discokermit
Well-Known Member
people from the class that dispossessed the peasantry have found evidence that the peasantry found it all jolly good fun and empowering. despite it shortening their lifespans. hokey cokey.
Megalithic and Prehistoric Sites
- Thread starter ska invita
- Start date
A380
How do I change this 'custom title' thing then?
I thought there were Marxists on here.
The black death in Europe meant that the value of labour doubled (well increased by a little under 40%) over a few decades. This meant that serfdom become uneconomic leading the way to the first industrial revolution and an economy based other division between labour and capital rather that feudal ties (ie, direct violence and fealty). this happened because it was economically beneficial to invest in tech like water mills, and long bows. All of which had been around for years and new tech coming in from the wider Caliphates and being invented here.
Enclosures only changed the economy significantly from the late 16th early 17th centuries. They displaced hundreds of thousands of people and were truly awful but also led to a huge increase in land productivity (not necessary a good thing for the environment) which meant that the population of Britain could increase five or six fold. Most of that increase, of course, being of people stuck in the slums of the ever growing cities. Each societal change sees more people, it doesn't necessarily mean that individuals get a better life. Thats the kind of the point.
Transition from economic state to state is never pretty and (so far successfully ) never the result of people trying to make it happen. A Squire investing in a water-driven iron foundry in 1350 and paying his neighbour's ex serfs to come and work for him was just as much driving their marxist revolution as anyone. Not that they would have seen it as such.
When/if we transition first to socialism and then later to advanced communism it will as result of technological changes, not because people write pamphlets.
Don't skip all the chapters about making clothes. I know they are dull but they are the key to it all.
The black death in Europe meant that the value of labour doubled (well increased by a little under 40%) over a few decades. This meant that serfdom become uneconomic leading the way to the first industrial revolution and an economy based other division between labour and capital rather that feudal ties (ie, direct violence and fealty). this happened because it was economically beneficial to invest in tech like water mills, and long bows. All of which had been around for years and new tech coming in from the wider Caliphates and being invented here.
Enclosures only changed the economy significantly from the late 16th early 17th centuries. They displaced hundreds of thousands of people and were truly awful but also led to a huge increase in land productivity (not necessary a good thing for the environment) which meant that the population of Britain could increase five or six fold. Most of that increase, of course, being of people stuck in the slums of the ever growing cities. Each societal change sees more people, it doesn't necessarily mean that individuals get a better life. Thats the kind of the point.
Transition from economic state to state is never pretty and (so far successfully ) never the result of people trying to make it happen. A Squire investing in a water-driven iron foundry in 1350 and paying his neighbour's ex serfs to come and work for him was just as much driving their marxist revolution as anyone. Not that they would have seen it as such.
When/if we transition first to socialism and then later to advanced communism it will as result of technological changes, not because people write pamphlets.
Don't skip all the chapters about making clothes. I know they are dull but they are the key to it all.
Last edited:
ska invita
back on the other side
tbf there were acts of enclosure from Norman times (post 1066), so its not impossible it happened in this 1360s example in Dorset, though I doubt it
btw kermit EP Thompson went to prep school, boarding school and then Oxford so unreliable upper class source
btw kermit EP Thompson went to prep school, boarding school and then Oxford so unreliable upper class source
A380
How do I change this 'custom title' thing then?
But not on an 'industrial' scale. They would have changed individual lives - the majority for the worse, but not shifted society. The wool trade driver (with perhaps early crop rotation as a far distant follower) was the main driver. It was that trade that enabled many capitalists to acquire their capital. It was so important that we still see the legacy in one of the vestiges of feudalism, the HOL Speakers chair.
Last edited:
A380
How do I change this 'custom title' thing then?
Anyway, another Bedfordshire Monolith. Probably the most pathetic in the country.
in 1948 with the British economy in tatters and transatlantic shipping at a premium the good people of Bedford Indiana thought that what the plucky population of Britain really needed was a smallish lump of rock. So they shipped one over, unsolicited. The bemused Government didn't know what to do with it till eventually some junior civill servant got the bright idea of sending it to Bedford where it was erected on the Embankment outside a quite nice pub.
