Late Medieval England

The aim of this article is to identify the political, social, and economic anxieties that prompted East-Anglian secular elites —at the dawn of the fourteenth century— in the commission of private devotional books whose marginalia included, as new and recurrent themes, the monstrous cleric and the monstrous bishop. Establishing a dialogue between documentary sources produced during the period and the close relationship that weaves the texts of the psalter and the visual periphery that used to accompany them, this work suggests that monstrous bishops and clerics expressed the discomfort of East-Anglian lords towards the Avignon Papacy and the disciplinary crisis that faced the English clergy during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.
Este artículo se propone identificar las ansiedades políticas, sociales y económicas que animaron a las élites seculares de Anglia Oriental —en los albores del siglo XIV— en la comisión de libros devocionales privados cuya marginalia incluía los novedosos y recurrentes temas del clérigo y el obispo monstruosos. Poniendo en diálogo las fuentes documentales producidas durante el período con la estrecha relación que se teje entre el texto de los salterios y la periferia visual que suele acompañarlos, este trabajo sugiere que el obispo y el clérigo monstruosos representaban el malestar de los señores de Anglia Oriental frente al Papado de Aviñón y las crisis disciplinares que enfrentó el clero inglés en los siglos XIII y XIV.

Resumo: A guerra no medievo, tema exaustivamente estudado no último século, tem sido alvo de
uma multiplicação de abordagens, permitindo assim que interpretações de documentos sob esses
novos olhares forneçam avanços significativos para a pesquisa acadêmica. Nesse sentido, análises
dedicadas a outros momentos do conflito que não apenas o choque entre combatentes têm sido
esboçadas nas últimas décadas, enfatizando discussões até então relegadas a um segundo plano. No
presente artigo, procuramos relacionar os discursos presentes em fontes contemporâneas sobre a
cobrança da taxação conhecida como purveyance e a gradual alteração no modo de escrita da
história no medievo inglês durante o século XIV. De modo geral, a partir dos relatos sobre aquela
prática específica, discorremos sobre questões que permeiam o fazer da história no período,
buscando entender suas noções de verdade, quem foram e o lugar de onde produziram seus relatos.

Abstract: The war in the Middle Ages, an extensively studied theme in the last century, has been
aimed by an increasing number of approaches, fact that has allowed nterpretation of documents
under new sights and provide expressive advances to the academic research. Seem in these terms,
analysis dedicated to other moments of the conflict besides the clash of combatants has been
sketched in the last decades, emphasizing issues previously relegated to the background. In this
paper, we aim to relate the discourses on the contemporary sources about the charging of a taxation
known as purveyance and the gradual changing in the writing of history in the English Middle Ages
through the XIV century. Generally speaking, from the accounts about that specific practice, we
consider questions that permeate the making of history in that period undertaking their notions of
truth, who they were and from where such writtings were produced.

Our article explores the bed as an object that projects notions of status, aspiration, decorum, and morality. We are interested in the economic and symbolic values that accrue to the bed, bedding, and the bedroom in late medieval England, as described in wills and household accounts, and as evoked in literary and artistic imagery. We situate our analysis in relation to literal and represented household beds, those associated with birth and inheritance and also those portrayed in images of death. “Childbed” and “deathbed” are terms that frame the human lifecycle. They also invoke the most important item of furniture in the premodern household. To Johan Bedell my servaunt . . . an honest whole complete bed and all other things therto belonging for a bedde.—John Goodwyn, 1522 (TNA Prob11/20/377) Take here hede and lerne howeȝ þou schalt make an honest bede and a good plesinge vnto god profitabel and worschipful vnto þi soule. (Take heed here and learn how you shall make an honest bed a...

A magnate, as a monarch in miniature, was required to ensure that rule of his ‘country’ conformed to certain established conventions. Understanding these constraints leads onto wider consideration of the nature of bastard feudal (patron-broker-client) ties, and the importance of royal patronage in influencing local patterns of governance and magnates’ spheres of influence.

