In this collections of essays Robin Frame concentrates upon two themes: the place of the Lordship of Ireland within the Plantagenet state; an the interaction of settler society and English government in the culturally hybrid frontier world of later medieval Ireland itself. As a prelude of both these themes, "Ireland and Britain, 1170-1450" begins with a discussion of why 'the first English conquest of Ireland' has been viewed as a 'failure'. The first group of essays addresses such topics as the changing character of the aristocratic networks that bound Ireland to Britain; the impact of the Scottish invasion led by Edward and Robert Bruce in the early fourteenth century; the identity of the 'English' political community that emerged in Ireland by the reign of Edward III; and the case for a broadly conceived English history, incorporating rather than excluding the English of Ireland. The subsequent group explore the character of Irish warfare, the adaptation of English institutions to a marcher environment; the exercise of power by regional magnates; and the complex practical interactions between royal government and Gaelic Irish leaders.

This volume extends the 'British Isles' approach pioneered by Robin Frame and Rees Davies to the later middle ages. Through examination of issues such as frontier formation, colonial identities and connections with the wider world it explores whether this period saw the bonds between the British Isles weaken, strengthen, or simply alter.

There is a growing interest in the history of relations between the English, Scottish, Welsh and Irish as the United Kingdom and Ireland begin to construct new political arrangements and to become more fully integrated into Europe. This book brings together work on how these relations developed between 900 and 1300, a period crucial for the formation of national identities. The conquest of England by the Normans and the subsequent growth in English power required the inhabitants of Britain and Ireland to reassess their dealings with each other. Old ties were broken and new ones formed. Economic change, the influence of chivalry, the transmission of literary motifs, and questions of aristocratic identity are among the topics tackled here by leading scholars from Britain, Ireland and North America. Little has been published hitherto on this subject, and the book marks a major contribution to a topic of lasting interest.

Medieval Ireland is associated in the public imagination with the ruined castles and monasteries that remain prominent in the Irish landscape. Crisis and Survival in Late Medieval Ireland: The English of Louth and their Neighbours, 1330-1450 examines how the society that produced these monuments developed over the course of a turbulent century, focussing particularly on county Louth, situated on the coast north of Dublin and adjacent to the earldom of Ulster. Louth was one of the areas that had been most densely colonised by English settlers in the decades around 1200, and ties with England and loyalty to the English crown remained strong. Its settlers found it possible to maintain close economic and political ties with England in part because of their proximity to the significant trading port of Drogheda, and the residence among them of the archbishop of Armagh, primate of Ireland, also extended their international horizons and contacts. In this volume, Brendan Smith explores the ways in which the English settlers in Louth maintained their English identity in the face of plague and warfare. The Black Death of 1348-9, and recurrent visitations of plague thereafter, reduced their numbers significantly and encouraged the Irish lordships on their borders to challenge their local supremacy. How to counter the threat from the MacMahons, O'Neills, and others, absorbed their energies and resources. It not only involved mounting armed campaigns, taking hostages, and building defences; it also meant intermarrying with these families and entering into numerous solemn, if short-lived, treaties with them. Smith draws on original source material, to present a picture of the English settlers in Louth, and to show how living in the borderlands of the English world coloured every aspect of settler life.

In the last decades of the thirteenth century the British Isles appeared to be on the point of unified rule, dominated by the lordship, law and language of the English. However by 1400 Britain and Ireland were divided between the warring kings of England and Scotland, and peoples still starkly defined by race and nation. Why did the apparent trends towards a single royal ruler, a single elite and a common Anglicised world stop so abruptly after 1300? And what did the resulting pattern of distinct nations and extensive borderlands contribute to the longer-term history of the British Isles? In this innovative analysis of a critical period in the history of the British Isles, Michael Brown addresses these fundamental questions and shows how the national identities underlying the British state today are a continuous legacy of these years. Using a chronological structure to guide the reader through the key periods of the era, this book also identifies and analyses the following dominant themes throughout: - the changing nature of kingship and sovereignty and their links to wars of conquest - developing ideas of community and identity - key shifts in the nature of aristocratic societies across the isles - the European context, particularly the roots and course of the Hundred Years War This is essential reading for undergraduates studying the history of late Medieval Britain or Europe, but will also be of great interest for anyone who wishes to understand the continuing legacy of the late medieval period in Britain.

In 1919, Prime Minister David Lloyd George of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland noted that “there is a path of fatality which pursues the relations between the two countries and makes them eternally at cross purposes.” For better or worse, Ireland has frequently been defined by its relationship with its neighbor to the east. And for centuries, English monarchs and governments have struggled with what they came to term “the Irish Question.” Through 76 primary source documents, contextualized by informative introductions and annotations, this volume explores the political, economic, and cultural impacts of the relationship between Ireland and England.

The extraordinary life story of an ambitious, thirteenth-century adventurer.