An indispensable series for anyone who wishes to keep abreast of recent work in the field. WELSH HISTORY REVIEW

Excommunication was the medieval churchs most severe sanction, used against people at all levels of society. It was a spiritual, social, and legal penalty. Excommunication in Thirteenth-Century England offers a fresh perspective on medieval excommunication by taking a multi-dimensional approach to discussion of the sanction. Using England as a case study, Felicity Hill analyzes the intentions behind excommunication; how it was perceived and received, at both national and local level; the effects it had upon individuals and society. The study is structured thematically to argue that our understanding of excommunication should be shaped by how it was received within the community as well as the intentions of canon law and clerics. Challenging past assumptions about the inefficacy of excommunication, Hill argues that the sanction remained a useful weapon for the clerical elite: bringing into dialogue a wide range of source material allows effectiveness to be judged within a broader context. The complexity of political communication and action are revealed through public, conflicting, accepted and rejected excommunications. Excommunication could be manipulated to great effect in political conflicts and was an important means by which political events were communicated down the social strata of medieval society. Through its exploration of excommunication, the book reveals much about medieval cursing, pastoral care, fears about the afterlife, social ostracism, shame and reputation, and mass communication.

Aspects of the political, social, cultural, economic and ecclesiastical history of medieval England re-examined. This collection presents new and original research into the long thirteenth century, from c.1180-c.1330, with a particular focus on the reign of Edward II and its aftermath. Other topics examined include crown finances, markets and fairs, royal stewards, the aftermath of the Barons' War, Wace's Roman de Brut, and authority in Yorkshire nunneries; and the volume also follows the tradition of the series by looking beyond England, with contributions onthe role of Joan, wife of Llywelyn the Great in Anglo-Welsh relations, Dublin, and English landholding in Ireland, while the continental connection is represented by a comparison of aspects of English and French kingship. Contributors: David Carpenter, Nick Barratt, Emilia Jamroziak, Michael Ray, Susan Stewart, Louise J. Wilkinson, Sean Duffy, Beth Hartland, Francoise Le Saux, Henry Summerson, Janet Burton, H.S.A. Fox, David Crook, Margo Todd, Seymour Phillips

A survey of the complexity and sophistication of English royal government in the thirteenth century, a period of radical change. The years between 1258 and 1276 comprise one of the most influential periods in the Middle Ages in Britain. This turbulent decade witnessed a bitter power struggle between Henry III and his barons over who should control the government of the realm. Before England eventually descended into civil war, a significant proportion of the baronage had attempted to transform its governance by imposing on the crown a programme of legislative and administrative reform far more radical and wide-ranging than Magna Carta in 1215. Constituting a critical stage in the development of parliament, the reformist movement would remain unsurpassed in its radicalism until the upheavals of the seventeenth century. Simon de Montfort, the baronial champion, became the first leader of a political movement to seize power and govern in the king's name. The essays here draw on material available for the first time via the completion of the project to calendar all the Fine Rolls of Henry III; these rolls comprise the last series of records of the English Chancery from that period to become readily available in a convenient form, thereby transforming accessto several important fields of research, including financial, legal, political and social issues. The volume covers topics including the evidential value of the fine rolls themselves and their wider significance for the English polity, developments in legal and financial administration, the roles of women and the church, and the fascinating details of the development of the office of escheator. Related or parallel developments in Scotland, Wales and Ireland are also dealt with, giving a broader British dimension. LOUISE J. WILKINSON is Professor of Medieval Studies, University of Lincoln; DAVID CROOK is Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Notthingham. Contributors: Nick Barratt, Paul Brand, David Carpenter, David Crook, Paul Dryburgh, Beth Hartland, Philippa Hoskin, Charles Insley, Adrian Jobson, Tony Moore, Alice Taylor, Nicholas Vincent, Scott Waugh, Louise Wilkinson

`Set to become an indispensible series for anyone who wishes to keep abreast of recent work in the field.' WELSH HISTORY REVIEWImportant papers playing a key role in re-awakening scholarly interest in a comparatively neglected period of English history.

"While there has been work on the nobility as patrons of monasteries, this is the first real study of them as patrons of parish churches, and is thus the first study to tackle the subject as a whole. Illustrated with a wealth of detail, it will become an indispensable work of reference for those interested in lay patronage and the Church more generally in the middle ages." Professor David Carpenter, Department of History, King's College London This book provides the first full-length, integrated study of the ecclesiastical patronage rights of the nobility in medieval England. It examines the nature and extent of these rights, how they were used, why and for whom they were valuable, what challenges lay patrons faced, and how they looked to the future in making gifts to the Church. It takes as its focus the thirteenth century, a critical period for the survival and development of these rights, being a time of ambitious Church reform, of great change in patterns of land ownership in the ranks of the higher nobility, and of bold assertion by the English Crown of its claims to control Church property. The thirteenth century also saw a proliferation of record keeping on the part of kings, bishops and nobility, and the author uses new evidence from a range of documentary sources to explore the nature of the relationships between the English nobility, the Church and its clergy, a relationship in which patronage was the essential feature. Dr Elizabeth Gemmill is University Lecturer in Local History and Fellow of Kellogg College. University of Oxford.

Essays looking at the links between England and Europe in the long thirteenth century.

Typical accounts of Anglo-Scottish relations during the 14th century tends to present a sustained period of bitter enmity. However, this book shows that the situation was far more complex. Drawing together new perspectives from leading researchers, the essays investigate the great complexity of the Anglo-Scottish tensions.

Studies in economic, political and social history in 13c England.

Examines how thirteenth-century clergymen used pastoral care - preaching, sacraments and confession - to increase their parishioners' religious knowledge, devotion and expectations.