Christopher Dyer
Biographic Data
| ID | 251344 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Christopher Dyer |
| GIVEN NAMES | Christopher |
| FAMILY NAME | Dyer |
| SIGNATURE | DYER C |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Leicester |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-1651-5511 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 104 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 133 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 99 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 5 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1968 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 7 |
Living Standards and Material Culture in English Rural Households, 1300–1600, by Ben Jervis, Chris Briggs, Alice Forward, Tomasz Gromelski and Matthew Tompkins
Carpenters
Social Disability as Disaster
Social disability is a process or event that significantly disrupts, paralyzes, or prevents the formation and/or sustaining of interpersonal social relations required for meeting human needs. When prolonged, the ‘disabling’ of essential human interrelationships can have a destructive impact. This is especially true in communities where people are highly interdependent and where individuals living with disabilities rely upon social relationships t…
Murder in a Landscape
The history of crime offers us insights into private vengeance, community cohesion, social tensions, the defence of honour and property disputes. Henry Flackett of Stanshope in Alstonefield, Staffordshire, was killed by three assailants known to him in 1515, provoked by a contested heap of manure. A combination of sources provides an unusually vivid and detailed picture of the crime, in which gentry honour played a part, provoking an attempt to e…
A simple food with many meanings
Bread was the most important item of diet in medieval England. Cereals were consumed in boiled form, but bread was preferred. Bread was not just convenient, but was also symbolic of well-being. Although breads were made from other cereals and legumes, wheat bread occupied a prime position, and in particular white wheat bread was regarded highly by consumers. Reasons are given for these attitudes, including the practical advantage that white bread…
Lessons learned from a natural resource disaster
Eingegangene Bücher
Changing Approaches to Local History
Partnership among peasants
Historians of medieval society tend to emphasise the roles of either individual peasants or the village community. They also debate the importance of the market in the peasant economy. Here the focus is on partnership, defined as two or more people pursuing common objectives in a mutual co-operative relationship. Peasants sometimes held land jointly, and new land might be cleared by two or more people. Pairs of peasants regularly took on paid wor…
Houses and Society in Norwich, 1350–1660
This valuable book provides a full and authoritative account, lavishly illustrated, of the development of housing in late medieval and early modern Norwich, then England’s second city. Additional value comes from the author’s interdisciplinary approach, as he uses documentary, archaeological and architectural evidence, and sets the development of the buildings in the context of the history of Norwich, and urban history in general. King applies va…
Michael SPENCE, The Late Medieval Monastery of Fountains Abbey, Yorkshire. Monastic Administration, Economy and Archival Memory
"MICHAEL SPENCE, The Late Medieval Monastery of Fountains Abbey, Yorkshire. Monastic Administration, Economy and Archival Memory." Northern History, 58(1), pp. 155–156
Peasants and poultry in England, 1250-1540
A Comment on Rural Tenants and Their Buildings in the Later Middle Ages
This contribution reinforces Currie’s article in Vernacular Architecture 49 to demonstrate that tenants of all kinds, free and customary, usually arranged for the building of the dwellings and subsidiary buildings on their holdings. Lords built only in special circumstances, and tenants normally organised construction by obtaining materials and hiring carpenters. The expectation that tenants were responsible for buildings was often expressed in m…
Beds and Chambers in Late Medieval England
The recent literature on medieval houses includes a good range of studies of types of building (such as town houses), and those belonging to various sections of society, from peasants to royalty, but this rewarding book is unusual in focusing on a room found in houses of all kinds, the chamber. Because sleeping was the central function of most chambers, it is appropriate also to examine beds in the context of the space that they occupied. This bo…
Tyler Lange. Excommunication for Debt in Late Medieval France
The lending and borrowing of money in the past have become major preoccupations for historians. These two rewarding and thoughtful books, which lie very close to one another in the themes that they explore, form part of the surge of investigation into late medieval and early modern credit. Undoubtedly historians’ concern for the subject has been stimulated by the international financial troubles that began in 2008, though historians’ interest was…
The Archaeology of the 11th Century
Making a Living in the Middle Ages
