Product Description
The two centuries from the Black Death to the Reformation witnessed population collapse, war with France, social and dynastic strife, and the emergence of a capitalism engendered by profound changes that occured in England's economy and feudal social structure. These events form the background against which Robert Swanson sets his account of the changing role of the Church in late medieval society. The author begins with a consideration of the late medieval Church itself. He describes its institutional structure and its integration into the wider Catholic Church of western Europe, headed by the papacy in Rome. He looks at the clergy, examining their backgrounds and motives for entering the Church, and highlighting the influential role played by ecclesiastical patronage in making clerical careers. The second part of the book focuses on the growing tensions between Church and state, as secular and increasingly nationalistic rulers challenged the theoretical universality of Rome, and the Church's freedom from political control. The state was in the ascendant, with ecclesiastical being eroded by the increasing authority of the royal courts.Yet the Church was a formidable economic force. The author shows how whilst enduring a Christian economic morality which deprecated usury and the accumulation of wealth, as a massive landowner the Church was extensively involved in economic activity. Dr Swanson concludes with a discussion of spirituality, looking at both orthodox and unorthodox activity, and the attitudes of the laity to the Church and the religion it offered them. He discusses religious non-conformity, placing his interpretation of such movements as the Lollards, and the early stages of the English Reformation within the broader context of the late medieval search for religious reform and a reinvigorated spiritual life. This book contains a new updated bibliography and should be of interest to undergraduates and above in medieval and church history, religious studies and theology. ... Read more

Product Description
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. ... Read more

Product Description
Medieval Englishmen were treacherous, rebellious and killed their kings, as their French contemporaries repeatedly noted. In the 13th through 15th centuries, ten kings faced serious rebellion, in which eight were captured, deposed, and/or murdered. One other king escaped open revolt but encountered vigorous resistance. In this book, Professor Valente argues that the crises of the 13th and 14th centuries were crucibles for change; and their examination helps us to understand medieval political culture in general and key developments in later medieval England in particular. The book takes a comparative look at these crises, seeking to understand medieval ideas of proper kingship and government, the role of political violence and the changing nature of reform initiatives and the rebellions to which they led. It argues that rebellion was an accepted and to a certain extent legitimate means to restore good kingship throughout the period, but that over time it became increasingly divorced from reform aims, which were satisfied by other means, and transformed by growing lordly dominance, arrogance, and selfishness.Eventually the tradition of legitimate revolt disappeared, to be replaced by both parliament and dynastic civil war. Thus, on the one hand, development of parliament, itself an outgrowth of political crises, reduced the need for and legitimacy of crisis reform. On the other hand, when crises did arise, the idea and practice of the community of the realm, so vibrant in the 13th century, broke down under the pressures of new political and socio-economic realities. By exploring violence and ideas of government over a longer period than is normally the case, this work attempts to understand medieval conceptions on their own terms rather than with regard to modern assumptions and to use comparison as means of explaining events, ideas, and developments. ... Read more

Product Description
Cultural encounter necessarily defines and shapes the romances of medieval England: the fluidity and openness that characterise the romance genre allow it to flourish with particular strength in a world distinguished by its different cultural layers. The essays in this collection consider both the early insular tradition and later Middle English traditions - classical, Anglo-Saxon and Continental, and the intersection of lay and clerical, as well as the meeting of genres themselves, in particular romance and chronicle. Romance, history and politics are shown to intersect within individual works, while romances also oppose the past and present, savage and civilised, real and ideal, and reflect on the particular cultural dynamics of gender and politics; equally, different cultures meet in the rewriting of material from French to English, from clerical to secular, from medieval to Renaissance. Romance is shown to be a highly self-conscious mode, as English romanciers play with and reshape its conventions and expectations, and its intersection with reality, in a variety of ways. ... Read more

