Focussing on the key role of the English medieval parliament in hearing and determining the requests of the king's subjects, this ground-breaking new study examines the private petition and its place in the late medieval English parliament (c.1270-1450). Until now, historians have focussed on the political and financial significance of the English medieval parliament; this book offers an important re-evaluation placing the emphasis on parliament as a crucial element in the provisionof royal government and justice. It looks at the nature of medieval petitioning, how requests were written and how and why petitioners sought redress specifically in parliament. It also sheds new light on the concept of royal grace and its practical application to parliamentary petitions thatrequired the king's personal intervention.The book traces the development of private petitioning over a period of almost two hundred years, from a point when parliament was essentially an instrument of royal administration, to one where it was self-consciously dispatching petitions as the highest court of the land. Gwilym Dodd considers not only the detail of the petitionary process, but also broader questions about the government of late medieval England. His conclusions contribute to our understanding of the nature of medievalmonarchy, and its ability (or willingness) to address local difficulties, as well as the nature of local society, and the problems that faced individuals and communities in medieval society.

The essays in this volume, some reprinted in their original form and some extensively revised, are concerned with the Arthurian traditions associated with Glastonbury Abbey. Certain of the essays are analytic and others provide editions of hitherto unknown texts. They all examine ways in which legendary materials and historical facts interconnected in the process by which Glastonbury Abbey came to present itself, nationally and internationally, as the custodian of King Arthur's relics and the burial place of Joseph of Arimathea, and the importance, political and ecclesiastical, that it derived from the connection. Professor JAMES CARLEY is the author of Glastonbury Abbey: The Holy House at the Head of the Moors Adventurous and a past editor of Arthurian Literature. Topics: Glastonbury Legends (WATKIN, GRANSDEN), Legend of St Joseph of Glastonbury (LAGORIO), Guinevere at Glastonbury (WOOD), Vera Historia de Morte Arthuri (BARBER, LAPIDGE), Was Mordred buried at Glastonbury? (BARBER), Glastonbury in Welsh Vernacular Tradition (LLOYD-MORGAN), Second Exhumation of Arthur's Remains, 1278 (PARSONS), Abbey Memorial Plate (GOODALL), Arthur's Epitaph/s (CARLEY, BROWN, WRIGHT, WITHRINGTON), Hardyng and Holy Grail (KENNEDY, RIDDY), Henry V and Joseph of Arimathea's Bones, Holy Cross of Waltham at Montacute, Excavation of Arthur's Grave (CARLEY), Perlesvaus (Wells fragment), Quedam Narracio de nobili rege Arthuro, De Origine Gigantum (CARLEY, CRICK, EVANS), Glastonbury tablets (KROCHALIS), Relics in 14th Century (CARLEY, HOWLEY).

This is the first detailed comparative study of patronage as an instrument of power in the relations between kings and bishops in England and Normandy after the Conquest. Esteemed medievalist Everett U. Crosby considers new perspectives of medieval state-building and the vexed relations between secular and ecclesiastical authority.

While Karl Leyser was pre-eminent in the English-speaking world as the historian of medieval Germany, his work has increased our understanding of European society as a whole. In particular, he brought to life nobles and ecclesiastics, by combining a profound knowledge of the primary sources with an imaginative ability to understand motives and attitudes. Warriors and Churchmen in the High Middle Ages brings together essays by Karl Leyser's pupils, many of them distinguished historians in their own right, on subjects which he himself illuminated.

This book in memory of F. Donald Logan explores different aspects of Christian culture and society in England from the twelfth to the sixteenth century. Although this period has traditionally been interpreted in terms of decline and decay, this excessively gloomy picture has slowly given way over the last eighty years or so to a more positive view of Christian civilization during these centuries. The twenty-two studies brought together here seek to build on this ongoing reassessment of Later Catholic England, especially in those areas in which Professor Logan himself had done so much to deepen our understanding of Christian English society. Contributors are: Travis Baker, Caroline Barron, Nicholas Bennett, Barbara Bombi, Paul Brand, Janet Burton, James G. Clark, Karen Corsano, Virginia Davis, Charles Donahue Jr, Anne J. Duggan, Joan Greatrex, Diana Greenway, Michael Haren, R.H. Helmholz, Philippa Hoskin, Henry Ansgar Kelly, Frederik Pedersen, Seymour Phillips, Michael J.P. Robson, Jens Röhrkasten, Jane Sayers, R.N. Swanson, Daniel Williman, and Patrick Zutshi.

The essaysthat comprise thisvolume were written over the period of some ten years, for different purposes and on different occasions, but they are unitedby a number of features, which this preface may serve to indicate. While the collection begins with a translation drawn from the fourth p- sentation of Hobbes’s political thought, namely, the Latin Leviathan of 1668, after The Elements of Law (1640), De Cive (1642 and 1647) and the English Leviathan of 1651, the focus of the essays is largely on theEnglish version of his masterpiece of political philosophy. It isthe center of gravityinthe twenty eight years spanninghis departure from England for exile in France in 1640 till the publication in 1668 of the Latin Leviathan,withits lengthy and c- plex Appendix. The translation andintroduction of theAppendix, previously published,appears here with several revisions and additions, as does the essay ‘Thomas Hobbes and the EconomicTrinity. ’ A second feature common to these essays isthe deliberate attempttomake sense of thereligious elements inHobbes’s thought, bothintheir own rightand inrelation to his politics and natural science. These themes are woven together in complex ways. For instance, objecting to the use of Greek philosophic language and concepts to interpret the doctrines of the Christian religion, he propounds what he takes to be a more thoroughly scriptural interpretation, in pursuit of the goal of demolishing the basis for anypower inthe state independent of thecivil sovereign.