Esse artigo propõe-se a fazer uma análise de como a figura fantástica da fênix fora trabalhada em diferentes tempos: durante o final do Medievo (na cronologia da Europa Ocidental), no entorno do século XII, e na contemporaneidade, retratada pelo universo cinematográfico da saga Harry Potter. Para entender seu papel no medievo serão analisadas versões traduzidas para o inglês de dois bestiários datados do entorno do século XII, Book of Beasts e Aberdeen Bestiary, enquanto sua representação contemporânea será analisada a partir de cenas dos seguintes filmes: Harry Potter e a Câmara Secreta, Harry Potter e a Ordem da Fênix e Harry Potter e as Relíquias da Morte: Parte 2. A partir do entendimento do papel social das narrativas sobre essa figura no final da Idade Média serão então traçados paralelos com o que fora retratado nos filmes, buscando analisar se houve a reapropriação de suas características e funções.
This paper proposes to make an analysis of how the fantastic figure of the phoenix had been worked at different times: during the end of Middle Ages (in Western European chronology), around the twelfth century, and contemporaneously, portrayed by the cinematographic universe of the Harry Potter saga. In order to understand its role in the Middle Ages, versions translated into English of two bestiaries dated from the twelfth century will be analyzed, Book of Beasts and Aberdeen Bestiary, while their contemporary representation will be analyzed from scenes from the following films: Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets , Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2. From the understanding of the social role of the narratives about this figure in the late Middle Ages a parallel will be drawn to what was portrayed in the films, seeking to analyze whether there was a reappropriation of its characteristics and functions.

Among the cultural traits shared across European countries in the Middle Ages, one of the most prominent elements of their common classical inheritance is often forgotten by scholars: Roman law. Commentaries on aspects of the law were produced in many European countries by the leading thinkers of the period, whose works had considerable influence upon the decisions of kings and governments. This chapter focuses upon some less well known evidence for the reception of Italian legal and political works in the northern English city of York in the late fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries, where the library of John Neuton, treasurer of York Minster, demonstrates the importance of the works of Bartolus of Saxoferrato and Giles of Rome to leading English intellectuals and practitioners of the day. The scope of the chapter is limited to the evidence concerning Neuton’s library, providing a case study for further work on the holdings of the other medieval libraries in York.

The integral version in French is available here: https://www.cairn.info/revue-historique-2011-2.htm.
The alchemical works of Thomas Norton (The Ordinal of Alchemy) and George Ripley (The Compound of Alchemy) are two of the most important testimonies of the popularity of alchemy in England, in the second half of the fifteenth- century. Nevertheless, they generally have been studied only for their pseudo-scientific content, and very much depreciated. However, their writers address, especially in their prologues, some important questions on literature, language and knowledge, and also on the prince and the relations of power in the society. Their choice to transmit a discipline located at the junction of science and art (in the medieval sense of the term) and characterized by secrecy, in a poetical form and in an accessible vernacular language, raises, indeed, many interrogations. It points to the facts that the established boundaries between literary and scientific texts are not always pertinent; that in the second half of the fifteenth-century, English has indeed became a language of transmission of knowledge. Overall, these alchemical treatises in verse contribute to the formation of a lay culture marked by its English identity. At the same time, they are an invitation to think about the multiplicity and the complexity of contemporary conceptions of knowledge – even with regards to a specific type of knowledge, alchemy. Finally, the political aspects of these texts are important: both Norton, and more openly, Ripley, want to help to transform the prince, who must be actor and object of this change, to improve the governance of the country. This is all the more necessary in a political society destabilized by the Wars of the Roses.

