Challenges the orthodoxy that insists government alone can improve community life

The links between Cornwall, a county frequently considered remote and separate in the Middle Ages, and the wider realm of England are newly discussed. Winner of The Federation of Old Cornwall Societies (FOCS) Holyer an Gof Cup for non-fiction, 2020. Stretching out into the wild Atlantic, fourteenth-century Cornwall was a land at the very ends of the earth. Within itsboundaries many believed that King Arthur was a real-life historical Cornishman and that their natal shire had once been the home of mighty giants. Yet, if the county was both unusual and remarkable, it still held an integral place in the wider realm of England. Drawing on a wide range of published and archival material, this book seeks to show how Cornwall remained strikingly distinctive while still forming part of the kingdom. It argues that myths, saints, government, and lordship all endowed the name and notion of Cornwall with authority in the minds of its inhabitants, forging these people into a commonalty. At the same time, the earldom-duchy and the Crown together helped to link the county into the politics of England at large. With thousands of Cornishmen and women drawn east of the Tamar by the needs of the Crown, warfare, lordship, commerce, the law, the Church, and maritime interests, connectivity with the wider realm emerges as a potent integrative force. Supported by a cast of characters ranging from vicious pirates and gentlemen-criminals through to the Black Prince, the volume sets Cornwall in the latest debates about centralisation, devolution, and collective identity, about the nature of Cornishness and Englishness themselves. S.J. DRAKE is a Research Associate at the Institute of Historical Research. He was born and brought up in Cornwall.

Fruits of the most recent research on the thirteenth century in both England and Europe. The articles collected here reflect the continued and wide interest in England and its neighbours in the years between Magna Carta and the Black Death, with many of them particularly seeking to set England in its European context.There are three main strands to the volume. The first is the social dimension of power, and the norms and practice of politics: attention is drawn to the variety of roles open to members of the clergy, but also peasants and townsmen, and the populace at large. Several chapters explore the manifestations and instruments of social identity, such as the seals used by the leading elites of thirteenth-century London, and the marriage practices of the Englisharistocracy. The third main focus is the uses of the past. Matthew Paris, the most famous chronicler of the period, receives due attention, in particular his changing attitude towards the monarch, but the Vita Edwardi Secundi's portrayal of Thomas of Lancaster and the Anglo-Norman Prose Brut are also considered. Janet Burton is Professor of Medieval History at University of Wales: Trinity Saint David; Phillipp Schofield is Professor of Medieval History at Aberystwyth University; Björn Weiler is Professor of History at Aberystwyth University. Contributors: J.R. Maddicott, Phillipp Schofield, Harmony Dewez, John McEwan, Jörg Peltzer, Karen Stöber, Olga Cecilia Méndez González, Sophie Ambler, Joe Creamer, Lars Kjær, Andrew Spencer, Julia Marvin, Olivier de Laborderie

Miss Faith Thompson has undertaken an incredibly difficult task. An institution is always the product of its environment both past and present and can be understood only in relation to it. Hence the historian of any institution must depict the relevant fe.