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In 1350 the traditional idea of the "three estates" - priests, knights and labourers - offered an idealized but essentially accurate picture of society. By 1500 a far more complex structure based on landowning wealth, the city commercial elite and "bastard feudal" relations was firmly in place. In this book, Maurice Keen traces the causes and scope of this great transformation by looking in turn at the development of each "estate". He considers the spread of literacy, the terrible devastation wrought by the Black Death (1348-9), the mercantile growth of London alongside the royal court at Westminster, and the new systems of taxation and administration created by the Hundred Years War (1337-1453). These crucial factors influenced popular and clerical religion, country life, and even the households of the aristocracy. Keen draws on a range of evidence and explores many unexpected connections.
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A presentation of the social history of Britain, from 1348-1500, describing medieval society, with its rigid stratifications of nobility and peasant, and the transition to the beginning of the early modern period.
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• Chapter 1: Setting the Scene--
• Chapter 2: The Hunt--
• Chapter 3: Courtly Fashion--
• Chapter 4: Courtly Fashion in Detail--
• Chapter 5: Design, Production and Technique-- Glossary.
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The four magnificent Devonshire Tapestries housed at the Victoria and Albert Museum are the only great 15th-century tapestries to survive the ravages of time. This book is a celebration of them and offers a unique insight into the world of the late Middle Ages in rich and fascinating detail. Hunting was a favourite pursuit of princes and noblemen in medieval and renaissance Europe. The elaborate rituals of the hunt were an integral part of court life, but not just as a sport - the meat and game provided were vital ingredients of household fare. The tapestries provide a vivid picture of the hunt in all its forms - falconry, hunting for otter, bear, deer, robbing a swans nest for eggs - and are packed with detail. In addition the tapestries are a vital source of information about Medieval dress and fashion. We can learn what textiles and patterns were in favour, what styles and shapes of head-dresses, collars, belts and gowns were fashionable and how clothes were worn and by whom. These beautiful works of art are an unrivalled repository of costume and textile history. Illustrated in full colour with pull out plates showing the complete tapestries in all their glory, this book is a celebration of these unique works of textile art.
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• Introduction: Aristocracy and Nobility
• Part 1. Hereditary Titles and Social Dignities
• 1. The Earl and Count
• 2. Welsh Princes and the Prehistory of the Peerage
• 3. Social Dignities: Barons and Bannerets
• 4. The Knight
• 5. The Squire and Lesser Ranks
• Part 2.
• 6. The Greater Insignia
• 7. Insignia Defining Aristocracy
• 8. Castles and Halls
• 9. The Noble Household
• 10. Piety and Status.
• (source: Nielsen Book Data)

David Crouch offers a new approach to the fascinating study of aristocracy in England, Wales and Scotland and is the first to relate developments in the aristocracies in all three countries during the period of study. His approach is also original in examining the material manifestations of aristocracy rather than looking at institutions and charter-attestations. In the first part of the book he writes about hereditary titles including those of earl and prince and also expands on the social styles of baron, knight and squire. The second part of the book focuses on aristocratic insignia and behaviour, including chapters on heraldry, material attributes such as coronets and sceptres, the aristocratic household, residence and religious patronage. Working from these, the book constructs a fresh picture of the growth in numbers and self-consciousness of the aristocracy in England and the effect that this had on Welsh and Scottish society. There is also an extensive introduction on medieval ideas and modern perceptions of aristocracy.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• Introduction : social structure and economic change in late medieval England / S.H. Rigby
• An age of deference / Peter Coss
• The enterprise of war / Michael Prestwich
• Order and law / Simon Walker
• Social mobility / Philippa C. Maddern
• Town life / Richard Britnell
• The land / Bruce M.S. Campbell
• A consumer economy / Maryanne Kowaleski
• Moving around / Wendy R. Childs
• Work and leisure / Mavis E. Mate
• Religious belief / Eamon Duffy
• A magic universe / Valerie I.J. Flint
• Renunciation / Janet Burton
• Ritual constructions of society / Charles Phythian-Adams
• Identities / Miri Rubin
• Life and death : the ages of man / P.J.P. Goldberg
• The wider world / Robin Frame
• Writing and reading / Paul Strohm
• Conclusion / Rosemary Horrox.

