Spans the period 1272-1485 and includes biographies of 200 individuals from all walks of life.

Providing the chronological setting for many of Shakespeare's plays, various swashbuckling novels from Sir Walter Scott's to Robert Louis Stevenson's, and such Hollywood films as Braveheart, late Medieval England is superficially well known. Yet its true complexity remains elusive, locked in the covers of specialized monographs and journal articles. In over 300 entries written by 80 scholars, this book makes the factual information and historical interpretations of the era readily available. Covering political, military, religious, and constitutional subjects as well as social and economic topics, the volume is easy to use, comprehensive, and authoritative. It provides a useful resource for undergraduate and graduate students, scholars, and educated laymen. Rightly characterized as an age of crisis, the 14th century saw the Hundred Years War, the Black Death, the Peasants' Revolt of 1381, the Avignon Papacy, and the Great Schism of the Western Church. All placed great stresses on English society, aggravating old problems and creating new ones. In the late Middle Ages, parliament became an important element in English government; Cambridge and Oxford universities attained European-wide reputations; and general literacy increased. The Church remained a paramount religious, political, and social institution, but its independence and intellectual monopoly slipped. The entries in this book synthesize recent scholarship on these and other historical events. While emphasizing political, religious, constitutional and military topics, the book also provides brief introductions to social, economic, cultural, and intellectual topics. It is a valuable guide for those wishing to understand this complex, tumultuous, and until recently, poorly understood era.

Provides clear, concise, and basic descriptions and definitions to over 260 key people, events, and terms relating to the series of conflicts between France and England in the 14th and 15th centuries that later came to be known as the Hundred Years War. The Encyclopedia of the Hundred Years War provides its users with clear, concise, and basic descriptions and definitions of people, events, and terms relating in some significant way to the series of intermittent conflicts that occurred between France and England in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, and that later came to be known collectively as the Hundred Years War. Because this volume focuses exclusively on war itself-what caused it, how it was fought, and what effects it had on the political, social, economic, and cultural life of England and France—it is not a general overview of fourteenth- and fifteenth-century history in either country, but a specialized treatment of the Anglo-French warfare that occurred during those centuries. Entries cover battles, leaders, truces and treaties, military terms and tactics, and sources for the war, including the plays of William Shakespeare, who has long been an important if not always reliable source for information about the people and events of the Hundred Years War. The Encyclopedia was written primarily for students and other nonspecialists who have an interest-but little background-in this period of European history. Besides providing a highly usable resource for quickly looking up names and terms encountered in reading or during study, the Encyclopedia offers an excellent starting point for classroom or personal research on subjects relating to the course, causes, and consequences of the Hundred Years War. All entries conclude with suggested further readings. A comprehensive bibliography completes the encyclopedia, which is fully indexed.

This historical analysis of the political and religious relationship of Britain and Spain, from 12th-century dynastic alliances to the Spanish support of the English-American invasion of Iraq, asserts that there have been many significant links between the two countries over the past 800 years. While England and Spain were rivals in the New World, British and Spanish troops fought side by side for causes of mutual concern during the Peninsular War, Spanish Civil War, and World War II. This bittersweet relationship has been fundamental to Continental politics and the position of each country in the international realm.

Richard III is undoubtedly the dominant personality in this collection of essays, but not in his capacity as king of England. Richard was Duke of Gloucester far longer than he was king. For most of his career, he was a subject, not a monarch, the equal of the great nobility. He is seen here in the company of his fellows: Warwick the Kingmaker, Clarence, Northumberland, Somerset, Hastings a the Wydevilles. His relations with these rivals, all of whom submitted to him or were crushed, show him in different moods and from various vantage points.