Lordship and Locality in the Long Twelfth Century


Book Description

A new perspective on lordship in England between the Norman Conquest and Magna Carta. Multiple lordship- that is, holding land or owing allegiance to more than one lord simultaneously- was long regarded under the western European "feudal" model as a potentially dangerous aberration, and a sign of decline in the structure of lordship. Through an analysis of the minor lords of Leicestershire, Derbyshire, and Staffordshire during the long twelfth century, this study demonstrates, conversely, that multiple lordship was at least as common as single lordship in this period and regarded as a normal practice, and explores how these minor lords used the flexibility of lordship structures to construct localised centres of authority in the landscape and become important actors in their own right. Lordship was, moreover, only one of several forces which minor lords had to navigate. Regional society in this period was profoundly shaped by overlapping ties of lordship, kinship, and locality, each of which could have a fundamental impact on relationships and behaviour. These issues are studied within and across lords' honours, around religious houses and urban areas, and in a close case study of the abbey of Burton-upon-Trent. This book thus contextualises lordship within a wider landscape of power and influence.




The Crisis of the Twelfth Century


Book Description

Medieval civilization came of age in thunderous events like the Norman Conquest and the First Crusade. Power fell into the hands of men who imposed coercive new lordships in quest of nobility. Rethinking a familiar history, Thomas Bisson explores the circumstances that impelled knights, emperors, nobles, and churchmen to infuse lordship with social purpose. Bisson traces the origins of European government to a crisis of lordship and its resolution. King John of England was only the latest and most conspicuous in a gallery of bad lords who dominated the populace instead of ruling it. Yet, it was not so much the oppressed people as their tormentors who were in crisis. The Crisis of the Twelfth Century suggests what these violent people—and the outcries they provoked—contributed to the making of governments in kingdoms, principalities, and towns.




The Haskins Society Journal 32: 2020. Studies in Medieval History


Book Description

Essays illuminate a wide range of topics from the Middle Ages, from the seals of an empress to priests' wives and the undead.This volume of the Haskins Society Journal demonstrates the Society's continued engagement with historical and interdisciplinary research from the early to the central Middle Ages on a broad range of topics including militarism, piety, the miraculous and the monstrous. Chapters explore material culture through a mythic eleventh-century papal banner and the seals and coins of the Empress Matilda; offer new insights into Carolingian hagiography and into the undead in the Historia rerum Anglicarum. Further chapters feature new evidence on the role of priests' wives, the tensions of multiple lordships, shifting identities in the Irish Sea world, and the didactic use of royal anger. A fresh examination of Aelred of Rievaulx's Relatio de Standaro and a re-assessment of Flemish documentary practice continue the Haskins Society's commitment to primary source analysis. Two essays on the thirteenth century, including links between Crusade spirituality and lay penitential strategies and an investigation into the economic costs of waging war, round out the volume.Contributors: DAN ARMSTRONG, DAVID S. BACHRACH, DANIEL M. BACHRACH, JILLIAN M. BJERKE, HANNAH BOSTON, MARIAH COOPER, FIONA J. GRIFFITHS, JESSE M. HARRINGTON, JEAN-FRANÇOIS NIEUS, ALICE RIO, CHARITY URBANSKI, PATRICK WADDEN, MEGHAN WOOLLEY, LU ZUOth century, including links between Crusade spirituality and lay penitential strategies and an investigation into the economic costs of waging war, round out the volume.Contributors: DAN ARMSTRONG, DAVID S. BACHRACH, DANIEL M. BACHRACH, JILLIAN M. BJERKE, HANNAH BOSTON, MARIAH COOPER, FIONA J. GRIFFITHS, JESSE M. HARRINGTON, JEAN-FRANÇOIS NIEUS, ALICE RIO, CHARITY URBANSKI, PATRICK WADDEN, MEGHAN WOOLLEY, LU ZUOth century, including links between Crusade spirituality and lay penitential strategies and an investigation into the economic costs of waging war, round out the volume.Contributors: DAN ARMSTRONG, DAVID S. BACHRACH, DANIEL M. BACHRACH, JILLIAN M. BJERKE, HANNAH BOSTON, MARIAH COOPER, FIONA J. GRIFFITHS, JESSE M. HARRINGTON, JEAN-FRANÇOIS NIEUS, ALICE RIO, CHARITY URBANSKI, PATRICK WADDEN, MEGHAN WOOLLEY, LU ZUOth century, including links between Crusade spirituality and lay penitential strategies and an investigation into the economic costs of waging war, round out the volume.Contributors: DAN ARMSTRONG, DAVID S. BACHRACH, DANIEL M. BACHRACH, JILLIAN M. BJERKE, HANNAH BOSTON, MARIAH COOPER, FIONA J. GRIFFITHS, JESSE M. HARRINGTON, JEAN-FRANÇOIS NIEUS, ALICE RIO, CHARITY URBANSKI, PATRICK WADDEN, MEGHAN WOOLLEY, LU ZUO




