, Population, and Economic Decline in England in the Later Middle Ages,” Economic History Review 2d ser. 15 (1963) 423–37; Mavis Mate, “Agrarian Economy after the Black Death: The Manors of Canterbury Cathedral Priory, 1348–91” Economic History Review 37 (1984) 341–55; Johan Schreiner, “Wages and Prices in England in the Later Middle Ages,” Scandinavian Economic History Review 2 (1954) 61–73.

  On France the leading work is J. N. Biraben, Les hommes et la peste en France (2 vols., Paris, 1975); also valuable are C. Prat, “La peste noire à Albi,” Annales du Midi 64 (1952) 15–25; and M. Boudet and R. Grand, Étude historique sur les épidémies de peste en Haute-Auvergne (XIV-XVIII siècle (Paris, 1902). Important local and regional studies in Italy include David Herlihy, “Population, Plague, and Social Change in Rural Pistoia, 1201–1430,” Economic History Review 2d ser. 18 (1965) 225–44; Elisabeth Carpentier, Une ville devant la peste: Orvieto et la peste noire de 1348 (Paris, 1962).

  On Spain there are Nicolás Cabrillana, “La crisis del siglio XIV en Castilla: La peste negra en el obisado de Palencia,” Hispania 28 (1968) 245–58; Jaime Sobrequés Callicó, “La peste negra en la península ibérica,” Anuario de Estudios Medievales 7 (1970–71) 67–102.

  For northern and central Europe there are Johan Schreiner, Pest og prisfall i Senmiddelalderen: et problem in Norsk Historie (Oslo, 1948); H. Klein, “Das grosse Sterben von 1348/49 und seine Auswirkung auf die Beseidlung der Ostalpenländer,” Mitteilungen der Gesellschaft für Salzburger Landeskunde 100 (1960) 91–170; R. Hoeniger, Der Schwarze Tod in Deutschland (Berlin, 1882).

  On war and political troubles in this period, see J. R. Maddicott, “The English Peasantry and the Demands of the Crown, 1294–1341,” Past & Present Supplement 1 (1975), rpt. T. H. Aston ed., Landlords, Peasants and Politics in Medieval England (Cambridge, 1987), 285–359; E. Miller, “War, Taxation, and the English Economy of the Late Thirteenth and Early Fourteenth Centuries,” in J. M. Winter, ed., War and Economic Development: Essays in Memory of David Joslin (Cambridge, 1975), 11–31 ; J. O. Prestwich, “War and Finance in the Anglo-Norman State,” Royal Historical Society Transactions 5th ser. 4 (1954) 19–44; K. B. MacFarlane, “England and the Hundred Years War,” Past & Present 22 (1962) 3–17; Robert Boutruche, La crise d’une societé: Seigneurs et paysans du Bordelais pendant la guerre de Cent Ans (Paris, 1947); idem, “La dévastation des campagnes pendant la guerre de Cent Ans et la reconstruction agricole de la France,” Publications de la Faculté des Lettres de l’Université de Strasbourg, Melanges (Strasbourg, 1945), 125–63. Elena Lourie, “A Society Organized for War: Medieval Spain,” Past & Present 35 (1966) 54–76; S. L. Waugh, “The Profits of Violence: The Minor Gentry in the Rebellion of 1321–1322 in Gloucestershire and Herefordshire,” Speculum 52 (1977) 843–69.

