Going round in circles: Some new evidence for population in the later middle ages

The Myntling Register contains some little known and, in some respects, highly unusual demographic evidence relating to the period from around the later fourteenth century up to the 1970s and to the wealthy Lincolnshire Priory of Spalding. It is in the form of hundreds of ‘family trees’ relating to the villein families of the priory's major manors. It has evidence of interest to economic historians of medieval England on several fronts, the three of which dealt with here are proportions of males to females, percentages of females marrying, and most particularly numbers of surviving children per family. This evidence, whilst by no means perfect, is of a much more direct kind than that often used in attempts to calculate later medieval population. As such it has a contribution to make to the very vexed question of later medieval demography.     

Anglo-Saxon charms in the context of a Christian, world view

The following article explores aspects of a Christian world view found in late Anglo-Saxon England, seeking to put such phenomena as magic, miracles and charms in their proper Christian perspective. Previous criticism has had a tendency to accentuate the pagan aspects of the charms and to confuse a modern definition of magic with that of the early medieval Christian view. The view of nature found in Ælfric's sermons, for example, reveals a particular attitude towards magic, miracles and natural remedies such as charms. Magic and miracles are at opposite extremes, while charms are part of an intermediate category of practices not specifically condemned as develish magic, nor fitting into the Christian interpretation of miracles as signs from God.The second part of the article turns to an examination of the charms themselves to demonstrate how they do fit into a Christian view. Charms having to do with elves, as found in the Leechbook, contain large amounts of Christian material. There is an especially strong correlation between these charms and the use of the mass to counteract the influence and effects of elves. Thus the charms, far from being examples of the remnants of paganism, are evidence of the integration of popular material into a Christian view of the world.     

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