People of Urban, I give you The Cornerstone of Freedom!
Most people think it's a tap or something.
in 1948 with the British economy in tatters and transatlantic shipping at a premium the good people of Bedford Indiana thought that what the plucky population of Britain really needed was a smallish lump of rock. So they shipped one over, unsolicited. The bemused Government didn't know what to do with it till eventually some junior civill servant got the bright idea of sending it to Bedford where it was erected on the Embankment outside a quite nice pub.
People of Urban, I give you The Cornerstone of Freedom!
Most people think it's a tap or something.
All the chap in the video was pointing out is that with the population half gone, people could abandon the crappy chalk lands and move to the richer farming lands. Leaving a large vacated space which was profitable for large-scale grazing for big estates (and ultimately the region's famous milk and cheese production, once the railways arrived).
belboid
Exasperated, not angry.
Here you go, have a Marxist account, Faulkner was an excellent historian of the period
A Marxist History of the World part 33: The class struggle in medieval Europe
Despite dominating western Europe in the 11th century by the 14th century Feudalism was faced with a crisis of the system that generated a wave of revolutionary struggle. Neil Faulkner looks at the causes and outcomes of these conflicts.
discokermit
Well-Known Member
exactly. the only sources we have come from our class enemies.tbf there were acts of enclosure from Norman times (post 1066), so its not impossible it happened in this 1360s example in Dorset, though I doubt it
btw kermit EP Thompson went to prep school, boarding school and then Oxford so unreliable upper class source
Thank you for that little bit of history. After falling down a diversionary rabbit hole, I now know that Indiana stone is a thing and has been used in lots of important buildings and not just the fabulous monument to the people of Beford:
(the bit about Bedford is at the bottom of the list)
discokermit
Well-Known Member
cant you see this makes no sense. crappy chalk lands that the owners got rich from grazing?
A chunk of poor land divided among lots of little people = subsistence economy. The same land divided among just a handful of posh twat estate owners with few labourers to support = big profit. Economies of scale/investments can also often lead to other increases in productivity, though when it comes to grazing land that's rarely the case.
ska invita
back on the other side
this doesnt make your presumptive guess right though. and as to the sources, neither of us have seen them.
all this is a derail! the most important bit is that the inter-coastal chalk path is cool and has a good claim to being the first 'road' on the island
A380
How do I change this 'custom title' thing then?
It’s not about nice people or otherwise. Early capitalists were just as much ‘Marist Revolutionaries’ as the most Spartist Spart. Being the vanguard of the transformation from feudalism to capitalism as they were. Not that they would have seen it like that. They were in it for themselves with perhaps a modesty curtain of. God sprinkled over the top. Not that this in apology, just history is history is history.
It’s similar to people on the left who delrship the protagonists in the peasants revolt for challenging the ruling class whist forgetting a large part of the motivation was anti immigrant.
discokermit
Well-Known Member
subsistence economy on prime grazing land means a roof over your head, food in your belly, shoes on your feet and clean drinking water. they gave that up to sell their bodies for a wage they could barely survive on, having a boss and cholera?
I don't think common folks really thought about it that way, and nor did they really have that much agency at the time (though they did try...) as they 'belonged' to their lords.
What we think basically happened is that when everyone died, lots of good land suddenly became available, and the landowners were like "damn, now all my serfs have died I need more people on my land so I can make more moolah".
At the same time, the peeps still living on those poor lands thought "sod this for a laugh" and flocked over to the empty holdings on better lands in the hope of eeking out an easier and more secure life for themselves and hopefully a little bit left over at the end of the season which they could trade for other stuff (or to free up time to make things they could sell - like processing wool etc).
The landowners in the poor lands tried to stop this from happening, since it hurt their bottom line. And outwardly landowners on the better lands were like "yes, isn't it just awful my wealthy bredrin, we must stop the stupid peasants from moving hither and tither, how dare they!" But actually, they were secretly happy cuz their income came from having their land fully utilized, and they let them move in and start farming.
