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IMC 2015: Sessions

Session 638: The Rule of Lords in Times of Change, 1300-1500: Papers in Honour of Richard Britnell and John Munro, II

Tuesday 7 July 2015, 11.15-12.45

Organiser:Peter Larson, Department of History, University of Central Florida
Moderator/Chair:James Davis, School of History & Anthropology, Queen's University Belfast
Paper 638-aExperiencing the Black Death in Durham Priory
(Language: English)
Ben Dodds, Department of History, Durham University
Index terms: Administration, Local History, Monasticism
Paper 638-bLords, Communities, and Individualism in Northern England, 1300-1500
(Language: English)
Peter Larson, Department of History, University of Central Florida
Index terms: Administration, Economics - Rural, Social History
Abstract

When considering the decisions of lords in the late medieval manorial system, scholars rightly have focused on reactions to the decline of serfdom after the Black Death; but this overshadows other crises and developments that repeatedly required lords to adapt and reform their administrative methods. This panel explores the flexible and innovative responses to some of these challenges: the Great Famine and continued population decline in the decades before the Black Death; reorganizing administrative positions and practices after so many trusted and experienced personnel perished from the plague; and confronting the strains of increasingly individualistic attitudes to land use.