This book will be of permanent interest to all historians and particularly those specialising in social and economic history.

Preface; Acknowledgements; Introduction Edward Miller; 1. The origins of the manor in England with a postscript T. H. Aston; 2. The extent and profitability of Demesne agriculture in England in the later eleventh century Sally P. J. Harvey; 3. Feudalism and its decline: a semantic exercise M. M. Postan; 4. The matron and the mis-married woman: perceptions of marriage in northern France circa 1100 Georges Duby; 5. Literature and social terminology: the Vavasour in England P. R. Cross; 6. The struggles between the Abbots of Halesowen and their tenants in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries Zvi Razi; 7. Poverty in Piers Plowman Geoffrey Shepherd; 8. English diet in the later Middle Ages Christopher Dyer; 9. Economic change in later medieval England: an archaeological review G. G. Astill; 10. Serfdom in later medieval and early modern Germany Heide Wunder; 11. Time, space and use in Early Russia R. E. F. Smith; 12. Plough and pen: agricultural writers in the seventeenth century Joan Thirsk; Bibliography of R. H. Hilton's works to January 1982 Jean Birrell; Index.