So the landowners on the crappy lands were like "now what we gunna do?" They realized that rather than bother with expensive and troublesome humans who were just trying to run away to the better lands anyway, they could graze their lands with a load of cattle and it would require barely a fraction of their former labour force and $$$ up their bank accounts.
discokermit
Well-Known Member
the more i engage on this site, the more i regret it.
belboid
Exasperated, not angry.
You’re about 2-300 years out here. Poverty and starvation were common amongst the peasantry even before the Black Death. That tragedy then led to the peasantry demanding a greater share of the wealth and a re-ordering of society - what eventually became capitalism.
Peasants weren’t living in some prelapsarian idyll.
Artaxerxes
Look out, he's got a gnu!
Cottage gardens and self sufficiency were definitely more widespread before industrial revolution and enclosure yes but that is a few hundred years post black death.
It wasn't a bed of roses but not the brown mud bath modern myths of the middle ages and prehistoric era that we see on the media.
Since the 1600s it's been an ever increasing rush to get as much public property in as few hands as possible.
It wasn't a bed of roses but not the brown mud bath modern myths of the middle ages and prehistoric era that we see on the media.
Since the 1600s it's been an ever increasing rush to get as much public property in as few hands as possible.
Storm Fox
Trying the find the next noun to verb
But you can graze sheep on crappy chalk lands unfenced due to hefting:
So while not a lot of use for arable crops, sheep could be left unattended using less labour than cattle or arable farming on better land and saving travel time between your arable and cattle locations.http://sciencesearch.defra.gov.uk/Default.aspx?Module=More&Location=None&ProjectID=15631 said:
Although I hadn't found the cost of a fleece, I did find from here: Medieval Prices and Wages – The History of England
For 1300 a labours wage was. £2 and good quality cloth was £1 so that's going to feed back into profit made from sheep grazing.
wayward bob
i ate all your bees
i'm enjoying reading the discussion fwtw (as a reader who has nothing to contribute to it, but it's all learning).
ska invita
back on the other side
can anyone find a map of neolithic britain which explains the different vegative states of the land?
for example i did read that there is a possible theory that welsh stones were taken up to salisbury near enough all by boat because the land between the atlantic west coast (somerest) and salisbury was so boggy and marshy etc
for example i did read that there is a possible theory that welsh stones were taken up to salisbury near enough all by boat because the land between the atlantic west coast (somerest) and salisbury was so boggy and marshy etc
Brainaddict
slight system overdrive
The problem with this conversation is that you have come in with claims of superior knowledge but nobody believes you have more knowledge of land use changes in the fourteenth century than anyone else here. If you had backed up your claims with evidence the whole conversation would have gone differently. Large scale population movements are often a result of both push factors and pull factors, and you might be right that Hargreaves underestimated the push factors and overestimated the pull factors. But you've offered no evidence, so I don't know how you expected the conversation to go differently. We're just supposed to bow to your guesses?
Dystopiary
putting up a hook to hang my hopes upon
Salisbury Museum have an upcoming exhibition of aerial images of ancient Britain.
I particularly like the Silbury Hill one. (Salisbury Museum on twitter currently have it as their pinned tweet.)
I particularly like the Silbury Hill one. (Salisbury Museum on twitter currently have it as their pinned tweet.)
belboid
Exasperated, not angry.
Sad to say that the author of this piece passed away yesterday. A fine Marxist historian and archaeologist. RIP.Here you go, have a Marxist account, Faulkner was an excellent historian of the period
A Marxist History of the World part 33: The class struggle in medieval Europe
Despite dominating western Europe in the 11th century by the 14th century Feudalism was faced with a crisis of the system that generated a wave of revolutionary struggle. Neil Faulkner looks at the causes and outcomes of these conflicts.www.counterfire.org
petee
no gods, no malarkey
Serge Forward
Just enjoyin' my coffee.
ska invita
back on the other side
Surprisingly large obituary in the telegraph today, with obligatory political bias
Neil Faulkner, archaeologist, historian and ‘revolutionary socialist’ activist – obituary
He shed light on the military campaigns of TE Lawrence and founded a pioneering ‘community archaeology’ project in Norfolk
www.telegraph.co.uk
Neil Faulkner, who has died of lymphoma aged 64, was a pioneering archaeologist and historian whose approach to the discipline was influenced by his parallel activities as a political activist.
