DEMOGRAPHIC DECLINE IN LATE-MEDIEVAL ENGLAND - SOME THOUGHTS ON RECENT RESEARCH

The causes of prolonged demographic decline in late medieval England a re the subject of vigorous debate among historians, mainly as a result of the lack of reliable data. Traditionally, historians have pointed to the persistence of epidemic and endemic disease, bur recent explana tions have tended to focus upon economic changes after the Black Death which enticed women into the workforce and thus depressed fertility. This article questions both the empirical and the theoretical basis of this revisionism, and explores an alternative hypothesis to explain t he transition from a 'late-medieval' demographic regime where mortalit y dominated to an 'early modern' regime where fertility was paramount.