The depiction of interlocutors who mix Latin, French or English in medieval texts suggests that language-mixing in speech was a feature of communication in late medieval England. Approaches adapted from studies of multilingualism in linguistics are applied in this analysis to patterns of mixed-language speech in The Chronicle of Pierre de Langtoft, The Canterbury Tales and Piers Plowman. Cases of multilingual communication in each text demonstrate that social motivations characterize why speakers strategically select or integrate languages. In interactions between interlocutors whose identities and status differ, mixed-language speech serves to construct authority and restrict membership across social and literate groups.

Our article explores the bed as an object that projects notions of status, aspiration, decorum, and morality. We are interested in the economic and symbolic values that accrue to the bed, bedding, and the bedroom in late medieval England, as described in wills and household accounts, and as evoked in literary and artistic imagery. We situate our analysis in relation to literal and represented household beds, those associated with birth and inheritance and also those portrayed in images of death. “Childbed” and “deathbed” are terms that frame the human lifecycle. They also invoke the most important item of furniture in the premodern household. To Johan Bedell my servaunt . . . an honest whole complete bed and all other things therto belonging for a bedde.—John Goodwyn, 1522 (TNA Prob11/20/377) Take here hede and lerne howeȝ þou schalt make an honest bede and a good plesinge vnto god profitabel and worschipful vnto þi soule. (Take heed here and learn how you shall make an honest bed a...

Resumo: Entre os fins do século XV e início do XVI, desenvolveu-se na Inglaterra um culto
direcionado ao falecido rei Henrique VI de Lancaster. Elemento, acredita-se, surgido da
devoção popular, assumiu conotações políticas e legitimadoras dinásticas oriundas, sobretudo,
dos primeiros Tudor. Enquanto a historiografia procura analisar em sua grande maioria, como
autores medievais criaram imagens estereotipadas de Henrique VI que justificariam sua
santidade, este artigo busca analisar os modelos de santidade existentes nas fontes do século
XV, sem excluir a dimensão política que o culto ao monarca assumiu na Baixa Idade Média.
Portanto, far-se-á um debate utilizando obras referências que trataram sobre o culto, além de
fontes que atestam sobretudo um ideal de santidade confessora e martírio em relação ao rei.

Abstract: Between the end of the 15th century and the beginning of the 16th century, it had
developed in England a cult to the late king Henry VI of Lancaster. Element, it is believed,
originated from the popular devotion, it had assumed political and legitimate dynastic
connotations deriving, especially, from the first Tudors. While the historiography aims to
analyse in its majority how medieval authors created stereotyped images on Henry VI which
explained his sainthood, this paper aims to analyse the models of sainthood existing in
sources of the 15th century, without excluding the political dimension in which the cult to the
monarch assumed during the Late Middle Ages. Therefore, it is made a debate using reference
secondary sources that discuss the cult, besides the primary sources which attest, especially,
the ideal of confessor sainthood and martyrdom about the king

Divorce in Medieval England is intended to reorient scholarly perceptions concerning divorce in the medieval period. Divorce, as we think of it today, is usually considered to be a modern invention. This book challenges that viewpoint, documenting the many and varied uses of divorce in the medieval period and highlighting the fact that couples regularly divorced on the grounds of spousal incompatibility. Because the medieval church was determined to uphold the sacrament of marriage whenever possible, divorce in the medieval period was a much more complicated process than it is today. Thus, this book steps readers through the process of divorce, including: grounds for divorce, the fundamentals of the process, the risks involved, financial implications for wives who were legally disabled thanks to the rules of coverture, the custody and support of children, and finally, what happens after a divorce. Readers will gain a much greater appreciation of marriage and women’s position in later medieval England.

Available in paperback for $42.

Identification of a regional element to Edward IV’s governance – as accepted by numerous historians (D.A.L. Morgan, C.D. Ross, M.A. Hicks, and others) – was the inspiration for this interdisciplinary study which examines the crown's approach to government in South-West England: investigating Edward IV's policy towards the English regions, and exploring the feasibility of a regional approach to the politics, government, and elites of Cornwall, Devon, Dorset, and Somerset (1450–1500).

𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝟏 ◈ 𝐈𝐧𝐭𝐫𝐨𝐝𝐮𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧
Discussing historians’ views of Edward IV’s ‘regional policy’, its implications for governance (core-periphery relations, royal authority) and methodology (county studies, prosopography, South-West England as a ‘political region’) are extrapolated: by testing whether this regional model of governance is valid, this survey provides a synthesis and longer-term overview of the region’s shire societies – favouring a Britannicist perspective (emphasising regional differences and peripheries) – thereby offering an alternative view of late medieval English government.

𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝟐 ◈ 𝐑𝐞𝐠𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐈𝐝𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐞𝐬 𝐢𝐧 𝐒𝐨𝐮𝐭𝐡-𝐖𝐞𝐬𝐭 𝐄𝐧𝐠𝐥𝐚𝐧𝐝
Considering whether Edward IV’s scheme was based on existing expressions of regional identities, regions, identities, and their definitions are explored: examining how the south-western shires might be delineated by geography (geology, topography); economy (agriculture, commerce, settlement patterns); culture (ethnicities, counties, mythologies, laws); and political structures, both public (shrievalties, dioceses), and private (lordship); ultimately identifying the importance of the meso-scale regions of Somerset/Dorset and Devon/Cornwall.

𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝟑 ◈ 𝐏𝐨𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐥 𝐒𝐭𝐫𝐮𝐜𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐞𝐬
Political structures in general (council, parliament, royal household, crown estates, county administration), and with specific reference to the region, are explored: in particular, the prime role played by the Duchy of Cornwall (whose estates, regalities, and administration have remained largely unstudied). Consideration of lordship, with an exposition of the principles of patron-client ('bastard feudal'/clientelist) relationships and examination of the evidence (and limitations, subtleties, and uncertainties) relating to the (re-)construction of lordship/socio-political alliances, forms a basis for a methodological approach to the categorisation of clients into 'affinities' (a widely-accepted method in medieval Scottish historiography).

𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝟒 ◈ 𝐏𝐨𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐥 𝐄𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐞𝐬
The nature of elites and their definition is examined – suggesting the significance of counties’ administrative elites (sheriffs, escheators, knights of the shire and burgesses (MPs), and JPs). This definition is applied to the region (comprising local peerage and administrative elites; totalling 347 individuals: 82 peers and 265 gentry), and the extent to which they may have identified with their locality, county, or region is questioned by evaluating the degree to which their land- and office-holding, marriage alliances, testamentary dispositions, and interactions were regional. The degree to which their associations were regional is examined by means of three case studies (selectively chosen because of their importance): the Hungerfords, Arundells, and Edgcumbes (in which the clientelist principles outlined in Chapter 3 are demonstrated).

The crown's use of royal household servants in local government – increasingly the vital institution for exerting royal influence (a topic unduly neglected) – is examined alongside regional governance and the significance of the Duchy of Cornwall. These themes – in ensuing chapters – are silhouetted against a (chronological) analysis of government and local political alignments (utilising published (and unpublished) family and county studies, and Duchy of Cornwall archives), with each county analysed on an equal basis (thereby highlighting recurrences of major figures and themes between shires), and a regional evaluation offering a broader overview.

𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝟓 ◈ 𝐏𝐚𝐭𝐫𝐨𝐧𝐬, 𝐂𝐥𝐢𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐬, 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐏𝐨𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐜𝐬, 𝟏𝟒𝟓𝟎–𝟔𝟏
After consideration of pertinent personalities during previous decades, the influence of the Beaufort Dukes of Somerset in Somerset and Dorset (involving associations with Lords Stourton and Hungerford) is examined, before outlining Bonville-Courtenay rivalry and the pre-eminence of William, Lord Bonville (through associations with Sir Philip Courtenay, and William, Lord FitzWaryn in Devon, and John Arundell in Cornwall). Later, the regional ascendancy of James, Earl of Ormond and Wiltshire during Queen Margaret’s direction of government is also explored.

𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝟔 ◈ 𝐑𝐞𝐠𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐚𝐥 𝐆𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐧𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐑𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐩𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧, 𝟏𝟒𝟔𝟏–𝟕𝟏
There is a particular emphasis on Edward IV’s gubernatorial system and the regional ascendancy of Humphrey, Lord Stafford of Southwick later Earl of Devon (d.1469) who held estates and Duchy offices throughout the region and appears to have been associated with Stourton-Hungerford associates in Somerset/Dorset (through his uncle, Lord Stourton), former Bonville-FitzWaryn affiliates (Devon), and Arundell associates in Cornwall (through his stepfather, John Arundell).

𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝟕 ◈ 𝐑𝐞𝐠𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐚𝐥 𝐆𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐧𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐑𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐮𝐜𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠, 𝟏𝟒𝟕𝟏–𝟖𝟑
The re-structuring of regional politics during Edward IV's second reign is examined: from an initial focus upon George, Duke of Clarence, to the roles of William, Lord Hastings (through his son’s marriage to the Hungerford heiress) in Somerset/Dorset, John, Lord Dinham (Devon), and the potential regional significance of Thomas, Marquess of Dorset (through his marriage to the Bonville heiress).

𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝟖 ◈ 𝐔𝐬𝐮𝐫𝐩𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐔𝐩𝐡𝐞𝐚𝐯𝐚𝐥, 𝟏𝟒𝟖𝟑–𝟓
Contributing to ongoing discourses concerning the region’s contribution to the October Rebellion, Richard III’s ‘Northern Plantations’, and the uneasy aftermath, focus falls on the roles of Lords Audley and Zouche (Somerset/Dorset), and the importance of Lord Dinham (Devon) and Sir James Tyrell (through his Arundell marriage) in Cornwall.

𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝟗 ◈ 𝐂𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐒𝐞𝐭𝐭𝐥𝐞𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭, 𝟏𝟒𝟖𝟓–𝟏𝟓𝟎𝟎
Henry VII's governance – which remains largely unexplored with regard to local and regional politics – is examined: surveying a complex settlement and highlighting the relevance of Lord Cheyne (husband of Lord Stourton’s widow), and the prominence of Giles, Lord Daubeney (Somerset/Dorset). Similarly, whilst recognising the important roles of Lord Dinham and Edward, Earl of Devon (Devon), and the Edgcumbes, and John Arundell (Cornwall), the significance of Robert, Lord Willoughby de Broke (Cornwall/Devon) is also examined.

𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝟏𝟎 ◈ 𝐂𝐨𝐧𝐜𝐥𝐮𝐬𝐢𝐨𝐧
The themes of ‘regional governance’ and ‘household governance’ are evaluated within a wider historical context. Rather than stressing the role of magnate-led-affinities, leading-gentry-led associations may have provided a durable foundation beneath the evanescent manoeuvrings of local politics. In addition, elites’ interactions, alliances, and identities indicate the strength of the county-unit and meso-regional communities of Somerset/Dorset and Devon/Cornwall (as discerned in the region’s geography, economy, and culture), and the broader relevance of south-western elites and identities is discussed in relation to the study of meso- and macro-scale regions.

As an ancillary core, the Duchy of Cornwall projected royal authority thereby providing a regional ‘political centre’ whilst successive appointments of magnates (with region-wide interests) to Duchy offices ensured that regional ‘governors’ became political foci. However, these hegemonies may have failed, ultimately, because they ignored pre-existing county/meso-regional identities. Moreover, because of the inherently unstable nature of quasi-regal hegemonies, the regional trend in governance discernible during the period may have been a factor in the continuance of the Wars of the Roses: but these twin policies of regional and household governance ended with Henry VII's change in approach (and trend towards conciliarisation).

