W. M. Ormrod (1957–2020)

Prof Ormrod is clearly an excellent historian, perhaps THE historian of Edward III. Alas, just because one is a great historian does not mean one is also a great writer. For example, he has the annoying habit of using the word "inevitably". Now I am not a professor of Medieval History (or anything else for that matter) but I doubt there is anything about history that is inevitable.

Excellent survey of late medieval social history of England. The essays are all excellent, and the book gives a great general overview of what life was like in late medieval England.

The Black Death was arguably the single most important event in medieval English history. Not only did it reduce the population by anything up to a half, it also had a dramatic impact on the economic and cultural life of the survivors. The book contains four major essays by J. L. Bolton, C. Harper-Bill, W. M. Ormrod and P. G. Lindley which aim to set the recent debates on the purely demographic impact of the plague into a wider context by evaluating its effects on the broad range of human show more experience in the later middle ages. Phillip Lindley's essay, for example, considers the effect of the catastrophe on medieval art and C. Harper-Bill examines the effect of the plague on the religious life of the nation. The whole is introduced by a fifth author, Jeremy Goldberg. These are substantial essays on aspects of the plague which have been relatively unexplored by historians. With its many subheadings and index, the book has already proved ideal for teaching purposes and is now in its second printing. show less

A collection of essays mostly arising from the SC online project at the British National Archives . While a few of the articles are more technical and specialiized, this includes the best introduction to the use of these newly available materials.