To be labeled "of ill repute" in medieval society implied that a person had committed a violation of accepted standards and had stepped beyond the bounds of permissible behavior. To have a reputation "of good repute", however, was so powerful as to help a person accused of a crime be acquitted by his or her fellow peers. Labeling a person in medieval times was a complex matter. Often, unwritten codes of behavior determined who was of good repute and who was not. Members of the nobility committing a "fur-collar crime" might have considerable leeway to oppress their neighbors with violence and legal violations; however, a woman caught without appropriate attire and without the proper escort hazarded the label of a "woman of ill repute." Gender, class, social statutes, wealth, connections, bribes, friends, and the community all played a role in how quickly or how permanently a person's reputation was damaged. 'Of Good and Ill Repute' examines the complex social regulations and stigmatizations that medieval society used to arrive at its decisions about condemnation and exoneration. In eleven interrelated essays, including three previously unpublished works, Hanawalt explores how social control was maintained in Medieval England in the later Middle Ages. Focusing on gender, criminal behavior, law enforcement, arbitration, and cultural rituals of inclusion and exclusion, 'Of Good and Ill Repute' reflects the most current scholarship on medieval legal history, cultural history, and gender studies. It looks at the medieval sermons, advice books, manuals of penance, popular poetry, laws, legal treatises, court records, and city and guild ordinances that drew the lines between good and bad behavior. Written in a lively, accessible, and jargon-free style, this text is essential for upper level undergraduate history courses on medieval history and women's history as well as for English courses on medieval literature.

Law in Common draws on a large body of unpublished archival material from local archives and libraries across the country, to show how ordinary people in the later Middle Ages - such as peasants, craftsmen, and townspeople - used law in their everyday lives, developing our understanding of the operation of late-medieval society and politics.

The distinction between the forest and the trees is fundamental to this study, for the royal forest of medieval England was a complex institution with legal, political, economic, and social significance. To protect the "beasts of the forest" and their habitat, initially for the king's hunting and later for economic exploitation, an elaborate organization of officials and courts administered a system of "forest law" that was unique to medieval England. The subject can first be studied in detail in the records and chronicles of the Angevin kings, which reflect the restless activity of Henry II and his growing corps of officials that led to the expansion of the area designated as royal forest. At its height in the thirteenth century, an estimated one-fourth of the land area of England and its riches came under the special jurisdiction of forest law. Barons whose holdings lay within the royal forest were restricted in their use of the land, and the activity of all who lived or traveled in the forest was circumscribed. Until the institution of new taxes overshadowed the economic importance of the forest and the king divested himself of large areas of forest in 1327, the extent of the royal forest, with its special jurisdiction, was often a source of conflict between king and barons and was a major political issue in the Magna Carta crisis of 1215. This is the first general history of the royal forest system from its beginning with the Norman Conquest to its decline in the later Middle Ages. The author pays special attention to the development of forest law alongside common law, and the interrelationship between the two types of law, courts, and justices. The preservation of extensive unpublished records of the forest courts in the Public Record Office makes possible this intensive study of the legal and administrative aspects of the royal forest; chronicles and the records of the Exchequer, among other sources, shed light on the political and economic importance of the royal forests in medieval England. The author's ultimate objective is to show the influence of the royal forest upon the daily lives of contemporaries—both the barons who held land and the peasants who tilled land within the royal forests.

Despite the multidirectional nature of modern research, the interpretation of the political history of thirteenth-century England has remained locked into a traditional framework bequeathed by the mid-twentieth-century historian, R. F. Treharne, and embellished by the emphases and accentuations of his present-day successors. Characterised by its conception of community, its constitutionalism, its ready identification of a national enterprise, and its predilection for idealism and 'progressive' thinking, this framework remains close to the Whig interpretation of English history. It is reinforced by the continuation of reverence for the baronial leader, Simon de Montfort. In contrast, Peter Coss offers here an alternative approach to the period which is anchored in social mores and cultural values. More emphasis is placed upon the interests, ambitions, and needs of contemporaries, upon social networks of various kinds, and upon how interests both clashed and cohered as people strove to improve or preserve their situations. This was a crisis born of political instability, but in the context of institutional, administrative, and legal growth, that is to say at a particular point in the evolution of the state. Drawing on a wide range of sources, the book reconsiders the generation of the crisis, the factors which influenced its course, and its (partial) resolution. In short, it explores the anatomy and physiology of a troubled realm.

This cutting-edge book invites readers to rethink environmental law and its critical role in ensuring a sustainable future for all. Illustrating narratives of successful developments in environmental law, contributors draw out key lessons and practices for effective reform and highlight opportunities by which we can respond to environmental challenges facing the planet.

Represents the first time that disciples of history and English literature have joined forces to present new interpretations of late fourteenth-century English society.

Study of hunting as it appears both in didactic texts, and epic and romance.