Fuel supply and agriculture in post-medieval England

Historians researching the character of fuel supplies in early modern England have largely focused on the relative contributions made by coal and the produce of managed woodland, especially with an eye to quantification. This has been to the neglect of the diversity of regional and local fuel economies, and their relationship with landscape, social structure, and infrastructural changes. This article highlights the wide range of other fuels employed, both domestically and industrially, in this period; examines the factors which shaped the character of local fuel economies, and the chronology with which these were altered and eroded by the spread of coal use; and looks briefly at the implications of this development for farming and land management.