A self-described revolutionary socialist and author of some 20 books including such titles as A Radical History of the World and Creeping Fascism: What It Is & How to Fight It, Faulkner was, at various times, a member of the Socialist Workers Party and the Stop The War Coalition, for whom he wrote a pamphlet No Glory: the real history of the First World War.
In 2020 he was on the co-ordinating committee of Anti-Capitalist Resistance, which seeks “revolutionary transformation to meet the compound crisis of ecological disaster, economic collapse, social decay, grotesque inequality, mass impoverishment, growing militarisation, and creeping authoritarianism”. In addition he was instrumental in setting up the Brick Lane Debates, whose aim is “to promote participatory political education, empowerment around left wing politics”, and the Left Book Club.
Neil Faulkner
Yet Faulkner belied the humourless Marxist stereotype. Good-looking, passionate and articulate, as an archaeologist he worked freelance and helped keep his head above water by working as a lecturer and tour guide and making occasional appearances on television in series such as Channel 4’s Time Team, and on the BBC’s Timewatch.
His approach to history was shaped by his politics
The man who thrilled Left-wing audiences in Brick Lane with demands for an end to “austerity economics” and a call to “physically” take the wealth from the banks and international financiers, was equally capable, though he never hid his politics, of charming the denizens of Nadfas (The National Association of Decorative and Fine Arts Societies, now the Arts Society) or well-heeled passengers on specialist historical tours.
It was surprising to some that he was also founder editor of Military History Monthly (now Military History Matters – or MHM), a lively magazine covering a field of interest which most associate with people whose politics tend towards the conservative end of the spectrum.
In this role Faulkner welcomed contributions from people of many different political persuasions. When in 2014 MHM co-organised a debate at the Royal United Services Institute on the subject of whether or not Britain was right to go to war in 1914, on the pro side were the historian Nigel Jones and the Conservative politician and former Army officer Patrick Mercer, with Faulkner (who regarded the First World War as “a rich man’s war in which 15 million poor men died”) and Jan Woolf putting the case against.
“We lost by about three to one,” he recalled, “but then the Royal United Services Institute is about as central to British imperialism as you can possibly imagine.”
Faulkner discovered of one of the desert camps Lawrence used before launching attacks on the Hijaz railway line
Originally trained as a Romanist (he regarded the Roman Empire as a case of “robbery with violence”), Faulkner was instrumental in establishing two major archaeological projects: the Great Arab Revolt Project, a ten-year field project looking at the military campaigns of Lawrence of Arabia in southern Jordan, and the Sedgeford Historical and Archaeological Research Project (Sharp) centred on a parish in north-west Norfolk.
The project Faulkner founded in Norfolk in 1996 is still going strong
Founded in 1996 and still continuing, Sharp has focused on a variety of sites, including a large early Christian Anglo-Saxon cemetery and an associated settlement and a unique area consisting of several kilns for malting barley (used to make beer) on an industrial scale. Other sites have featured Iron Age, Roman, medieval and modern remains – and even a First World War aerodrome.
The project was billed by Faulkner as an exercise in “democratic archaeology” in which traditional hierarchies would be rejected and fieldwork “rooted in the community”. Whether practice conformed entirely to theory was a bit of a moot point (Faulkner was very much a hands-on leader), but Sharp is now one of the largest and most successful training digs in the UK.
Likewise the Great Arab Revolt Project, which he co-directed with Professor Nick Saunders of Bristol University, yielded both fascinating discoveries and edifying political lessons.
