ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of key concepts covered in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book presents the role of the Church in the commercialization of milling in medieval England, a process which began as early as the tenth century and reached its medieval zenith in the early fourteenth century. Medieval social and economic history emerged from nineteenth-century philology and local and national historical traditions with a firm basis in academia, whereas the history of technology had a far more eclectic genesis. The chapter outlines the social and economic foundations of English monasticism from around the time that the first Benedictine and Celtic missionaries arrived in England around 600, to the Dissolution of the monasteries in 1540. It provides the detailed analyses of the religious houses chosen for the sample are organized by type and order and consist of a series of profiles of the land acquisitions, mill holdings and changing management practices of 28 religious houses.