This survey integrates local, regional, and national perspectives, and aims at achieving a greater appreciation of royal authority, patronage, and government in late medieval south-western England, whilst offering a perspective placed within a broader context of longer-term trends in governance, institutional evolution, and state formation during the later Middle Ages.

𝐀𝐩𝐩𝐞𝐧𝐝𝐢𝐱 𝐈𝐈 ◈ 𝐃𝐢𝐫𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐨𝐫𝐲 𝐨𝐟 𝐏𝐨𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐥 𝐄𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐞𝐬, 𝟏𝟒𝟓𝟎–𝟏𝟓𝟎𝟎
Table I: Directory of Peerage (including all Courtenay Earls of Devon: Thomas, Thomas, John, and Edward)
Table II: Directory of Gentry

At the end of the Middle Ages, english political society knew great transformations. The making of a political language in english, existing notably in contemporary literature, is a reflection as well as a motor of these transformations. The uncertainties about the expression of key categories, people and community, witness this. Their analysis suggests an increased separation between the kingdom’s subjects and those who represent them, a society more hierarchised, but with tensions and hesitations.

Our article explores the bed as an object that projects notions of status, aspiration, decorum, and morality. We are interested in the economic and symbolic values that accrue to the bed, bedding, and the bedroom in late medieval England, as described in wills and household accounts, and as evoked in literary and artistic imagery. We situate our analysis in relation to literal and represented household beds, those associated with birth and inheritance and also those portrayed in images of death. “Childbed” and “deathbed” are terms that frame the human lifecycle. They also invoke the most important item of furniture in the premodern household. To Johan Bedell my servaunt . . . an honest whole complete bed and all other things therto belonging for a bedde.—John Goodwyn, 1522 (TNA Prob11/20/377) Take here hede and lerne howeȝ þou schalt make an honest bede and a good plesinge vnto god profitabel and worschipful vnto þi soule. (Take heed here and learn how you shall make an honest bed a...

Providing an indispensable resource for students and scholars studying the history of medieval women and gender, this book provides a comprehensive depiction of women's lives in the 14th and 15th centuries. FEATURES Provides readers with an understanding of latemedieval women's daily lives, enabling a fuller appreciation of women's experiences in the distant past Examines women of all classes, rather than focusing exclusively on aristocratic ladies Provides a full picture of women's lives from birth to death, combining focus on such significant moments as marriage and childbirth with more common elements, such as work, food, and clothing Includes 15 images that bring the text to life

Originally presented at the Vagantes Conference on Medieval Studies, University of Notre Dame, March 10, 2017.

Beginning in the fourteenth century, the image of John the Baptist’s head on a charger was isolated from its narrative context and transformed into an andachtsbild, a non-narrative devotional image. The ensemble of head-and-plate is collectively referred to in scholarship as a Johannesschüssel, and it appears throughout Europe in a variety of forms: as three-dimensional sculpture, as a seal, on painted panels, and even on keystones. Towards the end of the fifteenth century in England, a regionally specific tradition of alabaster relief panels of John the Baptist’s head on a plate emerged as popular objects for private devotion. Taking the corpus of alabaster reliefs of the Baptist’s head as my focus, I explore the English Johannesschüsseln through the lens of medieval food and feasting practices. Biblical and exegetical texts surrounding the Johannesschüssel conflate it with the eucharist and repeatedly emphasize its role as spectacle within a feast. But spectacle encompasses a broader category than plays, jousting, or musical performances—the tablescape itself would have been dotted with marvelous objects called entremets or sotelties. Ultimately, if the biblical episode of Saint John’s martyrdom is examined within the context of feasting culture, the Baptist’s head is akin to an entremet presented at the table as a kind of macabre curiosity. John’s head is presented on a plate at a feast as though it were simply another illusionistically crafted course in a series of elaborate dishes. As an image that transgressed the boundaries between living and dead, and between object, person, and food, the Johannesschüssel fits within the category of entremet—a small-scale spectacle set amongst food at the table for entertainment. Ultimately, the Baptist’s head acts as a true feast for the eyes: nourishing for the spirit, but not to be physically ingested.

