Sylvia L. Thrupp

The Role of Comparison in the Development of Economic Theory

Our conference today on comparative economic history is in some clanger of rushing into the wide-open spaces of ambiguity, for the term is new, and to agree too quickly on its meaning and implications may not even be desirable. In order to avoid engaging in a mere game of definitions, this paper will deal first with three general types of comparison in relation to their bearing on problems of evidence. It will then review some of the chief uses to which these types of comparison have been put in building up our body of knowledge about Western economic history. The survey will close with particular reference to our own preindustrial stages of economic growth, when western Europe was, in our uncomplimentary phrase, an underdeveloped or backward area.

9. "Comparative Studies in Society and History"

The creator and editor of a new journal of probable interest to PRODs readers describes its mission and, in so doing, sets forth criteria for comparative social theory.

History and Sociology: New Opportunities for Co-Operation

Various irrationalities that spring from the social structure of academic life make it difficult for sociologists and historians to enjoy full and up-to-date use of each others findings. Stereotyped misconceptions of each others methods persist. A new organ of communication, publishing fresh contributions in fields in which comparative study provers helpful and stimulating to all of us, could bypass the impediments.

Plague Effects in Medieval Europe

Professor Russell was the first historian to try to apply statistical methods to analysis of the effects of epidemic plague on the composition, not just on the total size, of medieval population. He argues now that general plagues differed from the type of the disease that became epidemic after the crop failures of 1315–1317, in sharply lowering the sex ratio and in greatly increasing the burden of child-rearing.

The Writing of West European History: A Bird's-Eye View of Trends between 1960 and 1964

Sylvia L. Thrupp, Ph.D., Ann Arbor, Michigan, the Alice Freeman Professor of History at the University of Michigan, is a medievalist who formerly taught in the Department of History of the University of British Columbia and in the Social Sciences Staff of the College of the University of Chicago. Her book publications include The Merchant Class of Medieval London (1948; Paper-bound edition 1962) and, as editor, Millennial Dreams in Action (1961) and Change in Medieval Society (1964). She is a contributor to The Cambridge Economic History of Europe, Vol. III (1963) and to other books and several journals. She is founding editor of Comparative Studies in Society and History (1958-). ~NLY a multilingual computer could make a statistically correct breakdown of the flood of writing on European historical questions that issues from printing presses annually. No bibliographical series pretends to cover it all, and national bibliographies lag. There are, however, better and livelier clues to the main streams of interest

Economy and Society in Medieval England

In British historiography, economic and social history were first thrown together when both were young and backward offshoots of the study of institutions. Economic history, by exploring records in which no one else was interested and making some use of the elements of economic theory, rapidly outgrew that status. But social history lags and its future is uncertain. It has no special records to call its own, for its materials, though rich, are embedded in all classes of documentation. It has no generally recognized set of questions to call its own, for although historians have always drawn on political science for questions relating to the state and to constitutions, and are respectful of economics, they have been distrustful of sociology because this has not yet done much with long run problems of change. Is social history then to become another specialty, working out its questions as it goes along? This course would not rule out the need of defining better its relation to other specialties. Is social history to remain a mere footnote to politics and law, literature and art, science and technology, describing the ways in which these impinge on social custom? If these points are numerous and puzzling, can it fulfil the promise of the school of Marc Bloch and Lucien Febvre, becoming the nucleus of a new kind of historical synthesis? Or has it only some peculiar affiliation with economic history? These questions can be answered only through new work and discussion of it. They give point to commentary on some recent English work on the medieval period.

Comparative Study at Stockholm

If historians, as some non-historians imagine, were occupied only with the detail of national past politics, they would have nothing to say to each other at an international conference. Yet leading historians have labored to create a permanent organization, the International Congress of Historical Sciences, which now holds regular quinquennial meetings with increasingly worldwide representation. At least twenty countries besides all European countries and the Soviet Union were represented at its eleventh meeting, held at Stockholm in August 1960.

The Problem of Conservatism in Fifteenth-Century England

MOST modern misconceptions of mediaeval society are due to a distorted notion of the rigidity of its structure. In the circumstances of the last century, it was perhaps inevitable that such an idea should have arisen. The capitalist economy, in its phases of rapid expansion, was creating new occupations and ways of life, radically altering the position of the older social classes and bringing new ones into existence. Society in the middle ages, largely agrarian and slow-moving, indubitably offered an extreme contrast to these fluid conditions. By an easy and natural process, aided by prejudices of eighteenth-century and Renaissance lineage, the contrast was exaggerated. The middle ages therefore came to stand, in the mind of the average educated reader, as the very type and symbol of immobility. But the days of dynamic expansion are now long past, and the various political and social movements of today all tend alike towards congealing the social system in some mould or other that will ensure security and respect for all citizens. If these desires for a more static system persist, the mediaeval world will take on a much less alien aspect. More sympathetic readers will more readily appreciate that it, too, underwent periods of expansion and of contraction, and, as it comes to be seen in its true colors, the popular legend of its immobility will die. At the same time, specialists should find themselves in a better position to analyze the nature of the conservative influences in mediaeval society. It is undeniable that very strong forces were periodically at work, opposing change. For example, one cannot but be struck by the apparent willingness of mediaeval people to accept as divinely ordained whatever social order the economic and military situation might impose. A brief paper can do no more than point out one of the problems that would be raised by a study of this attitude of mind. The problem may be illustrated by considering the question, how far, in fifteenth century England, conscious acceptance of class divisions was a conservative force. Fifteenth-century England provides a setting in which one would expect to find class divisions mature and class consciousness assuming stereotyped forms, for, until the economic and political revival under the Tudors at the end of the century, the age was for the most part oile of decline, with population either static or receding. A few of the difficulties that beset this type of enquiry must be mentioned at the outset. In the first place, it is imperative to be specific in the use of terms; yet there is an immediate danger of becoming doctrinaire, and of begging ones major questions. Thus, in referring to a society as stratified one is presupposing that its members were conscious of being grouped in social classes distinguished by typical sources of income and cultural standards, and that these classes were