Food supply, demand and trade

This book is a collection of articles studying various aspects of the relationship between town and countryside during the period from the Middle Ages to the nineteenth century. The focus is on how towns were supplied with basic foodstuffs, and especial attention is paid to England and the Low Countries.

Among the articles, several deal with the food-provisioning strategies of some of the major cities within that area - Antwerp, Ghent and London - and show among other things that large cities were unable to meet their requirements from local supplies and had consequently to access markets further afield. Important matters given substantial elucidation are transport costs and market integration.

In historiography, a great deal of attention has been paid to the influence of towns on the countryside and agriculture, and particularly to the relationship between the rise of urban markets and the emergence of commercial agriculture, but there is still no clarity about how town-countryside relationships influenced economic growth. One of the merits of this book is that it opens up new avenues to an understanding of the complex relationship between urban markets and commercial agriculture. The approach differs from article to article, some scholars homing in on the individual strategies of farms, others working more in the macroeconomic tradition. In sum, the book is a valuable contribution to both rural and urban historiography, and can provide a fresh stimulus to the study of economic relationships between town and countryside.

Piet van Cruyningen is senior researcher at the Wageningen University.

Erik Thoen is professor at the University of Ghent.