The loss of Athelstan’s gift: the politics of popular memory in Malmesbury, 1607-1633

Wood, Andy

Abstract

A century after its publication, R. H. Tawney’s The Agrarian Problem in the Sixteenth Century remains as imaginative, spirited and passionate as ever. For a long time, the book was neglected by early modern historians. The dismissal of The Agrarian Problem, often by those unacquainted with it, grew from Eric Kerridge’s denunciation of it in 1969. Adopting a school-masterly tone, Kerridge chided Tawney for spending too little time in the archives (‘Time which he might have given to studying history was devoted instead to the Fabian Society and the Labour Party’) and condemned The Agrarian Problem as mere socialist propaganda.²...

Citation

Wood, A. (2013). The loss of Athelstan’s gift: the politics of popular memory in Malmesbury, 1607-1633. In J. Whittle (Ed.), Landlords and tenants in Britain, 1440-1660 : Tawney’s Agrarian problem revisited (85-99). Boydell Press. https://doi.org/10.7722/j.ctt31nh5b.14

• Publication Date: Aug 1, 2013
• Deposit Date: Dec 4, 2012
• Publisher: Boydell Press
• Pages: 85-99
• Series Title: People, markets, goods : economies and societies in history
• Book Title: Landlords and tenants in Britain, 1440-1660 : Tawney’s Agrarian problem revisited.
• Chapter Number: 5
• ISBN: 9781843838500
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.7722/j.ctt31nh5b.14
• Public URL: https://durham-repository.worktribe.com/output/1653629
• Publisher URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.7722/j.ctt31nh5b.14