An examination of the gentry as land holders, pillars of society, political leaders, family members and individuals.

Essays in this collection examine the lifestyles and attitudes of the gentry in late-medieval England. Through surveys of the gentry's military background, administrative and political roles, social behavior, and education, the reader is provided with an overview of how the group's culture evolved and how it was disseminated.

Romance and the Gentry in Late Medieval England offers a new history of Middle English romance, the most popular genre of secular literature in the English Middle Ages. Michael Johnston argues that many of the romances composed in England from 1350-1500 arose in response to the specific socio-economic concerns of the gentry, the class of English landowners who lacked titles of nobility and hence occupied the lower rungs of the aristocracy. The end of the fourteenth century in England witnessed power devolving to the gentry, who became one of the dominant political and economic forces in provincial society. As Johnston demonstrates, this social change also affected England's literary culture, particularly the composition and readership of romance. Romance and the Gentry in Late Medieval England identifies a series of new topoi in Middle English that responded to the gentry's economic interests. But beyond social history and literary criticism, it also speaks to manuscript studies, showing that most of the codices of the "gentry romances" were produced by those in the immediate employ of the gentry. By bringing together literary criticism and manuscript studies, this book speaks to two scholarly communities often insulated from one another: it invites manuscript scholars to pay closer attention to the cultural resonances of the texts within medieval codices; simultaneously, it encourages literary scholars to be more attentive to the cultural resonances of surviving medieval codices.

The Stonor letters and papers form one of only three surviving archives of gentry correspondence from late medieval England. The collection - which includes documents ranging from love letters to household accounts - provides us with a wealth of otherwise unobtainable detail about the lives and careers of a gentry family, their servants and their friends. Much of the material comes from the period of the Wars of the Roses, and allows us an insider's view on national events and the people involved in them. Originally edited by the historian C. L. Kingsford at the beginning of the century, the complete collection is reissued here, with a new introduction and annotation by Christine Carpenter. In many ways more representative of gentry life than the Paston letters, the Stonor letters and papers will be invaluable to scholars of late medieval England, and will make fascinating reading for anyone interested in the Wars of the Roses or life in medieval England.

Morte Darthur is investigated for its reflection of the contemporary political concerns Malory shared with the gentry class for whom he wrote.

This volume advances scholarly understanding of English Catholicism in the early modern period through a series of essays addressing aspects of the history of the Throckmorton family. Despite their persistent adherence to Catholicism over several centurie

With a sharp eye for detail, Raisa Maria Toivo explores the gender implications of the complex system of household management and public representation in which seventeenth-century Finnish women and men negotiated their positions. From specific case studies of Finnish peasant women, Toivo broadens her narrative to include historiographical discussion on the history of witchcraft, on women's and gender history and on early modern social history, shedding new light on each theme.

This book looks at the bitter factionalism in the last days of China's Ming Dynasty as an ideological struggle between scholar-officials who believed that sovereignty resided in the imperial state and those who believed that it resided with the learned gentry.

"A County Community in Peace and War appears at a time when there is an exceptional interest in the local dimension of the Great Rebellion, and a general recognition that county studies offer a significant contribution to our fuller understanding of it. The book is the most comprehensive study yet attempted of an English county community during the period from 1600 to 1660 in all aspects of its life. By giving detailed attention to a limited area, the book brings into sharp focus the national concerns of historians of the seventeenth century, and vividly illuminates the general problems and processes which the period presents. There are frequent comparisons with other counties throughout the book, and, whether in any specific aspect Sussex is a typical country or not, the conclusions which emerge have an importance and a relevance which transcend the particular history of the county itself. The scene is set with an account of the social and economic life of the gentry. In the following section, on religion, the religious experience of both Protestants and Catholics is discussed, and there is a detailed study of the enforcement of Arminianism in the 1630s, a topic on which very little research at local level has yet been done. The book then moves on to its main theme: an analysis of the impact of the Great Rebellion on the county community. It shows in detail how local issues interacted with national ones to shape provincial politics. The strains in the relationship between the county leaders and the London governments across the whole period are illustrated in a series of case studies. Some of these studies (for instance, those on the Exact Militia and the County Committee) afford interesting comparisons with parallel published work on other counties; they provide additional material for testing generalisations about the Great Rebellion. Others, such as the sections on taxation and wrecking, break new ground by their attempts to assess the continuity in the local response to administrative issues during a period of national upheaval. This is an important and fascinating book. It presents to the historian and student of the Great Rebellion a mass of new material at both national and local level to test their assumptions and deepen their understanding of the period; the book will be equally welcomed, and enjoyed, by those with a serious interest in social and local history as such. And, of course, it will be essential reading for anyone who cares about the history of Sussex itself."-Publisher.

"A brilliant and persuasive synthesis of the best recent work in all fields of seventeenth century English history."--Christopher Hill "A triumphant success . . . deserves to be widely read."--H. T. Dickinson "Conceived as an intellectual whole and vibrantly alive."--John Kenyon, The Observer English Society, 1580-1680 paints a fascinating picture of society and societal change in the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. It discusses both the enduring characteristics of society as well as the course of social change. The book emphasizes the wide variation in experience between different social groups and local communities, and the unevenness of the process of transition, to build up an overall interpretation of continuity and change. In this edition, Keith Wrightson provides a new introduction to set the book in its context and to reflect on recent research, together with an updated guide to further reading. Keith Wrightson is a professor of history at Yale University. His many books include Earthly Necessities: Economic Lives in Early Modern Britain.