The Black Death in Egypt and England A Comparative Study By Stuart J. Borsch (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2005. 195 pages.)

Abstract

In this cross-regional comparative study, Stuart Borsch marshals medieval
economic data to address why, following the Black Death, “Egypt’s centralized
and urban landholding system was unable to adapt to massive depopulation,
while England’s localized and rural landholding system had fully
recovered by the year 1500” (dust jacket). After making a quick dispatch of
antiquated theories and flawed research, he introduces new findings on
medieval Egypt’s sharp financial downturn in contrast to England’s economic
stabilization and upswing.
The author points out that both states were centralized monarchies with
similar population levels and agrarian-based economies overseen by “big
stick” aristocracies. Egypt had a modicum of arable land along the Nile;
England had large areas of pastoral land and far more arable soil (pp. 16-17).
In addition, Egypt’s nonhereditary ruling Mamluk elite, imported Caucasian
and Central Asian slave children (some of whom actually ruled), became
iron-handed absentee landholders: “A vast gulf separated the Mamluk
warrior-landholder from the Egyptian peasant. A barracks-trained Turkishor
Circassian-speaking Mamluk and a village peasant were probably as ...