Law mattered in later medieval England and Ireland. A quick glance at the sources suggests as much. From the charter to the will to the court roll, the majority of the documents which have survived from later medieval England and Ireland, and medieval Europe in general, are legal in nature. Yet despite the fact that law played a prominent role in medieval society, legal history has long been a marginal subject within medieval studies both in Britain and North America. Much good work has been done in this field, but there is much still to do. This volume, a collection of essays in honour of Paul Brand, who has contributed perhaps more than any other historian to our understanding of the legal developments of later medieval England and Ireland, is intended to help fill this gap. The essays collected in this volume, which range from the twelfth to the sixteenth century, offer the latest research on a variety of topics within this field of inquiry. While some consider familiar topics, they do so from new angles, whether by exploring the underlying assumptions behind England’s adoption of trial by jury for crime or by assessing the financial aspects of the General Eyre, a core institution of jurisdiction in twelfth- and thirteenth-century England. Most, however, consider topics which have received little attention from scholars, from the significance of judges and lawyers smiling and laughing in the courtroom to the profits and perils of judicial office in English Ireland. The essays provide new insights into how the law developed and functioned within the legal profession and courtroom in late medieval England and Ireland, as well as how it pervaded the society at large.

Examines the complex interactions between English and Irish neighbours in the 'four obedient shires' and how this shaped English identity.

Medieval Ireland is associated in the public imagination with the ruined castles and monasteries that remain prominent in the Irish landscape. Crisis and Survival in Late Medieval Ireland: The English of Louth and their Neighbours, 1330-1450 examines how the society that produced these monuments developed over the course of a turbulent century, focussing particularly on county Louth, situated on the coast north of Dublin and adjacent to the earldom of Ulster. Louth was one of the areas that had been most densely colonised by English settlers in the decades around 1200, and ties with England and loyalty to the English crown remained strong. Its settlers found it possible to maintain close economic and political ties with England in part because of their proximity to the significant trading port of Drogheda, and the residence among them of the archbishop of Armagh, primate of Ireland, also extended their international horizons and contacts. In this volume, Brendan Smith explores the ways in which the English settlers in Louth maintained their English identity in the face of plague and warfare. The Black Death of 1348-9, and recurrent visitations of plague thereafter, reduced their numbers significantly and encouraged the Irish lordships on their borders to challenge their local supremacy. How to counter the threat from the MacMahons, O'Neills, and others, absorbed their energies and resources. It not only involved mounting armed campaigns, taking hostages, and building defences; it also meant intermarrying with these families and entering into numerous solemn, if short-lived, treaties with them. Smith draws on original source material, to present a picture of the English settlers in Louth, and to show how living in the borderlands of the English world coloured every aspect of settler life.

First full-length interdisciplinary study of the effect of these everyday surroundings on literature, culture and the collective consciousness of the late middle ages. The bed, and the chamber which contained it, was something of a cultural and social phenomenon in late-medieval England. Their introduction into some aristocratic and bourgeois households captured the imagination of late-medievalEnglish society. The bed and chamber stood for much more than simply a place to rest one's head: they were symbols of authority, unparalleled spaces of intimacy, sanctuaries both for the powerless and the powerful. This change inphysical domestic space shaped the ways in which people thought about less tangible concepts such as gender politics, communication, God, sex and emotions. Furthermore, the practical uses of beds and chambers shaped and were shaped by artistic and literary production. This volume offers the first interdisciplinary study of the cultural meanings of beds and chambers in late-medieval England. It draws on a vast array of literary, pragmatic and visual sources, including romances, saints' lives, lyrics, plays, wills, probate inventories, letters, church and civil court documents, manuscript illumination and physical objects, to shed new light on the ways in which beds and chambersfunctioned as both physical and conceptual spaces. Hollie L.S. Morgan is a Research Fellow in the School of History and Heritage, University of Lincoln.

Romance and the Gentry in Late Medieval England offers a new history of Middle English romance, the most popular genre of secular literature in the English Middle Ages. Michael Johnston argues that many of the romances composed in England from 1350-1500 arose in response to the specific socio-economic concerns of the gentry, the class of English landowners who lacked titles of nobility and hence occupied the lower rungs of the aristocracy. The end of the fourteenth century in England witnessed power devolving to the gentry, who became one of the dominant political and economic forces in provincial society. As Johnston demonstrates, this social change also affected England's literary culture, particularly the composition and readership of romance. Romance and the Gentry in Late Medieval England identifies a series of new topoi in Middle English that responded to the gentry's economic interests. But beyond social history and literary criticism, it also speaks to manuscript studies, showing that most of the codices of the "gentry romances" were produced by those in the immediate employ of the gentry. By bringing together literary criticism and manuscript studies, this book speaks to two scholarly communities often insulated from one another: it invites manuscript scholars to pay closer attention to the cultural resonances of the texts within medieval codices; simultaneously, it encourages literary scholars to be more attentive to the cultural resonances of surviving medieval codices.

Buchanan Sharp examines governmental and crowd responses to famine, from the late Middle Ages through to the early modern era. This wide-ranging book will be of interest to academic researchers and graduate students studying the social, economic, cultural and political make-up of medieval and early modern England.

It is well known that political, economic, and social power in the British Isles in the Middle Ages lay in the hands of a small group of domini-lords. In his final book, the late Sir Rees Davies explores the personalities of these magnates, the nature of their lordship, and the ways in which it was expressed in a diverse and divided region in the period 1272-1422. Although their right to rule was rarely questioned, the lords flaunted their identity and superiority through the promotion of heraldic lore, the use of elevated forms of address, and by the extravagant display of their wealth and power. Their domestic routine, furnishings, dress, diet, artistic preferences, and pastimes all spoke of a lifestyle of privilege and authority. Warfare was a constant element in their lives, affording access to riches and reputation, but also carrying the danger of capture, ruin and even death, while their enthusiasm for crusades and tournaments testified to their energy and bellicose inclinations. Above all, underpinning the lords' control of land was their control of men-a complex system of dependence and reward that Davies restores to central significance by studying the British Isles as a whole. The exercise and experience of lordship was far more varied than the English model alone would suggest.

Shows how lordship and state formation affected local authority in the transition between medieval and early modern England.

This book examines the development of English colonial society in the eastern coastal area of Ireland now known as county Louth, in the period 1170-1330. At its heart is the story of two relationships: that between settler and native in Louth, and that between the settlers and England. An important part of the story is the comparison with parts of Britain which witnessed similar English colonization. Fifty years before the arrival of the English, Louth was incorporated into the Irish kingdom of Airgialla, experiencing rapid change in the political and ecclesiastical spheres under its dynamic ruler Donnchad Ua Cerbaill. The impact of this legacy on English settlement is given due prominence. The book also explores the reasons why well-to-do members of local society in the West Midlands of England in the reigns of Henry II and his sons were prepared to become involved in the Irish adventure.

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