What was life really like in England in the later Middle Ages? This comprehensive introduction explores the full breadth of English life and society in the period 1200-1500. Opening with a survey of historiographical and demographic debates, the book then explores the central themes of later medieval society, including the social hierarchy, life in towns and the countryside, religious belief, and forms of individual and collective identity. Clustered around these themes a series of authoritative essays develop our understanding of other important social and cultural features of the period, including the experience of war, work, law and order, youth and old age, ritual, travel and transport, and the development of writing and reading. Written in an accessible and engaging manner by an international team of leading scholars, this book is indispensable both as an introduction for students and as a resource for specialists.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• List of maps and tables-- Acknowledgements-- Abbreviations-- Genealogical table-- Introduction--
• 1. The regional society--
• 2. The county communities--
• 3. Lesser solidarities--
• 4. The population--
• 5. Landed society--
• 6. The peasantry--
• 7. Towns, trade and industry--
• 8. The church--
• 9. Military service--
• 10. Power, patronage and provincial culture--
• 11. Conclusion-- Bibliography-- Index.
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This study of Cheshire and Lancashire society in the late fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries is a unique attempt to reconstruct the social life of an English region in the later Middle Ages. Drawing on the voluminous archives of the two palatinates and the extensive muniment collections of local families, it offers an unusually rich and wide-ranging analysis of a dynamic regional society at a dramatic stage in its history.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

This collection responds to the critical legacy of Penn R. Szittya, the recently retired former chair of Georgetown University's English Department. Inspired by Georgetown's Lannan Center for Poetics and Social Practice and its statement that poetry "traverses the fields of aesthetic, social, political, and religious thought, " this work investigates how medieval poetic language reflects and also shapes social, political, and religious worlds. At a moment in contemporary culture when poetry finds its value increasingly challenged, Medieval Poetics and Social Practice looks to the late Middle Ages to assert the indispensability of poetry and poetics in the formation of social structures, actions, and utterances. The contributors offer new readings of canonical late-medieval English poetic texts, such as Langland's Piers Plowman and Chaucer's Parliament of Fowls, and, of equal importance, explore texts that have hitherto not held a central place in criticism but make important contributions to the literary culture of the period. Introduced by Seeta Chaganti, the collection includes essays by Richard K. Emmerson, J. Patrick Hornbeck, John C. Hirsh, Moira Fitzgibbons, John T. Sebastian, Nicholas R. Havely, Kara Doyle, Anne Middleton, Jo Ann Moran Cruz, and Mark McMorris.
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Medieval London Widows, 1300-1500 shows that it is possible to expand the repertoire of examples of medieval women with personalities and individuality beyond the well-known triad of Margaret Paston, Margery Kempe and the Wife of Bath. The rich documentation of London records allows these women to speak for themselves. They do so largely through their wills, which themselves exemplify the ability of widows to make choices and to order their lives.
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A king's death was a critical and highly dramatic moment, often with major political consequences. Death in battle, whether that of Harold at Hastings or Richard III at Bosworth, could end a dynasty, while the secret murders of Edward II, Richard II and Edward V blighted the fortunes of their murderers. The Death of Kings is an account of what is known about the deaths of all English medieval kings - natural, violent or accidental (as William Rufus's death while out hunting in the New Forest). It shows how contemporaries and later writers, including Shakespeare, drew morals from such deaths and about the characters of individual kings, giving these deaths an imaginative and symbolic resonance that has lasted until the present day. Full of fascinating detail and personal information about the characters and attitudes of English kings and queens, The Death of Kings is a unique window into the heart of medieval society.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• Urban decay revisited / D.M. Palliser
• The urban gentry in the fifteenth century / Rosemary E. Horrox
• London and Westminster / Gervase Rosser
• Urban "oligarchy" in late medieval England / Stephen H. Rigby
• Obvious observations on the formation of oligarchies in late medieval English towns / Jennifer I. Kermode
• Women in fifteenth-century town life / P.J.P. Goldberg
• The Reformation and regionalism / Norman P. Tanner
• Towns at war / Anne E. Curry
• Towns and townspeople in fifteenth-century Scotland / Michael Lynch.