As a case study of the interaction between central government and the localities, this survey of Somerset and Dorset political societies (between 1461 and 1485) focusses upon the local nobility, shire administrators and members of the royal household, with consideration of such themes as Edward IV’s regional policy and Richard III’s ‘Northern Plantations’.

◈ 𝐏𝐫𝐨𝐬𝐨𝐩𝐨𝐠𝐫𝐚𝐩𝐡𝐲
The study of individuals’ biographies (prosopography) is of prime importance to our appreciation of the relationships between individuals, between individuals and institutions, and within institutions.

In studying the political elites of south-western England during the later fifteenth century, it is necessary to consider the role of the royal affinity in local government.

◈ 𝐑𝐨𝐲𝐚𝐥 𝐀𝐟𝐟𝐢𝐧𝐢𝐭𝐲 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐂𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭𝐲 𝐀𝐝𝐦𝐢𝐧𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧
After surveying the structure of the royal court and the importance of its various officers (such as knights and esquires of the king’s body), the more significant local-government roles (such as sheriff, escheator, knight of the shire and burgess (MP), and JP) are examined.

◈ 𝐂𝐨𝐧𝐜𝐥𝐮𝐬𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬
Discussion of some of the conclusions drawn from such analysis of office-holders (with regard to local, regional, and national politics and government, and the nature of royal authority during the reigns of Henry VI, Edward IV, Richard III, and Henry VII) leads onto an assessment of some of the advantages of prosopography: it is only by studying the individual that we can gain a picture of the general.

... battle of Eymet, Bergerac surrendered to the duke of Anjou, then, following the course of the river Dordogne, he took Ste-Foy-la-Grande without any opposition, Castillon after a siege of twelve days, and moved to enter the Bazadais.33 There, his army took Monségur, Caudrot, St ...

The Gascon Rolls are the main source on "English" Gascony kept at the National Archives (TNA) of Kew. Since 2008, three editorial projects are publishing on the web the calendars of this source for the period 1317 to 1467.
Guilhem Pépin has finished to complete the period 1399-1453 which is now available online.

The English state in the late Middle Ages was marred by a crisis of royal authority that was as traumatic as it was avoidable. The period is often seen as one characterized by wholly contrasting royal figures — the great warrior-kings Edward I and Edward III stand in stark contrast with the deposed Richard and Edward IIs’. Yet, upon closer inspection, our notion of the strengths and weaknesses of these royals prove significantly less clear cut, and the condition of royal power in the kingdom they ruled, even more so. By assessing the state of the royal administration, the strength of their finances, and the control exercised over law and order in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, one can see the diversity that the two later Edwards and Richard display in the realities of royal power.

(Duplicate entry generated by Academia.edu) As Alan Forey noted in his 1992 book on the Military Orders, the military orders ‘were often accused of profiting by abusing their rights and privileges’. Not only were they accused of abusing them, but ‘the secular clergy … frequently claimed that they were seeking to extend their ecclesiastical privileges unlawfully’.  This chapter considers just such a disagreement that occurred in 1521 between Charles Booth, bishop of Hereford (1516–35), and Thomas Docwra, grand prior of the Hospital of St John of Jerusalem in England (1501–27).  The exchange of views recorded in the bishop’s registers demonstrates both the directions in which the Hospitallers exploited their privileges and the means by which they sought to defend them.  More widely, it reveals the disputes that could arise between any religious order that was generally exempt from episcopal jurisdiction and a bishop who was trying to discharge his pastoral duties and collect the revenue that was due to him. The timing of this dispute, in the third decade of the sixteenth century, means that it also illuminates relationships between the secular clergy and the exempt regular religious orders in the English Church just before the Dissolution of the monasteries

