Once I was a clever boy learning the arts of Oxford... is a quotation from the verses written by Bishop Richard Fleming (c.1385-1431) for his tomb in Lincoln Cathedral. Fleming, the founder of Lincoln College in Oxford, is the subject of my research for a D. Phil., and, like me, a son of the West Riding. I have remarked in the past that I have a deeply meaningful on-going relationship with a dead fifteenth century bishop... it was Fleming who, in effect, enabled me to come to Oxford and to learn its arts, and for that I am immensely grateful.


Saturday 19 June 2021

Medieval Peasant Families


This week with the 640th anniversary of the 1381 Peasants Revolt has brought the world of the later medieval English peasant to a fairly prominent place in my historical consciousness. Given that fact I was all the more pleased to see on the site of Medievalists.net an article which seeks to summarise what we know or can establish about the size of peasant families, particularly in the high and later middle ages.

The results may surprise modern people with their apprehensions - or misapprehensions - of what life was like in the past and can be read at How Large were Medieval Peasant Families?


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