• Notes on Measurements and other Conventions \ Abbreviations \
• 1. Continuity and Change in the Medieval English Landscape \
• 2. The Landscape of Farming and Hunting \
• 3. The Landscape of Rural Settlement \
• 4. The Landscape of Towns and Trade \
• 5. The Landscape of Religion \
• 6. The Landscape of Fortification \
• 7. The End of the Medieval English Landscape? \ Bibliography \ Index.
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The landscape of medieval England was the product of a multitude of hands. While the power to shape the landscape inevitably lay with the Crown, the nobility and the religious houses, this study also highlights the contribution of the peasantry in the layout of rural settlements and ridge-and-furrow field works, and the funding of parish churches by ordinary townsfolk. The importance of population trends is emphasised as a major factor in shaping the medieval landscape: the rising curve of the eleventh to thirteenth centuries imposing growing pressures on resources, and the devastating impact of the Black Death leading to radical decline in the fourteenth century. Opening with a broad-ranging analysis of political and economic trends in medieval England, the book progresses thematically to assess the impact of farming, rural settlement, towns, the Church, and fortification using many original case studies. The concluding chapter charts the end of the medieval landscape with the dissolution of the monasteries, the replacement of castles by country houses, the ongoing enclosure of fields, and the growth of towns.
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• Ann Williams A Bell-House and a Burh-Geat: Lordly Residences in England Before the Conquest-- Richard Eales Royal Power and Castles in Norman England-- Derek Renn Burhgeat and Gonfanon: Two Sidelights from the Bayeux Tapestry-- Lawrence Butler The Origins of the Honour of Richmond and its Castles-- Robert Higham Timber Castles: A Reassessment-- Marjorie Chibnall Orderic Vitalis on Castles-- R. Allen Brown Royal Castle Building in England 1154-1216-- Charles Coulson The Castles of the Anarchy-- Sidney Painter Castle-Guard-- Frederick. Suppe Castle Guard and the Castlery of Clun-- Grant G. Simpson and Bruce Webster Charter Evidence and the Distribution of Mottes in Scotland-- John R. Kenyon Fluctuating Frontiers: Normanno-Welsh Castle Warfare c.1075 to 1240-- Thomas McNeill Hibernia Pactata et Castellata-- Sandy Heslop Orford Castle: Nostalgia and Sophisticated Living-- Philip Dixon and Pamela Marshall The Great Tower at Hedingham Castle: A Reassessment-- John Blair Hall and Chamber: English Domestic Planning 1000-1250-- Charles Coulson Fortress Policy in Capetian Tradition and Angevin Practice: Aspects of the Conquest of Normandy by Philip II-- Charles Coulson The Impact of Bouvines upon the Fortress Policy of Philip Augustus-- Richard Eales Castles and Politics in England, 1215-1224.
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The castles of the eleventh and twelfth centuries remain among the most visible symbols of the Anglo-Norman world. This collection brings together for the first time some of the most significant articles in castle studies, with contributions from experts in history, archaeology and historic buildings. Castles remain a controversial topic of academic debate and here equal weight is given to seminal articles that have defined the study of the subject while at the same time emphasising newer approaches to the fortresses of the Anglo-Norman aristocracy. The studies in this volume range from discussions of the residential and military role of the castle to architectural symbolism and royal attitudes to baronial fortification. The result is a survey that offers an in-depth analysis of castle-building during the eleventh and twelfth centuries but which also places Anglo-Norman castles within their broader social, architectural and political context. Contributors ANN WILLIAMS, RICHARD EALES, DEREK RENN, LAWRENCE BUTLER, ROBERT HIGHAM, MARJORIE CHIBNALL, R.ALLEN BROWN, CHARLES COULSON, SIDNEY PAINTER, FREDERICK C. SUPPE, GRANT G. SIMPSON, BRUCE WEBSTER, J.R. KENYON, THOMAS McNEILL, T.A.H ESLOP, PHILIP DIXON, PAMELA MARSHALL, JOHN BLAIR, CHARLES COULSON, ROBERT LIDDIARD.
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Entries drawn from 13th and 14th century manuscripts provide details of minstrels' hours of work, rates and methods of pay, status in hall, yardage and colour of twice-yearly outfits and even the colour and cost of horses provided; thus making it possible to reconstruct something of their lives.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)