Historian writing book on medieval fishing village succeeds Professor Forrest as Catto Fellow

Dr Tom Johnson succeeds Professor Ian Forrest as the Catto Fellow in Medieval History at Oriel College. He was officially inducted as a Fellow on Wednesday 16 October.

The historian currently has a fellowship from the British Academy and is finalising a non-fiction book, The Reckoners, which is under contract with publisher Allen Lane.

The book is “microhistory” recreating “everyday life” in Walberswick, a fishing village on the Suffolk coast, near to where Johnson grew up in Ipswich.

Specifically, the book explores “reckoning”, which was a quasi-legal practice of exchanging goods and services when there was a shortage of coins in the 15th century.

Johnson gave an example of reckoning: “If you and I were neighbours, and I borrowed your cow for the summer, you might say, OK, that’s five shillings. But not many people had money. So instead, the next time I ask you for a service, I’ll say, OK, that’s worth two shillings. Then I only owe you three shillings.

“If I know you and we are both living in this village for a long time and I trust you, then this relationship can go on indefinitely without money ever actually changing hands.”

The widespread practice of reckoning in the middle ages is evident from court records. “You see the relationship at the point of breakdown,” Johnson said and added: “Sometimes the courts would say, you two, go away and reckon. Go and list what you each think you are owed and then come back.”

Describing the practice as “reckoning” is not an anachronism, said Johnson. The practice predates the 15th century but post-Black Death was increasingly spoken about using the religious language. “People started to think of the final judgement as a reckoning.”

Johnson joins Oriel from the University of York, where he was a senior lecturer in late medieval history. He published his first book, a history of how ordinary people thought about the law and used legal ideas in 15th century England, in 2019.

There was “common legal culture” in the century after the Black Death despite the surfeit of law courts at the time, Johnson argues in the book.

There was also a sustained increase in law being spoken about in the vernacular and a “proliferation” of legal recordkeeping (made possible by paper being imported in greater qualities at lower costs and higher literacy rates).

Johnson’s work mainly focuses on how ordinary people lived in early modern Britain, and he has written on a broad range of topics for the London Review of Books, including the laws of shipwreck (“Sleeves Full of Raisins”), occult magic (“I adjure you, egg”) and historical counting systems (“Big Data for the Leviathan”).

Forrest, Johnson’s predecessor, left Oriel in 2023 to take up the senior role of Head of Humanities at the University of Glasgow. He, in turn, succeeded Professor Jeremy Catto, who taught at the College from 1970 until his retirement in 2006.