Feminae: Medieval Women and Gender Index


  • Record Number: 3128
  • Author(s)/Creator(s): Falskau , Christian-Frederik.
  • Contributor(s):
  • Title: Demographic Decline in Late Medieval England: Some Thoughts on Recent Research [questions the theory that women's employment, especially as servants, drove down population after the Black Death].
  • Source URL: Economic History Review (Full Text via JSTOR) 49, 1 (Feb. 1996): 1-19. Link Info target = '_blank'>Economic History Review (Full Text via JSTOR) 49, 1 (Feb. 1996): 1-19. Link Info
  • Description:
  • Article Type: Journal Article
  • Subject (See Also): Demography Economics Fertility Mortality Servants Work
  • Award Note:
  • Geographic Area: British Isles
  • Century: 14- 15
  • Primary Evidence:
  • Illustrations:
  • Table:
  • Abstract: The causes of prolonged demographic decline in late medieval England are the subject of vigorous debate among historians, mainly as a result of the lack of reliable data. Traditionally, historians have pointed to the persistence of epidemic and endemic disease, but recent explanations have tended to focus upon economic changes after the Black Death which enticed women into the workforce and thus depressed fertility. This article questions both the empirical and the theoretical basis of this revisionism, and explores an alternative hypothesis to explain the transition from a 'late- medieval' demographic regime where mortality dominated to an 'early modern' regime where fertility was paramount. [Reproduced by permission of Blackwell Publishers.]
  • Related Resources:
  • Author's Affiliation: Freie University
  • Conference Info: - , -
  • Year of Publication: 1996.
  • Language: English
  • ISSN/ISBN: 00130117
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