Lordship, Knighthood and Locality


Book Description

A study of the evolution of the knightly class in Coventry and Warwickshire.







Lordship, State Formation and Local Authority in Late Medieval and Early Modern England


Book Description

Providing a new narrative of how local authority and social structures adapted in response to the decline of lordship and the process of state formation, Spike Gibbs uses manorial officeholding – where officials were chosen from among tenants to help run the lord's manorial estate – as a prism through which to examine political and social change in the late medieval and early modern English village. Drawing on micro-studies of previously untapped archival records, the book spans the medieval/early modern divide to examine changes between 1300 and 1650. In doing so, Gibbs demonstrates the vitality of manorial structures across the medieval and early modern era, the active and willing participation of tenants in these frameworks, and the way this created inequalities within communities. This title is part of the Flip it Open Programme and may also be available Open Access. Check our website Cambridge Core for details.




Friendship, Love, and Brotherhood in Medieval Northern Europe, c. 1000-1200


Book Description

In this book, Lars Hermanson discusses how religious beliefs and norms steered attitudes to friendship and love, and how these ways of thinking affected social identity and political behaviour. With examples taken from eleventh- and twelfth-century northern Europe, the author investigates why friendship was praised both by brotherhoods of aristocratic warriors and by brethren within monastery walls. Social and political functions rested on personal connections rather than a strong central state in the High Middle Ages. This meant that friendship was an important pragmatic instrument for establishing social order and achieving success in the game of politics.




Lordship and Faith


Book Description

Lordship and Faith takes as its subject the many hundreds of parish churches built in England in the Middle Ages by the gentry, the knights and esquires, and the lords of country manors. Nigel Saul uses lordly engagement with the parish church as a way of opening up the piety and sociability of the gentry, focusing on the gentry as founders and builders of churches, worshippers in them, holders of church advowsons, and patrons and sponsors of parish communities. Saul also looks at how the gentry's interest in the parish church sat alongside their patronage of the monks and friars, and their use of private chapels in their manor houses. Lordship and Faith seeks to weave together themes in social, religious, and architectural history, examining in all its richness a subject that has hitherto been considered only in journal articles. Written in an accessible way, this volume makes a significant contribution not only to the history of the English gentry but also to the history of the rural parish church, an institution now in the forefront of medieval historical studies.




Church and People in the Medieval West, 900-1200


Book Description

During the middle ages, belief in God was the single more important principle for every person, and the all-powerful church was the most important institution. It is impossible to understand the medieval world without understanding the religious vision of the time, and this new textbook offers an approach which explores the meaning of this in day-to-day life, as well as the theory behind it. Church and People in the Medieval West gets to the root of belief in the Middle Ages, covering topics including pastoral reform, popular religion, monasticism, heresy and much more, throughout the central middle ages from 900-1200. Suitable for undergraduate courses in medieval history, and those returning to or approaching the subject for the first time.




The Aristocracy in England and Tuscany, 1000-1250


Book Description

This volume examines the aristocracy in Tuscany and in England in the years 1000-1250, offering a new way of studying English aristocracy in this period by tracing Italian aristocratic history, and then employing the same historiographic tools within English history.