Concluding Remarks

While there are certainly qualifications to be noted, the major empirical finding reported in this chapter is the U-shaped pattern in average heights from the early Middle Ages through the late nineteenth century in northern Europe.

global spread of diseases after the late 1400s; and conflicts associated with state building and religion. Because it is reasonable to believe that greater exposure to pathogens accompanied industrialization, and there is evidence of growing efficiency in agriculture and greater trade in foodstuffs, it is reasonable to link height gains during the early and mid-nineteenth century with dietary improvements.

Much research remains to be done on the exact time-path of average heights, and substantially more information from skeletal evidence is available. A large research programme is now in the planning stages to gather this evidence and analyse it in light of related information on climate and of socio-economic information from historical sources and from the archaeological record.

For over half a century economic historians have focused on the question of whether there was immiserisation during industrialization, a debate that has split researchers into camps of optimists and pessimists. This is and continues to be an interesting topic for research. But with the perspective of 1,000 years of history, whatever happened with regard to downturns in welfare during this era, they were likely small compared to the vast changes that probably occurred since the early Middle Ages. Therefore, economic historians who are inspired by variation and diversity in the historical record would do well to consider this much broader time span of evidence.