‘Legal Windows Onto Historical Populations’? Recent Research on Demography and the Manor Court in Medieval England

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Abstract
The stategic role played by population movement, and its interaction with agrarian environment, in current theories of medieval economic development stands in sharp contrast to the relatively sparse direct evidence that can be marshalled to elucidate demographic change in medieval England. Indeed, work done to date has relied largely upon indirect indicators such as rents, prices, and wages or landscape changes associated with processess of reclamation, colonization, settlement resiting, shrinkage and desertion.