Product Description
The essays collected in this latest volume in the established Fifteenth-Century History series are in a broad sense focused on the themes of 'image' and 'representation'.The subjects explored by the contributors include the religious sympathies of townsfolk and gentry and their physical manifestations, the cultural setting for the activities of leading families of the period and the interaction of Crown and community of the realm.Several of the papers included originated at the annual fifteenth-century conferences held at the University of Keele in 2003 and at Royal Holloway and Bedford New College, University of London, in 2004, and are the fruit of original archival research on the later Middle Ages. ... Read more

Product Description
Trade, industry and agriculture over five crucial centuresfrom the reign of Alfred the Great the the end of the Wars of the Roses.For aficionados and lay people, too. ... Read more

Product Description
In the Middle Ages only the force of wind and water was available as an alternative to the muscles of men and animals. The mill was the most powerful machine that existed and was so enthusiastically adopted that by 1250 there was one in almost every village in England. Providing rich profits for their owners, they were often a centre of conflict and controversy between peasant and landlord. This book examines the important role mills played in the medieval economy and society. Why did the number of mills steadily increase until the mid-14th century only to decline steeply? How and why did they spread across England, coming to dominate certain areas and not others? Were millers the grasping thieves depicted by writers such as Chaucer? Were all mills under the control of the lord of the manor or did independent peasant mills exist? These and many other questions are addressed in this study of milling in medieval England. ... Read more

Product Description
Inaugural lecture which argues that although the financial restrictions of the 1980s have fallen disproportionately on medievalists within British universities, the discipline is on the verge of an interesting future. ... Read more

Product Description
Intimate details about the personal lives of medieval people are frustratingly rare. We seldom know what the men and women of the middle ages thought about marriage, let alone about sex. The records of the church courts of the province of York, mainly dating from the fourteenth century, provides a welcome light on private, family life and on individual reactions to it. They include a wide range of fascinating cases involving disputes about the validity of marriage, consent, sex, marital violence, impotence and property disputes. They also show how widely the laws of marriage were both known and accepted. Marriage Disputes in Medieval England offers a remarkable insight into personal life in the middle ages.

‘Then Maud said, "God forbid that you should have the power to know me carnally unless you will marry me". Robert answered, "Behold my oath that if I take anyone to be my wife I will take you if you will yield to me". Maud answered, "Behold my oath that I will be at your disposal". And Robert took her in his arms and threw her to the ground in "Le Kowbos" and knew her carnally.’ --Maud Schipyn and Robert Smyth, October 17, 1355
... Read more

Product Description
This book provides a fundamental re-interpretation of the social and economic history of Medieval England. ... Read more

Product Description
Over the last thirty years, the study of medieval rural settlements has been completely transformed. The origins and expansion of settlements are now as much the focus of interest as their decline. This interpretation evinces a much fuller appreciation of the role played by the lords of the manor and other individuals in the history of settlement. These very considerable changes in interpretation are fully reflected in this wide-ranging collection of essays, written by a distinguished team of archaeologists, historians and historical geographers. Its authors use documents, aerial photography, fieldwork, excavation, and the analysis of botanical remains to reconstruct the medieval landscape. The first part of the book examines the history and geography of settlements; the documentary evidence for early medieval estate and settlement patterns; initiative and authority in settlement change; the growth and decline of medieval rural settlements, and the significance of the Wolds in English settlement history. Part two combines regional fieldwork studies with more detailed case studies.These include studies of deserted settlements in the West of England; deserted medieval settlements in the South-West Midlands; the archaeology of medieval rural settlement in East Anglia; medieval settlement remains and historical conservation, and field systems and township structures. The final section is concerned with excavation, and again combines regional with more detailed case studies. It contains chapters on the excavation of dispersed settlement in medieval Britain; peasant houses, farmsteads and villages in North-East England, and environmental archaeology. The book closes with a consideration of the relationship between archaeological and historical method, and its application to the study of rural settlement. ... Read more

Product Description
Offering a new interpretation of the transition from Catholicism to Protestantism in the English Reformation, this book explores its implications for an understanding of women and gender. It asserts that late medieval Christocentric piety shaped the nature of the Reformation, and reasseses assumptions that the "loss" of the Virgin Mary and the saints was detrimental to women. In defining the representative frail Christian as a woman devoted to Christ, the Reformation could not be an alien environment for women, while the Christocentric tradition encouraged the questioning of gender stereotypes. ... Read more

