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1 results

  • Chapter VIII - Crisis: From the Middle Ages to Modern Times

  • Edited by M. M. Postan
  • Book:
    The Cambridge Economic History of Europe from the Decline of the Roman Empire
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    02 January 1966, pp 660-742

  • Summary

    The end of the Middle Ages was a time of decadence and also one of preparation, of search for new solutions to enduring problems. This chapter describes and explains the years of 1300 or 1350 until about 1450 or 1500 our village past first by analysing the changes and then by establishing their effects. It first examines demographic evolution: its speed, motive power and results. The chapter then turns to capital, and as here the most potent influences came from political troubles of every kind, it recalls the convulsions of the expiring Middle Ages and unravel their complex economic effects. After quickly touching on political, intellectual and religious life and its principal tendencies, the chapter considers the repercussions of these different phenomena on the life of the countryside and, since all history is the men who make it, on its inhabitants, be they exploiting proprietors and lords or peasants.