This paper aims to provide an introduction, at an intermediate-level, to issues in European historical demography over the period. The primary focus will be on English evidence, but this will be placed in the comparative context of western Europe and, where appropriate, Europe as a whole. Topics will include: sources and methods of historical demography, family reconstitution, aggregative analysis and back-projection techniques; patterns of marriage and household formation, ‘high-’ and ‘low-pressure’ demographic regimes; marital fertility, birth intervals and the concept of ‘natural fertility’; temporal variations in mortality and the problem of ‘exogenous’ mortality change; ecological influences on mortality and the problem of the ‘urban penalty’; long-term population growth and the concept of ‘demographic transition’; the secular decline of fertility and mortality.

Background reading

General

• Flinn, M.W. 1981, The European Demographic System, 1500-1820, Brighton, Harvester.
• Rotberg, R.I. and Rabb T.K. (eds.) 1985, Hunger and History. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.
• Rotberg, R.I. and Rabb T.K. (eds.) 1986, Population and Economy. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press
• Walter, J. and Schofield, R.S. (eds.) 1989, Famine, Disease and the Social Order in Early Modern Society.

Fertility

• Coale, A.J. and Watkins S.C. (eds.) 1986, The Decline of Fertility in Europe. Princeton, Princeton University Press.
• Gillis, J.R., Tilly, L.A. and Levine, D. (eds.) 1992, The European Experience of Declining Fertility. Cambridge, Blackwell.
• Knodel, J. 1988, Demographic Behavior in the Past. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.
• Wall, R. (ed.) 1983, Family Forms in Historic Europe. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.

Population and Economy

• Kussmaul, A. 1990, A General View of the Rural Economy of England 1538-1840. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.
• Wrigley, E.A. 1987, People, Cities and Wealth, Oxford, Blackwell.
• Wrigley, E.A. 1988, Continuity, Chance and Change: The character of the industrial revolution in England, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.
• Wrigley, E.A. 1969, Population and History. London, Weidenfeld and Nicholson. (Now very dated but still well worth reading).

Mortality

• Landers, J. 1993, Death and the Metropolis: studies in the demographic history of London 1670-1830, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press. (Literature review etc.in Chapter One).
• Livi-Bacci M. 1991, Population and Nutrition: an Essay on European Demographic History. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.
• Schofield, R.S., Reher, D. and Bideau, A. 1991, The Decline of Mortality in Europe. Oxford, Oxford University Press.
• Woods, R.I. and Woodward, J. 1984, Urban Disease and Mortality in Nineteenth-century England. London, Batsford Academic and Educational Press.