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Podcast: New Books in Medieval History
Episode: Katherine L. French, "Household Goods and Good Households in Late Medieval London: Consumption and Domesticity After the Plague" (U Pennsylvania Press, 2025)
Description: The Black Death that arrived in the spring of 1348 eventually killed nearly half of England's population. In its long aftermath, wages in London rose in response to labor shortages, many survivors moved into larger quarters in the depopulated city, and people in general spent more money on food, clothing, and household furnishings than they had before. Household Goods and Good Households in Late Medieval London: Consumption and Domesticity After the Plague (U Pennsylvania Press, 2021) by Dr. Katherine French looks at how this increased consumption reconfigured long-held gender roles and changed the domestic lives of London's merchants and artisans for years t...