Faulkner in the Jordanian desert holding British Army ration tins found at one of TE Lawrence's camps
The discovery of one of the desert camps TE Lawrence used before launching attacks on the Hijaz railway line, complete with spent cartridges and rum bottles discarded by British troops, and the excavation of the site of a deadly attack on a Turkish supply train, served to confirm Lawrence’s often criticised account of his desert exploits in The Seven Pillars of Wisdom.
Faulkner clearly admired Lawrence as a brilliant military commander, but observed that he had become a “metaphor for the imperialism, violence and betrayals that tore the region apart a century ago and has left it divided into warring fragments.”
Neil Faulkner
Neil Faulkner was born on January 22 1958, brought up in the Weald of Kent and educated at the Skinners’ School in Tunbridge Wells and at King’s College, Cambridge, where he read Social and Political Sciences.
He worked as a schoolteacher before deciding to train as an archaeologist at the Institute of Archaeology, University College London.
Faulkner regarded the Roman Empire as a case of 'robbery with violence'
His other books include The Decline and Fall of Roman Britain; Apocalypse: The Great Jewish Revolt Against Rome ; Rome: Empire of the Eagles; Digging Sedgeford: A People’s Archaeology; Lawrence of Arabia’s War, A People’s History of the Russian Revolution and his last book Empire and Jihad.
While most of his books were informed by his politics, he was equally capable of lighter, more amusing fare. In A Visitor’s Guide to the Ancient Olympics, published in 2012 to coincide with the London Olympics, he provided an entertaining and gossipy guide to the original Games as they were held in the 4th century BC.
This included such fascinating details as the fact that the Olympic village had hundreds of prostitutes catering to every taste and price range; that men were not allowed to take their wives but could take their unmarried daughters, and that the Games typically attracted crowds of up to 100,000 spectators.
Faulkner, observed one reviewer, “makes the whole experience sound like an ancient version of Woodstock, with a ‘combination of baking summer heat, a lack of sanitation, rotting garbage and night-time racket’.”
Faulkner lived in St Albans with his partner Lucy, who survives him with their three children, Tiggy, Rowena, and Finnian.
Neil Faulkner, born January 22 1958, died February 4 2022
A self-described revolutionary socialist and author of some 20 books including such titles as A Radical History of the World and Creeping Fascism: What It Is & How to Fight It, Faulkner was, at various times, a member of the Socialist Workers Party and the Stop The War Coalition, for whom he wrote a pamphlet No Glory: the real history of the First World War.
In 2020 he was on the co-ordinating committee of Anti-Capitalist Resistance, which seeks “revolutionary transformation to meet the compound crisis of ecological disaster, economic collapse, social decay, grotesque inequality, mass impoverishment, growing militarisation, and creeping authoritarianism”. In addition he was instrumental in setting up the Brick Lane Debates, whose aim is “to promote participatory political education, empowerment around left wing politics”, and the Left Book Club.
Neil Faulkner
Yet Faulkner belied the humourless Marxist stereotype. Good-looking, passionate and articulate, as an archaeologist he worked freelance and helped keep his head above water by working as a lecturer and tour guide and making occasional appearances on television in series such as Channel 4’s Time Team, and on the BBC’s Timewatch.
His approach to history was shaped by his politics
The man who thrilled Left-wing audiences in Brick Lane with demands for an end to “austerity economics” and a call to “physically” take the wealth from the banks and international financiers, was equally capable, though he never hid his politics, of charming the denizens of Nadfas (The National Association of Decorative and Fine Arts Societies, now the Arts Society) or well-heeled passengers on specialist historical tours.
It was surprising to some that he was also founder editor of Military History Monthly (now Military History Matters – or MHM), a lively magazine covering a field of interest which most associate with people whose politics tend towards the conservative end of the spectrum.
In this role Faulkner welcomed contributions from people of many different political persuasions. When in 2014 MHM co-organised a debate at the Royal United Services Institute on the subject of whether or not Britain was right to go to war in 1914, on the pro side were the historian Nigel Jones and the Conservative politician and former Army officer Patrick Mercer, with Faulkner (who regarded the First World War as “a rich man’s war in which 15 million poor men died”) and Jan Woolf putting the case against.
