New College History Society – Michaelmas Speaker Series
The New College History Society is pleased to announce the continuation of its Michaelmas Speaker Series for the academic year 2023/24. On Monday 20 November, world-leading environmental and economic historian Professor Bruce Campbell will be coming to New College to provide a talk on his research, for the benefit of all current historians.
Beginning at 17.45 there will be a short drinks and snacks reception in the McGregor Matthews Room, to be followed by Professor Campbell’s speech at 18.00. Please note that the dress code is smart casual.
We look forward to seeing many New College historians, old and new, at this event!
Gilbert Ressel and Thomas Ricketts
Co-Presidents of the New College History Society
About the speaker
Bruce Campbell is Emeritus Professor of Medieval Economic History at The Queen’s University of Belfast, where he has taught since 1973. His research currently focuses upon the economic history of late-medieval Britain and Ireland, with particular reference to human-environment interactions during the fourteenth century and trends in agricultural output and productivity from the thirteenth to nineteenth centuries.
Among many of his well-received works, The Great Transition: Climate, Disease and Society in the Late-Medieval World (2016) has stimulated much new and unconventional thought about the effect of epi- and panzootics on medieval European transregional interactions. Drawing out, for example, the reactions of English medieval husbandmen to the 14th century rinderpest outbreak – many of whom violated the cordons sanitaires of the Channel and Irish Sea because they didn't want to slaughter their cattle – illustrates the international, even global, quality of medieval trade. Where historical tradition has emphasised the insularity and backwardness of societies during the so-called 'Dark Ages', works like Professor Campbell’s, which throw into sharp relief the rich tapestry of transregional connections, are very important.
Photo from The British Academy