  On social disorders, see Philippe Wolff, “The 1391 Pogrom in Spain: Social Crisis or Not?” Past & Present 50 (1971) 4–18; P. Elman, “The Economic Causes of the Expulsion of the Jews in 1290,” Economic History Review 2d ser. 7 (1936–37) 145–54; B. Geremek, “La lutte contre le vagabondage à Paris aux XIVe et XVe siècles,” Richerche storiche ed economiche in memoria di Corrado Bargello (Naples, 1970), 2:213–36; M. Mollat and Philippe Wolff, Ongles bleus, Jacques et Ciompi: Les révolutions populaires en Europe aux XIVe et XVe siècles (Paris, 1970); L. Mirot, Les insurrections urbaines au début du régne de Charles VI (Paris, 1905); R. B. Dobson, The Peasants�
� Revolt of 1381 (London, 1970); R. H. Hilton, “Peasant Movements in England before 1381,” Economic History Review 2d ser. 2 (1949) 117–36; Charles Oman, The Great Revolt of 1381, ed. E. B. Fryde, (Oxford, 1969); Lauro Martines, ed., Violence and Disorder in Italian Cities, 1200–1500 (Berkeley, 1972); William M. Bowsky, “The Medieval Commune and Internal Violence: Police Power and Public Safety in Siena, 1287–1355,” American Historical Review 73 (1967) 1–17; R. Kieckhefer, European Witch Trials: Their Foundations in Popular and Learned Culture, 1300–1500 (London, 1976).

  On monetary policies, see Harry A. Miskimin, “Monetary Movements and Market Structure: Forces for Contraction in Fourteenth– and Fifteenth-Century England,” Journal of Economic History 2d ser. 24 (1964) 470–90; C. G. Reed, “Price Movements, Balance of Payments, Bullion Flows, and Unemployment in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Century,” Journal of European Economic History 8 (1979) 479–86; Marc Bloch, Esquisse d’une histoire monétaire de l’Europe (Paris, 1954).

  On politics and finance, see May McKisack, The Fourteenth Century, 1307–1399 (Oxford, 1959); William M. Bowsky, A Medieval Italian Commune: Siena under the Nine, 1287–1355 (Berkeley, 1981); idem, “The Impact of the Black Death upon Sienese Government and Society,” Speculum 39 (1964) 1–34; idem, The Finance of the Commune of Siena, 1287–1355 (Oxford, 1970).

  Outside of Europe, there is much evidence of a world crisis in this era. On major discontinuities in the history of China during the fourteenth century, see especially Mark Elvin, The Pattern of the Chinese Past; A Social and Economic Interpretation (Stanford, 1973).

  For the history of Africa in the fourteenth century, see M. Malowist, “The Social and Economic Stability of the Western Sudan in the Middle Ages,” Past & Present 33 (1966) 3–15; E. W. Bovill, The Golden Trade of the Moors (London, 1958); J. Devisse, “Routes de commerce et échanges en Afrique occidentale en relation avec la Méditerranée,” Revue d’Histoire Économique et Sociale, 1 (1972) 42–73, 357–97.

  Discontinuities in the history of Oceania during the fourteenth century are discussed in A. T. Wilson, “Isotope Evidence for Past Climatic and Environmental Change,” Journal of Interdisciplinary History 10 (1980) 241–50.

  For the Middle East see Michael W. Dols, “Mortality of the Black Death in the Mamluk Empire,” in A. L. Udovitch, The Islamic Middle East, 700–1900: Studies in Economic and Social History (Princeton, 1981), 397–428; Michael W. Dols, The Black Death in the Middle East (Princeton, 1977); and the works of Ashtor cited above.

  A best-selling popular account of high quality is Barbara Tuchman, A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous Fourteenth Century (Franklin Center, Pa., 1978); for a gentle critique, see Geoffrey Barraclough’s review in The New Republic.

  The Renaissance Equilibrium

  General surveys of this period include Denys Hay, The Italian Renaissance in Its Historical Background (Cambridge, 1977); Eugene F. Rice, The Foundations of Early Modern Europe (New York, 1970); Brian Pullan, A History of Early Renaissance Italy (London, 1973); M. W. Ferguson et al., eds., Rewriting the Renaissance (Chicago, 1986). A useful work of reference is J. R. Hale, ed., A Concise Encyclopaedia of the Italian Renaissance (London, 1981).