“We lost by about three to one,” he recalled, “but then the Royal United Services Institute is about as central to British imperialism as you can possibly imagine.”
Faulkner discovered of one of the desert camps Lawrence used before launching attacks on the Hijaz railway line
Originally trained as a Romanist (he regarded the Roman Empire as a case of “robbery with violence”), Faulkner was instrumental in establishing two major archaeological projects: the Great Arab Revolt Project, a ten-year field project looking at the military campaigns of Lawrence of Arabia in southern Jordan, and the Sedgeford Historical and Archaeological Research Project (Sharp) centred on a parish in north-west Norfolk.
The project Faulkner founded in Norfolk in 1996 is still going strong
Founded in 1996 and still continuing, Sharp has focused on a variety of sites, including a large early Christian Anglo-Saxon cemetery and an associated settlement and a unique area consisting of several kilns for malting barley (used to make beer) on an industrial scale. Other sites have featured Iron Age, Roman, medieval and modern remains – and even a First World War aerodrome.
The project was billed by Faulkner as an exercise in “democratic archaeology” in which traditional hierarchies would be rejected and fieldwork “rooted in the community”. Whether practice conformed entirely to theory was a bit of a moot point (Faulkner was very much a hands-on leader), but Sharp is now one of the largest and most successful training digs in the UK.
Likewise the Great Arab Revolt Project, which he co-directed with Professor Nick Saunders of Bristol University, yielded both fascinating discoveries and edifying political lessons.
Faulkner in the Jordanian desert holding British Army ration tins found at one of TE Lawrence's camps
The discovery of one of the desert camps TE Lawrence used before launching attacks on the Hijaz railway line, complete with spent cartridges and rum bottles discarded by British troops, and the excavation of the site of a deadly attack on a Turkish supply train, served to confirm Lawrence’s often criticised account of his desert exploits in The Seven Pillars of Wisdom.
Faulkner clearly admired Lawrence as a brilliant military commander, but observed that he had become a “metaphor for the imperialism, violence and betrayals that tore the region apart a century ago and has left it divided into warring fragments.”
Neil Faulkner
Neil Faulkner was born on January 22 1958, brought up in the Weald of Kent and educated at the Skinners’ School in Tunbridge Wells and at King’s College, Cambridge, where he read Social and Political Sciences.
He worked as a schoolteacher before deciding to train as an archaeologist at the Institute of Archaeology, University College London.
Faulkner regarded the Roman Empire as a case of 'robbery with violence'
His other books include The Decline and Fall of Roman Britain; Apocalypse: The Great Jewish Revolt Against Rome ; Rome: Empire of the Eagles; Digging Sedgeford: A People’s Archaeology; Lawrence of Arabia’s War, A People’s History of the Russian Revolution and his last book Empire and Jihad.
While most of his books were informed by his politics, he was equally capable of lighter, more amusing fare. In A Visitor’s Guide to the Ancient Olympics, published in 2012 to coincide with the London Olympics, he provided an entertaining and gossipy guide to the original Games as they were held in the 4th century BC.
This included such fascinating details as the fact that the Olympic village had hundreds of prostitutes catering to every taste and price range; that men were not allowed to take their wives but could take their unmarried daughters, and that the Games typically attracted crowds of up to 100,000 spectators.
Faulkner, observed one reviewer, “makes the whole experience sound like an ancient version of Woodstock, with a ‘combination of baking summer heat, a lack of sanitation, rotting garbage and night-time racket’.”
Faulkner lived in St Albans with his partner Lucy, who survives him with their three children, Tiggy, Rowena, and Finnian.
Neil Faulkner, born January 22 1958, died February 4 2022
Artaxerxes
Look out, he's got a gnu!
I'm going through the British Museums world of Stonehenge book to tie in with the exhibit opening next week. Very good, though I did spot one issue in that it brushes over why they polished axes - the books I've read and I think even an episode of time team have done tests and found they are better at taking down trees than knapped axes (though obviously some polished axes were very much to pretty to be used)
Similar threads
