The articles in this book, reprinted from the journal Past and Present, are all, in different ways, concerned with the ownership of landed property in medieval England and with those who worked the land. Problems debated include those concerning the keeping intact of the great estates of the Anglo-Norman barons in the face of both inheritance claims and of political manipulation by the crown. Other articles show that the difficulties of knights and lesser gentry were no less complex, as social shifts resulted from economic developments as well as from their military role and their relationships with their overlords. The essays are of as much importance for those interested in the history of politics as to those concerned with the economy and society of medieval England.
In recent years, work on the medieval English peasant has tended to stress the degree of interaction between the village and the world beyond its bounds. This book not only provides an overview of this research, but also develops this approach. Phillipp R. Schofield describes the traditional world of the peasant - with attention given to such issues as relations between lord and tenant, and the nature of the peasant family - and places the peasantry of the late middle ages within the wider political, legal, ecclesiastical and commercial world of the medieval community.
This book assesses the realities of life in rural England during the later Middle Ages, based as much on the perspective of the peasants themselves as that of their landlords. It examines the effect of the Great Revolt of 1381.
This authoritative survey of Britain in the later Middle Ages comprises 28 chapters written by leading figures in the field. Covers social, economic, political, religious, and cultural history in England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales Provides a guide to the historical debates over the later Middle Ages Addresses questions at the leading edge of historical scholarship Each chapter includes suggestions for further reading
This book explores the dimensions of political society and the major preoccupations of English politics between the later years of Edward I's reign and the outbreak of the Wars of the Roses.
This collection of essays examines the similarities and differences between medieval England and Germany at a period of great change in almost all areas of life. It asks a number of fundamental questions which highlight the foundations of a rich common European heritage. What was it that madelife in the twelfth century more varied, less peaceful, and less secure than before? How can the parellel developments, changes, and transformations that took place in Latin Europe in the High Middle Ages be related to each other? What answers were found to the challenges of the age in England andGermany? This volume gives the reader an opportunity to see how English-speaking and German scholars approach similar themes. Edited by two leading German medievalists, it includes 17 contributions by eminent scholrs from Britain, North America, and Germany. It is divided into 4 sections on modes ofcommunication, war and peace, Christians and non-Christians, and urban and rural developments, and is essential reading for students and scholars of English or German medieval history.
Drawing on an array of archival evidence from court records to the poems of Chaucer, this work explores how medieval thinkers understood economic activity, how their ideas were transmitted and the extent to which they were accepted. Moving beyond the impersonal operations of an economy to its ethical dimension, Hole’s socio-cultural study considers not only the ideas and beliefs of theologians and philosophers, but how these influenced assumptions and preoccupations about material concerns in late medieval English society. Beginning with late medieval English writings on economic ethics and its origins, the author illuminates a society which, although strictly hierarchical and unequal, nevertheless fostered expectations that all its members should avoid greed and excess consumption. Throughout, Hole aims to show that economic ethics had a broader application than trade and usury in late medieval England.
The essays in this volume look at the mechanics of debt, the legal process, and its economics in early medieval England. Beneath the elevated plane of high politics, affairs of the Crown and international finance of the Middle Ages, lurked huge numbers of credit and debt transactions. The transactions and those who conducted them moved between social and economic worlds; merchants and traders, clerics and Jews, extending and receiving credit to and from their social superiors, equals and inferiors. These papers build upon an established tradition of approaches to the study of credit and debt in the Middle Ages, looking at the wealth of historical material, from registries of debt and legal records, to parliamentary roles and statues, merchant accounts, rents and leases, wills and probates. Four of the six papers in this volume were given at a conference on 'Credit and debt in medieval and early modern England' held in Oxford in 2000. The other two papers draw upon new important postgraduate theses. Contents: Introduction (Phillipp Schofield) ; Aspects of the law of debt, 1189-1307 (Paul Brand) ; Christian and Jewish lending patterns and financial dealings during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries (Robin R. Mundill) ; Some aspects of the business of statutory debt registries, 1283-1307 (Christopher McNall) ; The English parochial clergy as investors and creditors in the first half of the fourteenth century (Pamela Nightingale) ; Access to credit in the medieval English countryside (Phillipp Schofield) ; Creditors and debtors at Oakington, Cottenham and Dry Drayton (Cambridgeshire), 1291-1350 (Chris Briggs) .
At last: an authoritative, up to date account of the troubled reign of King Stephen, by a leading scholar of the Anglo-Norman world. David Crouch covers every aspect of the period - the king and the empress, the aristocracy, the Church, government and the nation at large. He also looks at the wider dimensions of the story, in Scotland, Wales, Normandy and elsewhere. The result (weaving its discussions around a vigorous narrative core) is a a work of major scholarship. A must for specialist and amateur medievalists alike.
The commercialisation of English society offers a major new interpretation of social and economic change in England over five centuries. By 1500 English livelihoods depended more upon money and commercial transactions than ever before; the institutional framework of markets had been transformed, and urban development was more pronounced. These changes were not, however, caused by any unilinear development of population, output or money supply. This pioneering study examines both institutional and economic transformation, and the social changes that resulted, and stresses the limited importance of formal trading institutions for the development of local trade. Commercial transition is throughout analysed from a broader perspective that looks at the changing power relations within medieval society (which might loosely be described as feudal), and considers how these relations were affected by such commercial development.
