A new appraisal of the military careers and activities of soldiers from elite medieval families.

Dr Ayton has transformed understanding of Edward III's armies - compulsory reading for anyone interested in the Hundred Years War. WAR IN HISTORY [Michael Prestwich] The mounted, armoured knight is one of the most potent symbols of medieval civilisation; indeed, for much of the middle ages the armoured warhorse was what defined a man as a member of the military class. However, despite the status of the knightly warrior in medieval society, the military service of the later medieval English aristocracy remains an unaccountably neglected subject, and the warhorse itself has never attracted a major study based upon archival sources. This book seeks to open up new fields of research: it focuses on the horse inventories, documents which offer detailed lists of men-at-arms and their appraised warhorses, the valuation of which is a measure of its owner's social and military status. Dr Ayton is primarily concerned with the inventories and related records for Edward III's reign, a period which witnessed significant changes in the organisation of the English fighting machine. Thedocuments produced during this period of `military revolution' cast valuable light on the character and attitudes of the aristocratic military community at a time when its traditional role was in the course of re-evaluation. Dr ANDREW AYTON is senior lecturer in history at the University of Hull.

Crown-magnate relations, the Anglo-Scottish, Anglo-French and Anglo-Irish wars, national and local finance and administration and the nature of late medieval kingship are among the principal themes explored in this volume, along with aristocratic consumption, historical writing, chivalric culture and a review of recent work on crusading history. All newly commissioned from distinguished scholars, they shed new light on late medieval British political, military and governmental history. CONTRIBUTORS: NICHOLAS VINCENT, DAVID CARPENTER, M. L. HOLFORD, ARCHIE DUNCAN, MATTHEW STRICKLAND, BJORN WEILER, ROBIN FRAME, ANDY KING, W. MARK ORMROD, G. L. HARRISS, NORMAN HOUSLEY, ANNE CURRY, MAURICE KEEN, WENDY CHILDS

He reconstructs the extraordinary financial history of the dukes of Devonshire, narrates the story of the Cozens-Hardys, a Norfolk family who played a remarkably varied part in the life of their county, and offers a controversial reappraisal of the forebears, lives, work, and personalities of Harold Nicolson and Vita Sackville-West - a portrait, notes Cannadine, of more than a marriage.

A major perspective on Charles I's relationship with the English aristocracy in the lead up to the Civil War.

"A brilliant, multifaceted chronicle of economic and social change." --The New York Times At the outset of the 1870s, the British aristocracy could rightly consider themselves the most fortunate people on earth: they held the lion's share of land, wealth, and power in the world's greatest empire. By the end of the 1930s they had lost not only a generation of sons in the First World War, but also much of their prosperity, prestige, and political significance. Deftly orchestrating an enormous array of documents and letters, facts, and statistics, David Cannadine shows how this shift came about--and how it was reinforced in the aftermath of the Second World War. Astonishingly learned, lucidly written, and sparkling with wit, The Decline and Fall of the British Aristocracy is a landmark study that dramatically changes our understanding of British social history.