You may have to Search all our reviewed books and magazines, click the sign up button below to create a free account.
Since the mid-twentieth century, political histories of late medieval England have focused almost exclusively on the relationship between the Crown and aristocratic landholders. Such studies, however, neglect to consider that England after the Black Death was an urbanising society. Towns not only were the residence of a rising proportion of the population, but were also the stages on which power was asserted and the places where financial and military resources were concentrated. Outside London, however, most English towns were small compared to those found in contemporary Italy or Flanders, and it has been easy for historians to under-estimate their ability to influence English politics. Po...
An examination of peine fort et dure, the coercive medieval punishment for defendants refusing to plead to criminal indictments.
The politics of fifteenth-century England have been studied traditionally by examining the relationships between the king, nobility, and gentry. This study argues that English towns-though quite small individually-formed a collective 'urban sector' that had a significant influence on the language, policies, and events in English 'high politics'.
Essays reconsidering key topics in the history of late medieval Scotland and northern England.
Of necessity, historians of the late Middle Ages have to rely on an eclectic mix of sources, ranging from the few remaining medieval buildings, monuments, illuminated manuscripts and miscellaneous artefacts, to a substantial but often uncatalogued body of documentary material, much of it born of the medieval administrator's penchant for record keeping. Exploring this evidence requires skills in lateral thinking and interpretation - qualities which are manifested in this volume. Employing the copious legal records kept by the English Crown, one essay reveals the thinking behind exceptions to pardons sold by successive kings, while another, using clerical taxation returns, adds colour to conte...
Interrogates the standard view of turbulent and violent town-abbey relations through a combination of traditional and new research techniques.
Accusatory, libellous, or just bizarre, Penning Poison unveils the history of anonymous letter-writing. 'er at number 14 is dirty Receiving an unexpected and unsigned note is a disconcerting experience. In Penning Poison, Emily Cockayne traces the stories of such letters to all corners of English society over the period 1760-1939. She uncovers scandal, deception, class enmity, personal tragedy, and great loneliness. Some messages were accusatory, some libellous, others bizarre. Technology, new postal networks, forensic techniques, and the emergence of professional police all influence the phenomenon of poison letter campaigns. This book puts the letters back into their local and psychology c...
Saving the Children analyzes the intersection of liberal internationalism and imperialism through the history of the humanitarian organization Save the Children, from its formation during the First World War through the era of decolonization. Whereas Save the Children claimed that it was "saving children to save the world," the vision of the world it sought to save was strictly delimited, characterized by international capitalism and colonial rule. Emily Baughan's groundbreaking analysis, across fifty years and eighteen countries, shows that Britain's desire to create an international order favorable to its imperial rule shaped international humanitarianism. In revealing that modern humanitarianism and its conception of childhood are products of the early twentieth-century imperial economy, Saving the Children argues that the contemporary aid sector must reckon with its past if it is to forge a new future.
A collection of major articles representing some of the best historical research by some of the world's most distinguished historians.
This volume traces the logic of urban political conflict in late medieval Europe's most heavily urbanized regions, Italy and the Southern Low Countries. The fourteenth and fifteenth centuries are often associated with the increasing consolidation of states, but at the same time they also saw high levels of political conflict and revolt in cities that themselves were a lasting heritage of this period. In often radically different ways, conflict constituted a crucial part of political life in the six cities studied for this book: Bologna, Florence, and Verona, as well as Liege, Lille, and Tournai. The Logic of Political Conflict in Medieval Cities argues that such conflicts, rather than subver...