Essays offer a lively snapshot of important topics.
The essays presented here draw on a number of different approaches and
perspectives to address and illuminate key aspects and issues of the
period. Longitudinal studies of king's confessors and corrodies of the
crown provide insights into the intersection of political, religious and
demographic currents over the longue durée, and are complemented by
studies of documentary sources of various kinds - newsletters,
chronicles, and municipal archives - to challenge current understandings
of important events and processes such as the deposition of Edward II,
the evolving identity of the parliamentary peers, and Richard II's
vision for the house of Lancaster. Prosopographical and biographical
studies of post-plague clerics, and of knights within comital affinities
and within their own individual affinity groups, shed light on county
communities and gentry society; they also demonstrate the impact of the
Black Death on society at large, especially on the question of religious
continuity and discontinuity at the parish level.
Contributors: Paul Dryburgh, Pierre Gaite, Chris Given-Wilson, Michael
Jones, Taylor Kniphfer, Samuel Lane, Jonathan Mackman, Alison McHardy,
Matt Raven, David Robinson.