Rethinking the Great Transition is an ambitious and admirable attempt to cross the medieval and early modern divide, which so few socio-economic historians of this period try. In so doing, Larson proves equally adept at dealing with the intricacies of medieval halmote courts and early modern inventories and their associated historical debates. Through a microhistory of three villages in County Durham, Larson is able to trace tenurial developments, demographic shifts, wealth accumulation, standards of living, and changing community practices. As a result, this will undoubtedly become a staple in the literature, showing the ever increasing need to break down the temporal divide between these chronological specialisms.
In Larson's first monograph, he tackled specific aspects of the medieval legal history of Durham in the aftermath of the Black Death, but his latest book is an altogether more ambitious affair. The tenor of the monograph is set in the opening paragraph, where Larson introduces us to a range of enterprising and engrossing yeomen, typical perhaps of the sixteenth century. Yet, he finds these examples from the late fourteenth century, and a large part of the book is dedicated to tracing the chronology of such key developments. This is not a case of cherry-picking a few examples but is instead robustly asserted through an impressive array of statistics. In so doing, Larson proves both a master of the evidence and its broader significance. Yet, in his own words, ‘this is more than an analysis of data-driven narratives of economic change’ and he seeks to tell ‘the humanity behind the development of agrarian capitalism: the innovation and failures, the cooperation and conflict, the fruits of success and the price paid’ (p. 14).
This is done through a series of relatively short chapters on an impressive and daunting array of topics. The first discusses a range of historical debates including the transition from feudalism to capitalism, the great and little divergences, the chronological shift from medieval to early modern periodisation, and the development of individualism. Perhaps the least successful of the chapters, this engages with a few too many historical debates that may leave an undergraduate reader reeling as we are introduced to, for example, the great and little divergences in just three pages only for them to never fully reappear in the book. The second chapter briefly introduces the case study villages of Bishop Middleham, Cornforth and Sedgefield, and traces some of their local histories. The third chapter is really the first substantive research chapter and immediately the reader is struck by Larson's impressive command over medieval and early modern demography as it demonstrates both the methodological challenges of reconstructing population dynamics for this long-run period but also the tantalising possibilities of doing so. Here, Larson makes a range of important contributions to the literature and especially surrounding the opportunities available to widows and their impact upon demography.
In two particularly significant fourth and fifth chapters, Larson demonstrates key tenurial developments in these villages, showing that ‘copyhold was in place before serfs and servile dues disappeared in Durham’ (p. 67). He then traces changes in the land market, discussing the extent to which this led to engrossment and the varying, and inconsistent, chronology of this development, finding that key periods surrounded adjustments in the aftermath of the Black Death, the establishment of leaseholds either side of 1400, the accumulation of land in the latter half of the fifteenth century, and ‘the true emergence of the yeoman, with larger farms and enclosure’ in the half-century before the Civil War (p. 98). The sixth chapter then moves onto debates surrounding standards of living and is, perhaps, one of the most interesting for the fusion of quantitative analysis and the qualitative humanity that Larson wishes to bring to the fore. A comparative model of the budget of two tenants – John Joly in 1407 and that of Richard Gibson in 1597 – serves as a particularly effective means of demonstrating many of the socio-economic changes of the intervening period.
Chapter seven traces the impact of the above changes upon the agriculture and economy of the region, noting some of the important shifts in agrarian development. As Larson notes, there are aspects here ripe for future research, such as the importance of credit and debt in the emerging rural and industrial economy of the north-east of England. Finally, the eighth chapter drills down to the individuals and the communities of these case studies, focusing upon how economic, social, political, and religious change affected the character of these villages. It is here where Larson's desire ‘to tell the stories of how ordinary men and women experienced extraordinary times’ shines through, with a range of interesting and significant vignettes about village life (p. 14).
Given the relatively short length of the work and the extremely ambitious scope of its content, there are naturally imbalances in some of the coverage, with some topics receiving more focus in the early modern period where the evidence base is more suited to analysis. It also means that some of the significance of the findings – and they are significant! – is perhaps not as fully articulated as it might have been. Yet, such complaints seem churlish in the face of the considerable methodological challenges facing such attempts to cross the medieval and early modern divide, each with their own often distinct sources and historical debates.
Rethinking the Great Transition, then, is a very welcome and valuable addition to the literature, which shows the importance of treating the period from the fourteenth to the seventeenth century as one long demographic and agrarian cycle.
