With special emphasis on the period following the Black Death, this new collection of essays explores agriculture and rural society during the late Middle Ages. Combining a broad perspective on agrarian problems--such as depopulation and social conflict--with illustrative material from detailed local and regional research, this compilation demonstrates how these general problems were solved within specific contexts. The contributors supply detailed studies relating to the use of the land, the movement of prices, the distribution of property, the organization of trade, and the cohesion of village society, among other issues. New research on regional development in medieval England and other European countries is also discussed.

This work is intended as a modern successor to L.F. Salzman's "English Industries in the Middle Ages" (1913). The approach to each industry is by material, discussing its acquisition, working and sale as a finished product. Only industries that resulted in the production of consumer goods and where substantial numbers of artefacts survive from the Middle Ages are dealt with (fishing and brewing are therefore omitted); the text is illustrated by pictures of surviving objects and contemporary representations of medieval work.