Dramatic social and economic change during the middle ages altered the lives of the people of Britain in far-reaching ways, from the structure of their families to the ways they made their livings. In this masterly book, preeminent medieval historian Christopher Dyer presents a fresh view of the British economy from the ninth to the sixteenth century and a vivid new account of medieval life. He begins his volume with the formation of towns and vi…
Archaeology of the 11th Century
Crises in Economic and Social History
This book contains a collection of fifteen papers by scholars diverse in their specialisms and at varied stages of their careers, a number of whom presented papers at a conference entitled ‘Coping with Crisis’ held at the University of Durham in 2013. Seven papers are concerned with economic, financial and banking crises, as the organisers encouraged the contributors to connect their historical inquiries with the aftermath of the troubles of the …
The Later Medieval Inquisitions Post Mortem
The Inquisitions post mortem (IPMs) are a truly wonderful source for many different aspects of late medieval countryside and rural life. They have recently been made digitally accessible and interrogatable by the Mapping the Medieval Countryside project, and the first fruits of these developments are presented here. The chapters examine IPMs in connection with the landscape and topography of England, in particular markets and fairs and mills; and…
Anglo-Saxon Farms and Farming, by Debby Banham and Rosamond Faith
The authors of this book, Debby Banham and Rosamond Faith, present an account of practical agriculture in a period which lacks an abundance of primary evidence. They divide the centuries between the fifth and the eleventh into sections. After an episode of ‘abatement’ after c .400 when cultivation was reduced in scale in accord with falling demand for cereals, a long revival came after about 700, when more land was brought under the plough, the m…
Later Medieval Inquisitions Post Mortem
Lords and Towns in Medieval Europe
Domestic Culture in Early Modern England
This book is an analysis of probate inventories from Thame in Oxfordshire for the seventeenth century. The author had a career as a furniture restorer, and this is reflected in the expert knowledge
A Late Saxon Village and Medieval Manor
A Late Saxon Village and Medieval Manor: Excavations at Botolph Bridge, Orton Longueville, Peterborough." Medieval Archaeology, 60(1), pp. 194–195
The consumer and the market in the later middle ages
Social Relations and Ideas
Wages and earnings in late medieval England
Simon A. C. Penn, Christopher Dyer, Wages and Earnings in Late Medieval England: Evidence from the Enforcement of the Labour Laws, The Economic History Review, New Series, Vol. 43, No. 3 (Aug., 1990), pp. 356-376
The English Medieval Village Community and Its Decline
The village community has a shadowy existence in historical writing about the English Middle Ages. With a few honorable exceptions, scholars have been reluctant to assign to the village any central place in their account of medieval society. In some cases it is ignored or given such small emphasis as to imply that it was of little importance, and it is still necessary to provide evidence for the existence of the community and its organization. Th…
Social Relations and Ideas
The hidden trade of the Middle Ages
English Peasant Buildings in the Later Middle Ages (1200–1500)
FROM A SYNTHESIS OF evidence for late medieval peasant buildings this article argues that their size, quality and complexity have frequently been underestimated. Documentary evidence from the West Midlands is used to define the main features of peasant buildings—agricultural buildings as well as houses—in the period 1350–1500. Similar characteristics are found in the same period in other regions, in the context of their own building traditions. T…
Living in Peasant Houses in Late Medieval England
New evidence is presented for the size, construction and cost of medieval peasant buildings in the west midlands, in order to set the scene for an examination of the use of space in houses in the period 1250–1520. This is based mainly on a sample of probate inventories for fifteenth-century Yorkshire, which reveal through their lists of contents and especially furniture the use that was made of halls, chambers, kitchens and other rooms. On the ba…
Poverty and its Relief in Late Medieval England
How did the elderly, orphaned, widowed, disabled, sick, landless, low-paid and unemployed of England survive before the state introduced Poor Laws in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries? Historians believe that poor relief was transformed in the early modern period, but many accept that the procedures adopted between 1536 and 1601 and gradually implemented thereafter had forerunners in the Late Middle Ages.1 The historical literature on pover…
The Archaeology of Medieval Small Towns
THIS PRESIDENTIAL address, originally entitled 'Is the Archaeology of Small Towns Worth Pursuing??, surveys the results of numerous archaeological interventions in medieval small towns in England and Wales, focusing on work published since an overview that appeared in 1985. Its purpose is to show the value of research on sites which are sometimes seen as unrewarding. The cumulative results of sixteen years of investigation have thrown important n…
Vernacular Architecture and Landscape History
W. G. Hoskins, writing in the 1950s, developed the new subject of landscape history, and regarded buildings as an essential part of the historic landscape. Since then there has been some separation between architectural and landscape studies. This article advocates their reconnection, and in particular urges those studying buildings to set their work in a landscape context. A framework is proposed, in which houses are located in plots, settlement…
