The Cambridge Group for the History of Population and Social StructureJerome Gasson
Employee fraud is a significant problem in modern economies, resulting in estimated losses worth over £200m in the UK in 2022. But was employee fraud also a serious issue on medieval estates?
Top of the Campops: 60 things you didn't know about family, marriage, work, and death since the middle ages
Archive for February, 2025
Could farm managers in the middle ages be trusted?
Thursday, February 27th, 2025With whom did older persons reside in the past?
Thursday, February 20th, 2025Richard Smith
It is commonplace to assume that, traditionally, care for older adults has been the responsibility of family members, and was provided within the extended family – implying that elderly persons spent their declining years under the same roof as their married children. But work at Campop has shown that this residential arrangement was not actually the norm in the British past.
From cradle to grave
Thursday, February 13th, 2025Simon Szreter
Most people know that this memorable phrase is associated with the modern welfare state created by the first majority Labour government under Prime Minister Clement Attlee, elected in 1945 after victory in World War II. But was it in fact the first time that a universal social security and welfare system had been legislated in British history?
Who had access to common land?
Thursday, February 6th, 2025Leigh Shaw-Taylor
Common land was once very widespread, before being swept away by a process known as enclosure (discussed further below). In 1500, perhaps 50 percent of England and Wales was common land. There is a popular conception that this common land could be used by everyone, or at least by the whole village community. But as we will see, this is a highly misleading perspective.