This book applies scientific demographic methods to the study of Byzantine peasantry in a period of feudalization. The author shows that the number of peasants declined in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries for reasons that had less to do with catastrophes than with internal social developments. Her book makes the first thorough analysis of this rural society, and one that draws on all available sources. It focuses on village structure and family or kinship groups as well as social and demographic trends.Angeliki Laiou-Thomadakis is Professor of History at Rutgers University and the author of Constantinople and the Latins (Harvard)Originally published in 1977.The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.