Small places with large consequences
English small towns before industrialization deserve our attention because they provided homes and livings for large numbers of people-a tenth of the population by 1300. Small towns, even those with only a few hundred inhabitants, can be distinguished from various 'town like' settlements such as industrial and open villages. They can be regarded as fully urban, and shared many characteristics with larger towns. They played an important role in th…
History and Vernacular Architecture
(1997). History and Vernacular Architecture. Vernacular Architecture: Vol. 28, No. 1, pp. 1-8
Market Towns and the Countryside in Late Medieval England
This study of the interactions between market towns and their surrounding countryside is inspired by David Farmer's work on agricultural marketing. Central place theories of "spheres of influence" are applied to a number of small English towns for which there is evidence of commercial contacts in the period 1280-1520. A sample of towns is used, including a group of contiguous market centres in the west midlands. Trading hinterlands are defined an…
Small-town conflict in the later Middle Ages
The seventeenth-century Worcestershire antiquarian Thomas Habington knew of great agitations around 1400 at Shipston-on-Stour, a manor of Worcester Cathedral Priory. He reported that after an arbitration of 1405–6 ‘the discontented tenants not satisfied broke out against their lord again, but all these being long since buried, shall not be revived by my pen, which shall never prejudice or blot any with infamy’. This article will rescue the rebels…
The Past, the Present and the Future in Medieval Rural History
More books and articles are being published about medieval rural history, archaeology and geography than ever before. This is not just because academics have been told to improve their productivity, but mainly reflects the enthusiasm of authors and the demand of a numerous reading public. Publishers find that books on medieval subjects have a steady sale, both among young students, who, despite gloomy predictions, are still attracted to the Middl…
A Comment on Rural Tenants and Their Buildings in the Later Middle Ages
This contribution reinforces Currie’s article in Vernacular Architecture 49 to demonstrate that tenants of all kinds, free and customary, usually arranged for the building of the dwellings and subsidiary buildings on their holdings. Lords built only in special circumstances, and tenants normally organised construction by obtaining materials and hiring carpenters. The expectation that tenants were responsible for buildings was often expressed in m…
Building in Earth in Late-Medieval England
The stereotype that medieval earth building was confined to remote regions, and was associated with poverty and backwardness, is examined critically on the basis of written records of 1270–1520. These show that mud walls were built throughout the country, and that their quality and cost varied considerably. People from a wide social range, including prosperous peasants, lived in houses made of mud, and aristocrats surrounded their gardens and yar…
The urban hierarchy in the later Middle Ages
The urban hierarchy of an English region in the period 1300–1540 is defined, using both documentary and archaeological evidence. The part of the East Midlands studied – Leicestershire, Northamptonshire and Rutland – contained twenty towns. ‘Benchmarks’ for placing towns in the hierarchy are explored, including population, topography, social structure, occupational diversity, marketing and migratory networks, administration, and civic and material…
Sheepcotes
SHEEPCOTES were late medieval buildings for the shelter of flocks and the storage of fodder, among other functions. They are visible as earthworks and are recorded in documents. This study uses mainly Gloucestershire examples to provide insights into medieval sheep husbandly, and changing patterns of land management
The Rural Settlements of Medieval England, Studies Dedicated to Maurice Beresford and John Hurst
Deserted Medieval Villages in the West Midlands
A simple food with many meanings
Bread was the most important item of diet in medieval England. Cereals were consumed in boiled form, but bread was preferred. Bread was not just convenient, but was also symbolic of well-being. Although breads were made from other cereals and legumes, wheat bread occupied a prime position, and in particular white wheat bread was regarded highly by consumers. Reasons are given for these attitudes, including the practical advantage that white bread…
Lords and Towns in Medieval Europe
Domestic Culture in Early Modern England
This book is an analysis of probate inventories from Thame in Oxfordshire for the seventeenth century. The author had a career as a furniture restorer, and this is reflected in the expert knowledge
A Redistribution of Incomes in Fifteenth-century England?1
Journal Article A REDISTRIBUTION OF INCOMES IN FIFTEENTH–CENTURY ENGLAND?1 Get access Christopher Dyer Christopher Dyer University of Edinburgh Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Past & Present, Volume 39, Issue 1, April 1968, Pages 11–33, https://doi.org/10.1093/past/39.1.11 Published: 01 April 1968
The Origins of English Individualism
