Peter L. Larson - Böcker

This case study of two rural parishes in County Durham, England, provides an alternate view on the economic development involved in the transition from medieval to modern, partly explaining England's rise to global economic dominance in the seventeenth century. Coal mining did not come to these parishes until the nineteenth century; these are an example of agrarian expansion. Low population, favourable seigniorial administration, and a commercialised society saw the emergence of large farms on the bishopric of Durham soon after the Black Death; these secure copyhold and leasehold tenures were among the earliest known in England. Individualism developed within a strong parish and village community that encouraged growth while enforcing conformity: tenants had freedom to farm as they wished, within limits. Along with low rents, this allowed for a swift expansion of agricultural production in the sixteenth century as population rose and then as the coal trade expanded rapidly. The prosperity of these men is reflected in their lands, livestock, and consumer goods. Yet not all shared in this prosperity, as the poor and landless increased in number simply by population growth. Through reformation and rebellion, these and other parishes prospered without experiencing severe disruption or destruction. In north-eastern England, agrarian development was an evolution and not a revolution. This study shows England's economic development as a single narrative, woven together from a collection of regional experiences at different times and at different speeds.

With its massive head, enormous jaws, and formidable teeth, Tyrannosaurus rex has long been the young person's favorite creepy carnivore in the Mesozoic zoo. Nor has T. rex been ignored by the scientific community, as this new collection amply demonstrates. Scientists explore such questions as why T. rex had such small forelimbs; how the dinosaur moved; what bone pathologies tell us about life in the Cretaceous; and whether T. rex was a predator, a scavenger, or both. There are reports on newly discovered skeletons, on variation and sexual dimorphism, and how the big beasts chewed. The methods used by the contributors to unlock the mysteries of T. rex range from "old fashioned" stratigraphy to contemporary computer modeling. Together they yield a wealth of new information about one of the dinosaur world's most famous carnivores. An enclosed CD-ROM presents additional photographic and filmed reconstructions of the mighty beast.

Larson examines the changing relations between lords and peasants in post-Black Death Durham. This was a time period of upheaval and change, part of the transition from ‘medieval’ to ‘modern.’ Many historians have argued about the nature of this change and its causes, often putting forth a single all-encompassing model; Larson presses for the importance of individual choice and action, resulting in a flexible, human framework that provides a more appropriate explanation for the many paths followed in this period.The theoretical side is balanced by an ‘on the ground’ examination of rural life in Durham-- an attempt to capture the raw emotions and decisions of the period. No one has really examined this; most studies are speculative, relying on theory or statistics, rather than tracing the history of real people, both in the immediate aftermath of the plague, and in the longer term. Durham is fortunate in that records survive in abundance for this period; most other studies of rural society end at 1300 or 1348.As such, this book fills a major gap in medieval English history while at the same time grappling with major theories of change for this transformative period.