Synopses & Reviews
This collection of essays takes a fresh and invigorating look at late-medieval English society by focusing not on how people lived but on how they saw the world and their place in it. Alongside contributions on how different social groups saw themselves and were seen by others are more general discussions of key aspects of fifteenth-century life: attitudes to the rule of law, to the power of the ruler, to education, to honour and service, and finally to death.
Review
"This volume of well-connected chapters--whose coherence is a compliment to the editor--is timely....this book fulfills most hopes of the scholar (and I suspect student) grappling with what it meant to participate in fifteenth-century England. The writing is strong throughout....This book is to be recommended for its clarity, range, examples, and pedagogical usefulness--it is well illustrated--but also for the way that it prods the reader to re-fashion his summary vision of this once 'dark age of English historiography'..." Albion"This volume of well-connected chapters--whose coherence is a compliment to the editor--is timely....this book fulfills most hopes of the scholar (and I suspect student) grappling with what it meant to participate in fifteenth-century England. The writing is strong throughout....This book is to be recommended for its clarity, range, examples, and pedagogical usefulness--it is well illustrated--but also for the way that it prods the reader to re-fashion his summary vision of this once 'dark age of English historiography'..." Albion"More than half a century ago, MacFarlane warned against 'the habit of assuming a simplicity of behaviour and of motive in medieval politicians that is wholly unwarranted by our knowledge'. This book will help to guard against that habit in relation not only to medieval politicians, but to medieval society as a whole." Helen Castor, Times Literary Supplement
Review
'... deserves a place on every library shelf ... it is consistently brief, clear, jargon-free and hence accessible both to the general reader and to the specialist ... All contributors ... parade an impressive and sometimes staggering range, which cumulatively give the book a freshness, originality and unexpectedness that is very inviting.' The Ricardian
Review
'... Rosemary Horrox and her collaborators have demonstrated, superbly, how worthwhile an objective empathy can prove under the discipline of scholarship.' Maurice Keen, The Journal of Ecclesiastical History
Synopsis
A collection of twelve innovative papers with small titles and big themes exploring perceptions of society in late medieval England, seeking to transcend the idea that this period was the waning' of the Middle Ages. Contributors include: G Harris (The king and his subjects); E Powell (Law and Justice); K Mertes (Aristocracy); R Horrox (Service); M Bennett (Education and advancement); P M Jones (Information and science); P Goldberg (Women); D Palliser (Urban society); M Bailey (Rural society); M Rubin (The poor); C Richmond (Religion); Margaret Aston (Death) .
Synopsis
A paperback edition of the successful 1994 collection of essays on society in fifteenth-century England.
Table of Contents
List of illustrations; Introduction Rosemary Horrox; 1. The king and his subjects G. L. Harriss; 2. Law and justice Edward Powell; 3. Aristocracy Kate Mertes; 4. Service Rosemary Horrox; 5. Education and advancement Michael J. Bennett; 6. Information and science Peter Murray Jones; 7. Women P. J. P. Goldberg; 8. Urban society D. M. Palliser; 9. Rural society Mark Bailey; 10. The poor Miri Rubin; 11. Religion Colin Richmond; 12. Death Margaret Aston.