Plenary lecture, 43rd Annual Mid-America Medieval Association, University of Missouri, Kansas City, September 14th, 2019

This talk brings together my work from the late 1990s and my more recent research on the manuscript that I call the Welles-Ros Bible (Paris BnF MS fr. 1), the most complete surviving witness and sole extant illuminated copy of the Anglo-Norman Bible, the "earliest full prose vernacular Bible produced in England" (Russell).  Building on recent work by biblical and literary scholars, I argue that this grand multilingual manuscript and the revised translation that it contains were produced in the later fourteenth century on the order of one or more matriarchs of the baronial Welles family of Lincolnshire.  I discuss the circumstances of the commission and the volume's functions and principal intended reader; and show how the Bible's rich pictorial and heraldic program reframes Christian salvation history as Welles family history.  Moreover, the manuscript's main artist clearly read the scriptural text assiduously, adapting or even rejecting his wide-ranging, trans-regional models in order to visualize for his noble audience both the sense of the vernacular translation and its very words.  My talk sheds new light on lay literate and religious aspiration and pedagogy; the history of bible translation and reception; women's cultural patronage; artists' literacy and working methods; medieval constructions of gender, sexuality, health, memory, and the emotions; and English art, society, politics, and culture after the Black Death.

*Honorable Mention, 2020 Society of Fellows for Critical Biography Essay Prize* from the Rare Books School, UVA. This article compares the circulation and reception of useful knowledge—from medical and craft recipes to prognostications and agricultural treatises—in late medieval English manuscripts and early printed practical books. It first surveys the contents and composition of eighty-eight fifteenth-century vernacular practical manuscripts identified in significant collections in the United States and United Kingdom. Close analysis of four of these late medieval practical miscellanies reveals that their compilers saw these manuscripts as repositories for the collection of an established body of useful knowledge. The article then traces the transmission of these medieval practical texts in early printed books. As the pressures of a commercial book market gradually transformed how these practical texts were presented, readers became conditioned to discover "new" knowledge in the pages of printed books. The introduction to England of the "book of secrets" in 1558 encouraged readers to hunt for "secrets" in unpublished medieval manuscripts, ensuring that these century-old sources would remain important sites for useful knowledge well into the early modern era.

York, York Minster Library MS XVI E. 32 is a late medieval codex, primarily written in English, which seems to be a living example of what a vernacular guide for medical practitioners was in fifteenth-century England. The manuscript is basically composed of herbal recipes; however, it also includes other texts considered to be scientific at that time, such as a chiromancy diagram, to interpret character from the lines on the palm of a person’s hand or a bloodletting man, to know the veins that had to be cut to cure certain diseases.

A codicological analysis of the volume shows that a compiler and/or binder arranged its ten independent booklets to fit a purpose. It is my belief that this person’s aim was to assemble a group of utilitarian texts which turned out to be useful even to post-medieval readers, as suggested by the marginalia. I intend to provide a description of its treatises and collections in order to show the kind of medical texts that were thought to be indispensable in late medieval England.

https://legalhistorymiscellany.com/2019/02/08/femme-sole-status-a-failed-feminist-dream/

When reading over an anonymous reviewer’s comments on a manuscript I was writing on the subject of women’s legal disability in medieval England, I was genuinely surprised by one of the recommendations. He (or she) asked me to insert a reminder to my audience that, when it comes to the law, not all married women experienced the strictures of coverture. The legal designation of femme sole (“woman alone”) made some women an exception to the rule.

Sanctuary Seekers in England is a spreadsheet presenting all the instances of sanctuary-seeking in England that I have uncovered for the period 1380-1557, more than 1800 seekers altogether. It is a companion to my book, Seeking Sanctuary: Crime, Mercy, and Politics in English Courts, 1400-1550 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017). UPDATED 9 OCT. 2018. SEE https://shannonmcsheffrey.wordpress.com/research/ FOR LATEST VERSION.