The Records Of Medival England

The first articles here are concerned with the administration of canon law, the law of the Church, and its application in England in the 12th-15th centuries. At the centre of this law was the Papal court, and Dr Sayers examines how this worked in practice, how cases involving English litigants were dealt with, and by whom. Other articles look at the procedures of the church courts in England, and specific areas of local jurisdiction such as that of monastic archdeacons. In the second group of articles, she turns to records, their compilation, use and retention. Of the texts studied, some relate directly to the church courts, others are privileges or charters. The author seeks to elucidate the diplomatic interest of these documents, and to show how much their study and the study of archives can reveal, whether on the history of a great monastic house, such as the abbey of St Alban, or on the particular significance of a privilege granted to the small leper house of St Giles at Maldon. Additional notes and an extensive index enhance the value of the collection.

Full text and translation of the meetings of the English parliaments from Edward I to Henry VII, covering the years from 1275 to 1504. All surviving records of the parliaments, including many texts from the Public Record Office and other British repositories that had never been previously published are given in full, with new scholarly introductions to each parliament. The parliament rolls themselves are freshly transcribed from the original documents, while the transcripts incorporate precise information about the text in the documents (e.g. deleted and unreadable text)

Entries on persons living in post-Conquest England (1066-1166), documented in Domesday book, pipe rolls, and Cartae Baronum. Includes Continental origins, family relationships, and descent of fees.

Heresy was the most feared crime in the medieval moral universe. It was seen as a social disease capable of poisoning the body politic and shattering the unity of the church. The study of heresy in late medieval England has, to date, focused largely on the heretics. In consequence, we know very little about how this crime was defined by the churchmen who passed authoritative judgement on it. By examining the drafting, publicizing, and implementing of new laws against heresy in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, using published and unpublished judicial records, this book presents the first general study of inquisition in medieval England. In it Ian Forrest argues that because heresy was a problem simultaneously national and local, detection relied upon collaboration between rulers and the ruled. While involvement in detection brought local society into contact with the apparatus of government, uneducated laymen still had to be kept at arm's length, because judgements about heresy were deemed too subtle and important to be left to them. Detection required bishops and inquisitors to balance reported suspicions against canonical proof, and threats to public safety against the rights of the suspect and the deficiencies of human justice. At present, the character and significance of heresy in late medieval England is the subject of much debate. Ian Forrest believes that this debate has to be informed by a greater awareness of the legal and social contexts within which heresy took on its many real and imagined attributes.

The rolls of parliament were the official records of the meetings of the English parliament from the reign of Edward I (1272-1307) until the reign of Henry VII (1485-1509), after which they were superseded by the journals of the lords, and, somewhat later, the commons. This volume covers the first ten years of the reign of Edward III. It begins with the parliament of 1327, during which Edward II was deposed, which was called in the name of Edward II but was treated as the first parliament of the reign of Edward III. In addition to the deposition and later murder of Edward II, this period was marked by other dramatic events: the rule of Roger Mortimer and Isabella, the former queen of Edward II; the trials in 1330 of Mortimer and his accomplices for the murder of Edward II; the renewal of war with Scotland and the path to war with France. All these are reflected directly or indirectly in the Parliament Rolls. An introduction is provided to each of the Parliaments during this period, discussing the political context in which it was held; the purpose for which it was summoned; who was summoned; and analyzing the proceedings of the parliament both as recorded in the Parliament Rolls and in other sources, such as royal records and chronicles. Seymour Phillips is Professor of History, University College Dublin; Mark Ormrod is Professor of History, University of York.

The rolls of parliament were the official records of the meetings of the English parliament from the reign of Edward I (1272-1307) until the reign of Henry VII (1485-1509), after which they were superseded by the journals of the lords, and, somewhat later, the commons. The rolls were first edited in the eighteenth century and published in 1767 in six folio volumes entitled Rotuli Parliamentorum, under the general editorship of the Reverend John Strachey. This new edition reproduces the rolls in their entirety, together with a few individual items published since 1783, as well as a substantial amount of material never previously published; it is complemented by a full translation of all the texts from the three languages used by the medieval clerks (Latin, Anglo-Norman and Middle English). It also includes an introduction to every parliament known to have been held by an English king (or in his name) between 1275 and 1504, whether or not the roll for that parliament survives. Where appropriate, appendices of supplementary material are also provided, and there is a General Introduction to the rolls. Sets include a copy of a CDROM for quick reference and index purposes. Contributors to the set are as follows: PAUL BRAND (1275-1307), SEYMOUR PHILLIPS (1307-1337), MARK ORMROD (1337-1377), GEOFFREY MARTIN (1377-1379), CHRIS GIVEN-WILSON (1380-1421), ANNE CURRY (1422-1453), ROSEMARY HORROX (1455-1504).

The accounts of one of the great estates of medieval England, from 1209. A remarkable survival, they supply detailed evidence on a range of issues. The Winchester pipe rolls - the estate accounts of the bishops of Winchester - constitute one of the most remarkable documentary survivals from medieval England, and are without parallel anywhere in the world, supplying detailed evidence for agriculture, prices, wages, the land market and peasant society in an exceptionally well-preserved sequence from 1209 onwards. They have attracted the attention of historians of medieval economy and society for over acentury, first in deposit in the Public Record Office, more recently in Hampshire Record Office. The essays collected here celebrate their survival and demonstrate their quality, putting them into perspective as a documentary source, and assessing how far their evidence is representative of England as a whole. The volume also demonstrates some of the new ways in which they are being put to use to enhance knowledge of medieval England, with a numberof the articles concerned with recent research projects. The book is completed with a handlist of these records up to 1455, the year in which the bishopric administration started to keep its accounts in registers rather than rolls. Contributors: RICHARD H. BRITNELL, BRUCE M. S. CAMPBELL, JOHN LANGDON, JOHN MULLAN, MARK PAGE, K. J. STOCKS, CHRISTOPHER THORNTON, NICHOLAS C. VINCENT. The late RICHARD BRITNELL was Professor of History at the University of Durham.