The present volume brings together a number of my papers and articles on various topics of medieval economic and social history, mainly devoted to the problems of English agriculture and rural society. The purpose of this collection, like that of most other collections of the kind, is not only to salvage from oblivion some treasured monuments of one's past endeavours, but to bring together in a convenient form essays and articles which I believe are still being read or should be read by scholars and students. The immodest assumption that these essays in fact deserve to be read and are in fact read led me to exclude from the collection a few articles, papers and reviews which have in my opinion lost (if they ever possessed) their usefulness to latter-day readers.

I hope the essays in this volume may still find their readers. This does not however imply that every fact and idea in the essays has stood the test of time. I believe that the main propositions which they have helped to establish and the historical argument behind them, still stand fully established; but on a number of detailed points I have changed my mind or improved my information and can no longer subscribe to their precise rendering in the original text.