ABSTRACT
The family historian naturally works backwards from present generations into the remote past. All his early research is concentrated upon the twentieth and nineteenth centuries as he proceeds steadily back in time, proving one link after another in his chain of evidence. The Middle Ages are not his immediate concern and indeed he may never be able to trace his ancestors back that far. It was my original intention to write the book in the same way, but I soon found that the whole flow of the writing was in the opposite direction; the story of population change is one of growth, the account of industrial communities is one of increasing complexity, rural parishes and provincial towns altered in many subtle ways as the centuries passed. It became clear that the book had to proceed chronologically if it was to preserve its unity and not become hopelessly fragmented. So the chapter on the Middle Ages sets the scene and emphasises that even in the earliest periods for which we have evidence our ancestors were much more mobile than we once thought. Later chapters will become fuller as the evidence swells and as we approach the periods that are of greatest interest for most family historians, but a synopsis of the major studies of medieval communities will help our understanding of later eras and an account of recent work on surnames should appeal to all family historians who are interested in the ultimate quest for origins. This chapter forms an essential part of my argument that at its best the study of family history should be concerned with broad issues covering all periods of time for which we have evidence.
