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Historical Economics Forum


(Note: Detail from the official handbook of the Irish Free State, 1932: a survey of the progress made “at the end of the first decade of national freedom” in the spheres of agriculture, industry, public finances, language and culture).


Lunchtime seminars: 1.05pm – 2pm:  Thursdays

Purpose
This is an interdisciplinary forum and network for researchers engaged in the application of economic theory to historical issues. The forum is eclectic in terms of the kinds of economic theory deployed and regards the interplay of economic theorizing and empirical enquiry as mutually enriching. It is not about number crunching: “numbers are too beautiful to crunch”.

Network
The network is based at Queen’s University, Belfast, and in line with its interdisciplinary character is not confined to any one School or discipline. It currently embraces economic and social historians, economists, as well as historical geographers. It has links to the Historical National Accounts Group, Trinity College, Dublin. For further information, contact Liam Kennedy

Seminars
Seminars are normally held at the Institute of Governance, 53-67 University Road, Seminar Room 2 (first floor), from 1.05pm to 2pm on Thursdays. Tea and coffee provided, but please bring your own sandwiches.

PROGRAMME 2008

“What do Prices tell us?: An exploration in history & theory”
Liam Kennedy, School of History & Anthropology, QUB
Thursday 31 January 2008, 1pm (Institute of Governance, 53-67 University Road, Seminar Room 2, first floor)

“South –East Asian trade in the colonial period” [precise title to be confirmed]
Dr Emma Reisz, School of History and Anthropology, QUB
(Institute of Governance, 53-67 University Road, Seminar Room 2, first floor)

“Private Law and Medieval English Village Society: Personal Actions in Manor Courts c.1250-c.1350”
Dr Chris Briggs, Dept of Geography, University of Cambridge
Thursday 25 April 2008, 1pm (Institute of Governance, 53-67 University Road, Seminar Room 2, first floor)

SUMMARIES of PAPERS

“What do Prices tell us?: Explorations in History & Theory”
Liam Kennedy, School of History & Anthropology, Queen’s University, Belfast

Prices or exchange ratios are of fundamental importance to all societies, even those with the most rudimentary economic organisation. Thus gift relationships, forms of bartering and reciprocity all imply rates of exchange, however imprecise or opaque these arrangements may seem to modern eyes.  In recent centuries market exchange has come to dominate in the western world (Karl Polanyi, The Great Transformation, New York, 1944), yielding explicit monetary values at which goods and services are interchanged  This is the type of exchange ratio presented here, the kind generated by markets. It seems quite abstract, yet it is worth reminding ourselves that human agency is ever present: underlying these price relationships are the actions of multitudes of historical actors – producers, consumers and intermediaries – all struggling for survival and material gain.  Prices and price systems offer sight lines, not only on market transactions in the past but on human behaviour more generally. Therein lies their importance for the historian and the historically-minded social scientist.
Liam Kennedy


“Private Law and Medieval English Village Society: Personal Actions in Manor Courts c.1250-c.1350”
Chris Briggs, University of Cambridge

Researchers working in a wide range of academic disciplines have expended a great deal of effort over a long period in investigating the two-way relationship that exists between law on the one hand, and social and economic change on the other. The 3-year AHRC-funded research project 'Private Law and Medieval Village Society' springs from the conviction that this relationship offers a fruitful way of looking at history in general, and at the history of rural England in the middle ages in particular. Our project is a collaboration involving four researchers based at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth, and at the University of Cambridge. We investigate the laws and procedures of some 60 local manor courts in two English regions (the west midlands and East Anglia) in order to understand how they handled disputes of debt, trespass and broken agreement. By establishing the extent of local legal variation, and reasons for it, we reconstruct the framework of rules in which rural people conducted a wide range of social and economic transactions. This presentation explains the project's rationale and methods, and offers an overview of initial findings from the analysis of the large quantity of manor court material collected in year one of the project.
Chris Briggs