Before the Black Death

These five papers were originally presented at a residential seminar on medieval economy and society held at Chester in July 1989 under the auspices of the Historical Geography Research Group of the Institute of British Geographers. The events in question stand at a chronological watershed between the expansive demographic and economic trends of the 12th and 13th centuries and the contraction and stagnation which characterized the later 14th and 15th centuries. The essay by John H. Munro serves as a reminder that the "crisis" of the early 14th century was a European as much as an exclusively British phenomenon, and the other essays deal with population, agriculture, taxation and the effects of climatic change, reviewing existing knowledge and offering the results of fresh research.