Locality and Polity

This is a comprehensive study of minor landowners - the gentry - in one county in fifteenth-century England. In common with other recent local studies of the later middle ages, it builds upon the seminal work of K. B. McFarlane, looking at the political and social world in the localities from which the nobles drew their power. The books aims to present a fully-rounded picture of the experiences of the gentry, relating their private and their public lives, their permanent concerns to the changing needs of local and national politics. Its approach is thus both thematic, exploring the main elements, often private in nature, which moulded their public actions, such as marriage, estate management and senses of family, and chronological, presenting a detailed narrative of politics and account of political structures and relationships. The work takes a conscious stand for a return to a more 'constitutional' form of political history than the orthodoxy of the moment for the period, which takes patronage and personalities to be the prime movers in politics. This is evident in its concern with issues of stability and disorder (much influenced by recent work on law and society) and with the structure of the polity, with the inter-relationship of local and national politics, and with the ideas of the political classes. The book is intended as a contribution to the history of England as a whole in the fifteenth century and to the study of the long-term development of the English landed classes and the English constitution.