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Dr Alex Brown's Outputs (8)

Oaths of Fidelity: Loyalty and Officeholding in Late Medieval Durham (2024)
Journal Article
Brown, A. T. (2024). Oaths of Fidelity: Loyalty and Officeholding in Late Medieval Durham. History, 109(384-385), 34-58. https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-229x.13384

Oaths of fidelity, homage and fealty were ubiquitous in late medieval England. Variously given by tenants, officeholders and retainers, such oaths represented a promise of loyalty and goodwill towards a lord. Individuals might make many such professi... Read More about Oaths of Fidelity: Loyalty and Officeholding in Late Medieval Durham.

Institutional memory and legal conflict in the Old Borough of Durham, 1300–1450 (2023)
Journal Article
Brown, A. T., & Cox, B. (2023). Institutional memory and legal conflict in the Old Borough of Durham, 1300–1450. Continuity and Change, 38(3), 255 - 281. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0268416023000322

Historians have long used the archives of major institutions to shed light on medieval society, but in more recent decades the focus has turned towards the proliferation of legal documentation possessed by those lower down the social order and the in... Read More about Institutional memory and legal conflict in the Old Borough of Durham, 1300–1450.

Social Security in Late Medieval England: Corrodies in the Hospitals and Almshouses of Durham Priory (2023)
Journal Article
Brown, A. T. (2024). Social Security in Late Medieval England: Corrodies in the Hospitals and Almshouses of Durham Priory. Historical Research, 97(276), 199-217. https://doi.org/10.1093/hisres/htad033

Historians have debated the extent of poor relief and social security provision in late medieval England, yet our knowledge about the inmates of hospitals and almshouses remains limited. Corrodies – grants of food, clothes and shelter – have been see... Read More about Social Security in Late Medieval England: Corrodies in the Hospitals and Almshouses of Durham Priory.

Health inequality in Britain before 1750 (2021)
Journal Article
Kendall, E. J., Brown, A. T., Doran, T., Gowland, R., & Cookson, R. (2021). Health inequality in Britain before 1750. SSM - Population Health, 16, Article 100957. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ssmph.2021.100957

Background This study examines the claim that social inequality in health in European populations was absent prior to 1750. This claim is primarily based on comparisons of life expectancy at birth in England between general and ducal (elite aristocra... Read More about Health inequality in Britain before 1750.

The Fear of Downward Social Mobility in Late Medieval England (2019)
Journal Article
Brown, A. (2019). The Fear of Downward Social Mobility in Late Medieval England. Journal of Medieval History, 45(5), 597-617. https://doi.org/10.1080/03044181.2019.1660206

Studies of medieval social mobility have tended to focus upon the success of socially ambitious, generally male, careerists. Alongside this tendency to use social mobility as a synonym for upward mobility has been a tradition of assigning the most ag... Read More about The Fear of Downward Social Mobility in Late Medieval England.

Estate Management and Institutional Constraints in Pre-Industrial England: the Ecclesiastical Estates of Durham, c.1400-1640 (2013)
Journal Article
Brown, A. (2014). Estate Management and Institutional Constraints in Pre-Industrial England: the Ecclesiastical Estates of Durham, c.1400-1640. The Economic History Review, 67(3), 699-719. https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-0289.12036

This article explores how far estate management and institutional constraints help to explain the transformations of rural society in England from the fourteenth to the seventeenth centuries. The monks of Durham Cathedral Priory and the bishops of Du... Read More about Estate Management and Institutional Constraints in Pre-Industrial England: the Ecclesiastical Estates of Durham, c.1400-1640.

Surviving the mid-fifteenth-century recession : Durham cathedral priory, 1400-1520 (2010)
Journal Article
Brown, A. (2010). Surviving the mid-fifteenth-century recession : Durham cathedral priory, 1400-1520. Northern History, 47(2), 209-231. https://doi.org/10.1179/007817210x12738429860707

The exact chronology of the fifteenth-century recession and its impact on medieval landowners is still far from clear, whilst the stimulus and timing of recovery are even more uncertain. Recent research has shown that the economy of the North-East of... Read More about Surviving the mid-fifteenth-century recession : Durham cathedral priory, 1400-1520.