Product Description

Product Description
Providing the chronological setting for many of Shakespeare's plays, various swashbuckling novels from Sir Walter Scott's to Robert Louis Stevenson's, and such Hollywood films as Braveheart, late Medieval England is superficially well known. Yet its true complexity remains elusive, locked in the covers of specialized monographs and journal articles. In over 300 entries written by 80 scholars, this book makes the factual information and historical interpretations of the era readily available. Covering political, military, religious, and constitutional subjects as well as social and economic topics, the volume is easy to use, comprehensive, and authoritative. It provides a useful resource for undergraduate and graduate students, scholars, and educated laymen. ... Read more

Product Description

Product Description
The liberties and franchises of medieval England have been a neglected area of study in recent years, yet they were an important aspect of government and society, providing an influential basis of collective awareness, aspiration and loyalty. The papers in this volume examine them in a wide British context (the north of England, the Welsh march, Ireland and Scotland), from the twelfth to the sixteenth centuries, looking at the varied role that liberties played in defining local identities and providing bases of power; other topics addressed include their maintenance of law and order, as well as the threat they might present, and their part in military recruitment. ... Read more

Product Description
Using 163 photographs of images carved on the underside of medieval choir stalls in the churches and cathedrals of England in the thirteenth through sixteenth centuries, this is a lively, humourous, and loving examination of the social history of ordinary men and women during the late medieval period.These extraordinary carvings constitute one of the few, and the best, remaining accounts of how life was experienced for the majority of the English medieval population.

The carvings, known as "misericords," offer unique visual evidence that the life of the ordinary medieval citizen was not only rich and varied, but lusty, political, humorous, and joyous.Not only activities but reigning beliefs are depicted by the carvers.There are, for example, carvings that illustrate man's fascination with the nature of women, others that detail a particular kind of test for male strength, and many that chronicle the sly wit of ordinary people as they rebelled against the strictures of a feudal system.The young population of the late Middle Ages was apparently robust in both thought and deed.

The misericords here are not examined as decorative embellishments or pieces of church furniture, rather they are "read" as intimate glimpses into the thoughts, actions, and beliefs of ordinary people in medieval England. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Peephole on People
Medieval cathedrals are replete with majestic images in stained glass and stone of saints, Popes, and wealthy nobility. Imagine, though, rummaging around in the dusty choir stalls of one of those cathedrals and finding apeephole through which you could survey the daily lives of the commoners ofthe same era. Using the fine photographs of Charles Curry, Juanita Woodserves as our knowledgeable and good-humored guide in interpreting thewooden images found under the seats of the cathedral choir stalls. Thesecrudely carved, often symbolic images, known as misericords, were notcreated for the faithful flocks who came to mass; they were used by thefatigued monks who leaned agaist the raised seats as they stood throughthose long services.

Ms. Wood's scholarly research into Medieval historyskillfully permeates her lively commentary. I thoroughly enjoyed thisdelightful glimpse on romantic love and marriage, festivals and jousts,mythical animals, political satires, and outrageous customs of afascinating period. ... Read more

Product Description
Runaway religious were monks, canons and friars who had taken vows of religion and who, with benefit of neither permission nor dispensation and for myriad reasons, fled their monasteries and returned to a life in the world, usually replacing the religious habit with lay clothes. Not only the normal tugs of the world drew them away: other less obvious yet equally human motives, such as boredom, led to a return to the world. The church pursued them with her severest penalty, excommunication, in the express hope that penalties would lead to the return of the straying sheep. This book is the first to tell their story. ... Read more

Product Description

Product Description
A collection of eleven essays examining, through a variety of venues, the extent to which ideological representations interact with what is arguably the radical dialectic of the period: the increasing significance of power rather than authority as an ideological framework. ... Read more