Church Building and Society in the Later Middle Ages

The construction of a church was undoubtedly one of the most demanding events to take place in the life of a medieval parish. It required a huge outlay of time money and labour and often a new organisational structure to oversee design and management. Who took control and who provided the financing was deeply shaped by local patterns in wealth authority and institutional development - from small villages with little formal government to settlements with highly unequal populations. This all took place during a period of great economic and social change as communities managed the impact of the Black Death the end of serfdom and the slump of the mid-fifteenth century. This original and authoritative study provides an account of how economic change local politics and architecture combined in late-medieval England. It will be of interest to researchers of medieval socio-economic and art history.