Deserted Medieval Villages in the West Midlands
Evidence for Helms in Gloucestershire in the Fourteenth Century
Helms are mentioned on a number of occasions as structures on peasant holdings in the court rolls of Bisley, Gloucestershire, in the period 1355-92. They were buildings standing on staddle stones, and were used for the storage of crops. Their wider implications and origins are explored
Social Relations and Ideas
Manorial Records
Shorter Notices
Journal Article Shorter Notices Get access CHRISTOPHER DYER CHRISTOPHER DYER University of Birmingham Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The English Historical Review, Volume CI, Issue CCCXCIX, April 1986, Pages 486-b–487, https://doi.org/10.1093/ehr/CI.CCCXCIX.486-b Published: 01 April 1986
English Peasant Buildings in the Later Middle Ages (1200–1500)
FROM A SYNTHESIS OF evidence for late medieval peasant buildings this article argues that their size, quality and complexity have frequently been underestimated. Documentary evidence from the West Midlands is used to define the main features of peasant buildings—agricultural buildings as well as houses—in the period 1350–1500. Similar characteristics are found in the same period in other regions, in the context of their own building traditions. T…
Late Ancient and Medieval Population Control
Les cours manoriales
The Manorial Courts The manorial courts of medieval England, from 1250 to 1500, played an ambiguous role in social relationships. They regulated self-governing village communities, and served as seignorial tribunals. When we assess the relative importance of these two functions, we find that although the courts aided the settlement of disputes between peasants, and defined customary law among the villagers, their primary purpose was to defend the…
Short notices
R. H. Britnell, Growth and Decline in Colchester, 1300–1325 (1985), xvi+304 (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, £27.50). Alison Hanham, The Celys and their World. An English Merchant Family of the Fifteenth Century (1985), xv+472 (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, £35.00). Paul S. Seaver, Wallington's World: A Puritan Artisan in Seventeenth Century London (1985), ix+258 (Methuen, London, £28). Kathryn Norberg, Rich and Poor in Grenoble, …
Social Relations and Ideas
Short Reviews
The Medieval Market Economy
This volume comprises ten essays, six of which are published in English for the first time. The author considers the development of medieval capitalism from the vantage point of international merchants and merchant-bankers. He reconsiders the much discussed Great Depression of the 14th and 15th centuries, and is particularly concerned with the active and often destabilizing role played by money in the medieval economy at a time when the money sup…
Social Organization as a Function of Work Organization Aboard a JapaneseSurimiTrawler
Standards of Living in the Later Middle Ages
Between 1200 and 1520 medieval English society went through a series of upheavals: this was an age of war, pestilence and rebellion. This book explores the realities of life of the people who lived through those stirring times. It looks in turn at aristocrats, peasants, townsmen, wage-earners and paupers, and examines how they obtained their incomes and how they spent them. This revised edition (1998) includes a substantial new concluding chapter…
Money and Its Use in Medieval Europe
William de la Pole, Merchant and King's Banker, (1366)
The consumer and the market in the later middle ages
The Past, the Present and the Future in Medieval Rural History
More books and articles are being published about medieval rural history, archaeology and geography than ever before. This is not just because academics have been told to improve their productivity, but mainly reflects the enthusiasm of authors and the demand of a numerous reading public. Publishers find that books on medieval subjects have a steady sale, both among young students, who, despite gloomy predictions, are still attracted to the Middl…
Short Reviews
Dispersed Settlements in Medieval England. A case study of Pendock, Worcestershire
DISPERSED SETTLEMENTS in a woodland parish of SW. Worcestershire provide a detailed example from which general lessons can be learned about the history of settlement. The case study explores such problems as the relationship between medieval settlements and their Romano-British predecessors, the changing use of land in the medieval period, and the evolution of a distinctive type of dispersed settlement, the ‘interrupted row’. The usual explanatio…
The Rural Settlements of Medieval England, Studies Dedicated to Maurice Beresford and John Hurst
Standards of Living in the Later Middle Ages
The Rural Settlements of Medieval England
Figures Plates Introduction Part One: History and Geography 1. Early Medieval Estate and Settlement Patterns: The Documentary Evidence Della Hooke 2. Initiative and Authority in Settlement Change P. D. A. Harvey 3. `The Retreat from Marginal Land'. The Growth and Decline of Medieval Rural Settlements Christopher Dyer 4. Nucleation and Dispersion: Distribution Maps as a Research Tool Brian K. Roberts 5. The People in the Wolds in English Settlemen…
History (71 works) · Historical Economic and Social Studies (44 works) · Archaeology (42 works) · Political science (42 works) · Medieval Literature and History (37 works) · History (36 works) · Law (33 works) · Sociology (33 works) · Geography (30 works) · Economics (25 works)