The first volume in what will become the definitive history of Suffolk looks at how the county survived the three most tumultuous events of the period, the Great Famine, the Black Death and the Peasants' Revolt, to emerge as one of the richest English regions. The late middle ages were without doubt the most interesting period in Suffolk's history. By the end of the eleventh century Suffolk was wealthy, densely populated, highly commercialised and urbanised; in the fourteenth century its people faced three of the most tumultuous events of the last millennium, the Great Famine (1315-22), the Black Death (1349) and the Peasants' Revolt (1381). Their response was flexible and innovative, because by 1500 Suffolk was one of the richest and most industrialised regions of England, with a strong economy based on cloth manufacture, fishing, dairying and tanning.

"In allying a mass of parochial detail to national and regional developments, as well as the broader historical debates, Bailey brings to the fore a scholarly ability to draw out the significant while also identifying the unusual.... this study has managed admirably to achieve its aim of being clear and informative, while also providing fascinating insights into the complexities of a local society and economy." - ECONOMIC HISTORY REVIEW