The Impact of Plague Outbreaks on Local Courts in England and Wales in the Later Fourteenth Century.

这项研究的重点是流行病的影响，在这种情况下是黑死病（腺鼠疫），以及由此导致的严重人口减少，对工业化前的机构，特别是庄园和自治市镇法院，在英格兰和威尔士。它探讨了法律，社会和经济史之间的交集，在当代关注流行病对现代世界机构的影响的背景下。1348年，黑死病袭击了英格兰，夺走了英格兰三分之一到一半的人口，在14世纪余下的时间里，黑死病继续在英国肆虐。本研究分析了地方法院记录的定量和定性证据。这些法庭记录记录了这些社区中一般非精英居民的经济活动。该项目研究黑死病大流行的社会和经济影响。地方法院解决了与债务、违约和非法侵入有关的纠纷，通过审查这些纠纷，该项目考虑了鼠疫爆发对商业和地方经济的更广泛影响。尽管瘟疫爆发对英国法律的影响让学者们感兴趣了一个多世纪，但这主要集中在新劳动法和对皇家法院的影响上。14世纪瘟疫爆发对地方法院的影响很少被提及，而那些涉及到这一点的研究也仅限于一个法院或一小部分法院。这是第一部系统地论述鼠疫对中世纪英国地方法院影响的作品。

This research focuses on the impact of pandemics, in this case the Black Death (Bubonic Plague), and the resulting severe depopulation, on pre-industrial institutions, particularly manorial and borough courts, in England and Wales. It explores the intersection between legal, social and economic histories within the context of contemporary concerns over the effect of pandemics upon institutions in the modern world.The Black Death struck England in 1348, swept away between a third and a half of England's population, and epidemics continued to strike throughout Britain for the remainder of the fourteenth century and beyond.This research analyses the quantitative and qualitative evidence of records from local courts. These court records chart the economic activities of the generally non-elite inhabitants of these communities. The project studies the social and economic impacts of the Black Death pandemic. Local courts resolved disputes relating to debt, broken agreements and trespass, and through examining these disputes, the project considers the wider impact of plague outbreaks on commerce and local economies.Although the impact of plague outbreaks on English law has interested scholars for over a century, this has largely focussed on the new labour laws and on impacts to royal courts. The impact of fourteenth century plague outbreaks on local courts has seldom been addressed, and those studies that have addressed this are limited to a single court or a small sample of courts. This is the first work to systematically address the impact of plague on local courts from across medieval Britain.