An eminent medievalist and one of the most influential of the small band of Marxist historians working in the UK before 1968, Rodney Hilton’s work on the development of the English feudal system into industrial capitalism was, despite its renown, ultimately mistaken. The problems with Hilton’s account were largely inherited from Maurice Dobb, whose interpretation of Marxist theory led him to ex...

worth, perhaps we may say, in all. It is one of the most interesting features of the social framework of Britain, that while it recognises the distinctions of feudal rank, and records the exit of each worthy head of a time-honoured house, as in some sort the property of the nation, not the less through the various gradations of the scale does it appreciate the successful citizen, the independen...

This paper examines the empirical data relevant in the analysis of the agrarian transformation of England in the Middle Ages. It presents an empirical analysis of available data that investigates the role and extent of resource scarcity in 14th-century England. The analysis offers a way forward for economists and historians to reach a plausible consensus about the reality of what may be one of ...