  On the historiography of the Renaissance, an enduring classic is W. K. Ferguson, The Renaissance in Historical Thought: Five Centuries of Interpretation (Boston, 1948); supplemented by idem, “The Reinterpretation of the Renaissance,” in Facets of the Renaissance (New York, 1959), 1–18; idem, The Renaissance: Six Essays (New York, 1962); “Recent Trends in the Economic Historiography of the Renaissance,” Studies in the Renaissance 7 (1960) 7–26; Tinsley Helton, The Renaissance: A Reconsideration of the Theories and Interpretations of the Age (Madison, 1961); Eric Cochrane, Historians and Historiography in the Italian Renaissance (Chicago, 1981).

  A major work of cooperative scholarship is Ruggiero Romano and Corrado Vivanti eds., Storia d’Italia (6 vols., Turin, 1972–1977, especially vols. 2 & 3; also Denys Hay, ed., Longman History of Italy, especially Denys Hay and John Law, Italy in the Age of Renaissance, 1380–1530 (London, 1989).

  On major economic trends in this period, see R. S. Lopez and H. A. Miskimin, “The Economic Depression of the Renaissance,” Economic History Review, 2d ser. 14 (1962) 408–426; and a critique by Carlo M. Cipolla, “Economic Depression of the Renaissance?” with rejoinders by Lopez and Miskimin, ibid. 16 (1964) 519–24; C. Barbagallo, “La crisi economicosociale dell’Italia della Rinascenza,” Nouva Rivista Storica 34 (1950) 389–411, 35 (1951) 1–38; Leopold Genicot, “Crisis: From the Middle Ages to Modern Times,” Cambridge Economic History of Europe 1:678–694; M. M. Postan, “The Fifteenth Century,” Economic History Review 9 (1938–39) 160–67; F. Lutge, “Das 14–15 Jahrhundert in der Sozial und Wirtschaft Geschichte,” Jahrbucher für National Ekonomie und Statistik (1950) 161–213; M. Mollat, “Y-a-t-il une économie de la Renaissance?” in Actes du colloque sur la Renaissance (Paris, 1958); Harry A. Miskimin, The Economy of Early Renaissance Europe, 1300–1460 (Cambridge, 1975); idem, The Economy of Later Renaissance Europe, 1460–1600 (Cambridge, 1977).

  Demographic trends are discussed in M. M. Postan, “Some Economic Evidence of Declining Population in the Later Middle Ages,” Economic History Review 2d ser. 2 (1950) 221–46; J. Hatcher, Plague, Population, and the English Economy, 1348–1530 (London, 1977); E. F. Rice, “Recent Studies on the Population of Europe, 1348–1620,” Renaissance News 18 (1965) 180–87.

  On the problem of deserted villages in Europe, see C. A. Christensen, “Aendringerne i landsbyens økonimiske og sociale strukur i det 14. og 15. arhundrede,” Historisk Tidsskrift, 12th ser. 1 (1964) 257–349, which includes a summary and conclusion in English; A. Holmsen, “Desertion of Farms around Oslo in the Late Middle Ages,” Scandinavian Economic History Review 10 (1962) 165–202; Wilhelm Abel, Die Wüstungen des ausgehenden Mittelalters (2d ed. Stuttgart, 1955); idem, “Wüstungen und Preisfall im spätmittelalterlichen Europa,” Jahrbücher für Nationalökonomie und Statistik 165 (1953) 380–427; J. F. Pesez and E. Le Roy Ladurie, “Les villages désertés en France: Vue d’ensembles,” Annales E.S.C. 20 (1965) 257–90. On deserted villages in the British Isles, see Maurice Beresford, The Lost Villages of England (London 1954; rpt. 1965); Maurice Beresford and John G. Hurst, Deserted Medieval Villages (London, 1971); Maurice Beresford and J. K. Joseph, Medieval England: An Aerial Survey (Cambridge, 1979); Christopher Dyer, “Deserted Villages in the West Midlands,” Economic History Review 2d ser. 35 (1982) 19–34; K. J. Allison et al., The Deserted Villages of Oxfordshire (Leicester University Department of English Local History, occasional paper no. 17, 1965); idem, The Deserted Villages of Northamptonshire (ibid., 1966); K. J. Allison, “The Lost Villages of Norfolk,” Norfolk Archeology 31 (1957) 116–62; and a very large literature in county archeology journals.

