Theory of economic history C.1

This is a (considerably expanded) version of what I gave as the Gregynog lectures at the University of Wales (Aberyst wyth) in November 1967. It was the invitation to give those lectures which acted as the catalyst, precipitating something which, I now realize, had long been brewing in my mind.

I am not an economic historian, but I have long been inter ested in economic history; and there are some of the most eminent among economic historians from whom I have been able, personally, to learn. When I was a postgraduate student, my supervisor was G. D. H. Cole; and it was only a little after that (when I was 'on loan' to the University of the Witwaters rand, in South Africa) that I found myself lecturing on Eng lish mediaeval economic history-from the lecture notes of Eileen Power, lent to me to help me in that alarming part of the duties that fell upon me. As I followed through that story, having to put her vivid and intelligible account into my own words, a seed was sown, which may at last have germinated. Then came the talks I used to have with M. M. Postan, when we were both of us lecturers in London in the early thirties; I believe that he will recognize some of the things I learned from him in the following pages. But all that is long ago; I wan dered away, and I am myself surprised to find that I have come back. I am sure I would not have done so, had it not been for T. S. Ashton. For seven years, at Manchester, we were the closest of colleagues; and later, after his retirement, I had him as a neighbour. Through him I could keep in touch with the circle of economic historians; I was encouraged to keep up my reading in the Economic History Review, since I could discuss it with him; I was even encouraged to develop views of my own,