Staff profile

Research Interests

I work on the economic and social history of rural England across the medieval and early modern periods. My first book, Rural Society and Economic Change in County Durham, was a study of how rural society in Durham adapted to the economic problems of the fifteenth-century recession and how this affected their ability to respond to the inflation of the sixteenth century. This explored a range of different issues but especially the role of path dependency in shaping the size, rent and tenure of landholdings, three of the most crucial factors in the development of agrarian capitalism. I have co-edited two collections of essays on Custom and Commercialisation in English Rural Society and Crises in Economic and Social History. 

My current research explores the fear of downward social mobility in late medieval England. This challenges the image of medieval society as ‘an age of ambition’ by examining the ubiquitous fear of social decline, and demonstrating how this fear could contribute to the transformation of society: change can, after all, be wrought by people desperately trying to preserve the status quo. Previous studies have tended to focus upon the success of socially ambitious, generally male, careerists, and to ascribe to these entrepreneurial figures the most agency in the production of change. In contrast, my research reveals the important role played by gender and the life cycle in the articulation of this fear of downward mobility: marriage and old age in particular were moments when social decline seemed at its closest in medieval society.

I have also developed a particular interest in memory and the varied ways that individuals and institutions contested this. Some early modern enclosure riots, for example, were in part the culmination of centuries-long boundary disputes, whilst monks were especially pernicious in cultivating a distinctly myopic institutional memory of particular events. Given that so many of our records were created by specific institutions, it is all the more important that we understand how medieval people were themselves utilising these records, including both why they sought to preserve some documents and conveniently forget others.

Between 2024-27, I am the Principal Investigator on the research project 'Modelling the Black Death and Social Connectivity in Medieval England', funded by the Leverhulme Trust. The team consists of Co-Investigators in Archaeology (Christopher Gerrard and Rebecca Gowland) and Physics (Frank Krauss), as well as three postdoctoral research associates spread across the three disciplines. Utilising the latest computer modelling developed in response to the COVID-19 outbreak, we will simulate the spread of the Black Death in England in order to test hypotheses about the spread of the disease and about the connectedness of medieval society. Using historical and archaeological sources, we will reconstruct the broad characteristics of the late medieval population on the eve of the Black Death, such as their location, age, sex, and occupation. This is the ‘static’ part of our model. We will then infer their ‘dynamic’ behavioural patterns, such as where they spent their time and whom they encountered in their daily lives.

I am also one of the co-editors of the journal Continuity and Change. My recent research includes articles on medieval oaths, social security, institutional memory, a chapter on social mobility in the medieval stories of Robin Hood, and forthcoming work on enclosure riots and common land. 

Profile

I first arrived in Durham as an undergraduate and stayed on to complete my ESRC-funded MA and PhD here with the NINE DTP, before holding the Economic History Society Postan Fellowship at the Institute of Historical Research and the Addison Wheeler Fellowship at the Institute of Advanced Studies in Durham. 

Research Supervision

I welcome enquiries from students interested in any aspect of medieval or early modern economic and social history, especially using the archives of Durham Priory and the Bishops of Durham.

I have had the pleasure of being part of the supervisory team for the following PhD students who have completed their studies at Durham: 

Jamie Irvine, 'Causal origins of the 'religious movement of the Middle Ages': Cluny, Tiron, and the new orders, 910-1156' (2023)

Ryan Wicklund, 'Agricultural decision-making and managerial responses at Durham Cathedral Priory during the long fourteenth century, c.1300-1453' (2022)

Authored book

• Brown, A. (2015). Rural Society and Economic Change in County Durham: Recession and Recovery, c.1400-1640. Boydell & Brewer

Chapter in book

• Brown, A. T. Robin Hood: Social Hierarchy and Social Mobility. In S. H. Rigby (Ed.), Historians on Robin Hood: The Outlaw's Legend in the Later Middle Ages. Boydell & Brewer
• Brown, A. (2018). Church Leaseholders on Durham Cathedral's Estate, 1540-1640: The Rise of a Rural Elite?. In A. Green, & B. Crosbie (Eds.), Economy and Culture in North-East England, 1500-1800. Boydell Press
• Brown, A. (2016). A Money Economy? Provisioning Durham Cathedral across the Dissolution, 1350-1600. In A. Brown, & J. P. Bowen (Eds.), Custom and Commercialisation in English Rural Society, 1300-1800: Revisiting Postan and Tawney. University of Hertfordshire Press
• Brown, A., & Bowen, J. P. (2016). Custom and Commercialisation in English Rural Society. In A. Brown, & J. P. Bowen (Eds.), Custom and Commercialisation in English Rural Society, 1300-1800: Revisiting Postan and Tawney. University of Hertfordshire Press
• Brown, A., Burn, A., & Doherty, R. (2015). Coping with Crisis: Understanding the Role of Crises in Economic and Social History. In A. Brown, A. Burn, & R. Doherty (Eds.), Crises in Economic and Social History: A Comparative Perspective. Boydell Press
• Brown, A. (2015). Economic Life. In R. Swanson (Ed.), The Routledge History of Medieval Christianity, 1050-1500 (295-308). Routledge

Edited book

• Brown, A., & Bowen, J. P. (Eds.). (2016). Custom and Commercialisation in English Rural Society, 1300-1800: Revisiting Postan and Tawney. University of Hertfordshire Press
• Brown, A., Burn, A., & Doherty, R. (Eds.). (2015). Crises in Economic and Social History: A Comparative Perspective. Boydell Press

Journal Article

• Brown, A. (in press). Enclosure Riots on the Commons: Memory and Conflict at Lytham Priory, 1200-1540. The English Historical Review,
• Brown, A. T. (2024). Social Security in Late Medieval England: Corrodies in the Hospitals and Almshouses of Durham Priory. Historical Research, 97(276), 199-217. https://doi.org/10.1093/hisres/htad033
• Brown, A. T. (2024). Oaths of Fidelity: Loyalty and Officeholding in Late Medieval Durham. History, 109(384-385), 34-58. https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-229x.13384
• Brown, A. T., & Cox, B. (2023). Institutional memory and legal conflict in the Old Borough of Durham, 1300–1450. Continuity and Change, 38(3), 255 - 281. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0268416023000322
• Kendall, E. J., Brown, A. T., Doran, T., Gowland, R., & Cookson, R. (2021). Health inequality in Britain before 1750. SSM - Population Health, 16, Article 100957. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ssmph.2021.100957
• Brown, A. (2019). The Fear of Downward Social Mobility in Late Medieval England. Journal of Medieval History, 45(5), 597-617. https://doi.org/10.1080/03044181.2019.1660206
• Brown, A. (2014). Estate Management and Institutional Constraints in Pre-Industrial England: the Ecclesiastical Estates of Durham, c.1400-1640. The Economic History Review, 67(3), 699-719. https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-0289.12036
• Brown, A. (2010). Surviving the mid-fifteenth-century recession : Durham cathedral priory, 1400-1520. Northern History, 47(2), 209-231. https://doi.org/10.1179/007817210x12738429860707