  General and national works of economic and social history for Italy include Armando Sapori, Studi di storia economica, secoli XIII-XIV-XV (3 vols., Florence, 1955, 1967), the collected essays of a distinguished economic historian; Gino Luzzatto, An Economic History of Italy from the Fall of the Roman Empire to the Beginning of the Sixteenth Century (New York, 1961); and Ruggiero Romano and Corrado Vivanti, eds., Storia d’Italia, vol. 2, Dalla caduta dell’impero Romano al secolo XVIII (2 parts, Turin, 1974), the most useful single work, with full bibliographical notes.

  On relations between economic, social and cultural history, much of the best Italian historical scholarship in this period consists of local (or rather localized) studies. Of high quality on Florence are Marvin B. Becker, Florence in Transition (2 vols., Baltimore, 1967); Gene Brucker, The Civic World of Early Renaissance Florence (Princeton, 1977); idem, Renaissance Florence (Berkeley, 1983); Nicolai Rubinstein, The Government of Florence under the Medici (1434 to 1494) (Oxford, 1966); idem, Florentine Studies: Politics and Society in Renaissance Florence (Evanston, 1968); Lauro Martines, The Social World of the Florentine Humanists, 1390–1460 (Princeton, 1963); idem, Power and Imagination: City-States in renaissance Italy (London
, 1979); Frederick Antal, Florentine Painting and Its Social Background (London, 1948);

  For the history of Venice, see Frederic C. Lane, Venice (Baltimore, 1973); Lane and Mueller, Money and Banking in Medieval and Renaissance Venice, cited above; Gino Luzzato, Storia economica di Venezia dall XI al XVI secolo (Venice, 1961); William J. Bouwsma, Venice and the Defense of Republican Liberty (Berkeley, 1968); J. R. Hale, ed., Renaissance Venice (London, 1973).

  On Pistoia, a model work of social history is David Herlihy, Medieval and Renaissance Pistoia: The Social History of an Italian Town, 1200–1430 (New Haven, 1967); and idem, “Population, Plague, and Social Change in Rural Pistoia,” Economic History Review 2d ser. 18 (1965) 225–44.

  Genoa also has been fortunate in its historians. Among the leading works are V. Vitale, Il commune del podestà a Genova (Milan, 1951); T. O. De Negri, Storia di Genova (Milan, 1968); J. Heers, Gênes au XVe siècle (Paris, 1961); John Day, Les douanes de Gênes, 1376–77 (2 vols., Paris, 1963).

  For Pavia, there is D. Zanetti, Problemi alimentari di una economica preindustriale (Turin, 1964), with good price series for the quattrocento. For southern Italy and Sicily, see A. Petino, Aspetti e momenti di politica granari a Catania ed in Sicilia nel quattrocento (Catania, 1952). Major multivolume histories of Milan, Mantua, Verona, and Brescia were published in the 1960s, but I have not found full-scale modern histories of Bologna or Perugia.

  On Iberia, the leading works are V. Magalhaes-Godinho, L’economie de l’Empire portugais aux XVe et XVIe siècles (Paris, 1969); A. Santamaria Arandez, Aportacion al estudio de la economia de Valencia durante el siglo XV (Valencia, 1966); and the works of Vicens and Elliott cited above.

  Among many excellent French local studies are Guy Bois, Crise du féodalisme, cited above; P. Wolff, Commerces et merchands de Toulouse, vers 1350-vers 1450 (Paris, 1954); idem, Les estimes toulousianes des XIV et XV siècles (Toulouse, 1956); G. Sivery, Structures agraires et vie rurale dans Le Hainaut à la fin du Moyen Age (Lille, 1973); Latouche, La vie en Bas Quercy du XIVe au XVIIIe siècle (Paris, 1923); John Day, “Prix agricoles en Méditerranée à la fin du XIVe’ me siècle (1382),” Annales E.S.C. 16 (1961) 629–56; Yvonne Bezard, La vie rurale dans le sud de la region parisienne de 1450 à 1560 (Paris, 1929).