Banbury was laid out as a planned new town in the 12th century by Alexander, Bishop of Lincoln. It incorporated a market place and was protected by the second in a series of castles. His grant of a charter launched the town as a regional trading centre especially noted for livestock – in which respect it remained unchallenged until the dramatic closure of ‘the Stockyard of Europe’ in 1998. Between those two events Banbury boasts a busy and eventful history. The author draws on earlier accounts, such as Beesley and Potts, but more so on his own extensive research into unpublished records, and the archaeological investigations, in this up-to-date and detailed exploration of the town’s entire past.The Cross, for which Banbury is best known, was destroyed by Puritans in the 17th century and only restored by the Victorians. The same zealous spirit led the incumbent William Whateley, the ‘Roaring Boy of Banbury’, to attribute the terrible fire of 1628 to God’s displeasure! Civil War sieges of the castle led to its demolition and the depopulation of much of the town, which owed its recovery to its central position in a network of new turnpike roads at the end of the 18th century when it was associated with Frederick, Lord North, elected as its MP on no fewer than thirteen occasions. The impact of the Oxford Canal, followed by the arrival of the railway, speeded its transition from an agricultural to an industrial economy, making proper local government necessary for its growing population. Still firmly at the centre of the modern road network, Banbury’s expansion since the doldrums of the late 1930s has been remarkable.Accompanied by numerous well-captioned illustrations, the author’s compelling narrative explores this fascinating past in fine detail. In the light of Banbury’s unique history and special identity, he considers the relevance of the past to the present and to the future of the town. This new analysis is sure to be the standard work on Banbury until well into the 21st century.

Vol. 6 includes "The Celebration of the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the incorporation of the town of Topsfield, Massachusetts, August 16-17, 1900."

Despite the importance of the subject to contemporaries, this is the first monograph to look at the institution of godparenthood in early modern English society. Utilising a wealth of hitherto largely neglected primary source data, this work explores godparenthood, using it as a framework to illuminate wider issues of spiritual kinship and theological change. It has become increasingly common for general studies of family and religious life in pre-industrial England to make reference to the spiritual kinship evident in the institution of godparenthood. However, although there have been a number of important studies of the impact of the institution in other periods, this is the first detailed monograph devoted to the subject in early modern England. This study is possible due to the survival, contrary to many expectations, of relatively large numbers of parish registers that recorded the identities of godparents in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. By utilising this hitherto largely neglected data, in conjunction with evidence gleaned from over 20,000 Wills and numerous other biographical, legal and theological sources, Coster has been able to explore fully the institution of godparenthood and the role it played in society. This book takes the opportunity to study an institution which interacted with a range of social and cultural factors, and to assess the nature of these elements within early modern English society. It also allows the findings of such an investigation to be compared with the assumptions that have been made about the fortunes of the institution in the context of a changing European society. The recent historiography of religion in this period has focused attention on popular elements of religious practice, and stressed the conservatism of a society faced with dramatic theological and ritual change. In this context a study of godparenthood can make a contribution to understanding how religious change occurred and the ways in which popular religious practice was affected.

This book provides an overview of the history of policing in the UK. Its primary aim is to investigate the shifting nature of policing over time, and to provide a historical foundation to today's debates. Policing: a short history moves away from a focus on the origins of the 'new police', and concentrates rather on broader (but much neglected) patterns of policing. How was there a shift from communal responsibility to policing? What has been expected of the police by the public and vice versa? How have the police come to dominate modern thinking on policing? The book shows how policing - in the sense of crime control and order maintenance - has come to be seen as the work which the police do, even though the bulk of policing is undertaken by people and organisations other than the police. This book will be essential reading for anybody interested in the history of policing, on how differing perceptions emerged on the function of policing on the part of the public, the state and the police, and in today's intense debates on what the police do.