A detailed study of the King's Hall, Cambridge, from its foundation in the early fourteenth century until its dissolution in 1546. It is based largely on the 26 extant volumes of the King's Hall accounts which form one of the most remarkable sequences of medieval collegiate records in Europe. The rich profusion of the material has made it possible to reconstruct the economic, constitutional and business organisation of a medieval academic society, thereby providing for the college that same kind of exhaustive treatment which has been lavished upon other categories of medieval institutions. Dr...

A study of political ideas in the conflict between the Council of Basle (1431 1449) and Pope Eugenius IV (1431 1447). The supporters of conciliar and papal supremacy each developed a remarkable array of political doctrines, which can now be seen as the immediate ancestors of later, more famous theories of 'democracy' and 'monarchy' respectively. Dr Black discusses both the development and the meaning of these doctrines, and their contribution to the notion of constitutional democracy and of monarchical sovereignty respectively. Both doctrines, he suggests, find a place in the modern state. He...

In the course of this work, Dr Dobson is able to throw new light on the universal aspirations and pre occupations of medieval monasticism. He reconstructs life in Durham in the century before its final dissolution and concludes that it was an example of ?comparatively successful conservatism? during a period in English history characterized by institutional resistance to social and intellectual change.

This book is a study of the economic development of different areas of twelfth-century Italy whose commercial interests were closely inter related: the Norman Kingdom of Sicily, famed for the wealth of its rulers, and the maritime ports of Genoa, Pisa and Venice, which were actively extending their trading interests throughout the Mediterranean. On the basis of largely untapped sources in Genoa and other north Italian archives, this book seeks to explain how the north Italian merchants attempted to extend and to protect their interests in the kingdom of Sicily, by agreements with the Norman...

The reign of AEthelred 'the Unready' (978 1016) is known to us mainly from a series of annals in the Anglo-Saxon Chrolicle, written at or after its close and accordingly conveying an impression of gathering doom as Viking armies ravaged the country and eventually, under the leadership of Swein Forkbeard and Cnut, brought about its conquest. Dr Keynes is here concerned to establish what light the royal diplomas issued in King AEthelred's name throw on this unhappy and notorious period. He first considers the general issues that bear directly on the value of royal diplomas as historical...

Against the background of the struggle between Christianity and Islam for the control of the Spanish Peninsula, this book examines the internal condition of the Spanish Church in the thirteenth century, its relations with the Christian kings and with a succession of great popes. Concentrating upon Aragon and Castile, the author examines the reaction and resistance of the Church to the reforming decrees of the 1215 Fourth Lateran Council, and illustrates the attempts made by the papacy to wrest control of the Church from the crown. By using hitherto untouched Spanish sources as well as...

The kingdom of the Visigoths, embracing at its fullest extent Portugal and part of southern France as well as virtually the whole of Spain, boasted the most sophisticated civilization to be be found in any of the Romano-barbarian states created out of the ruin of the Western Empire. Yet its fortunes have been the subject of a curious indifference by scholars otherwise well conscious of the supreme significance of the sixth and seventh centuries for a balanced understanding of the Middle Ages. Dr King makes a searching investigation into the structure and ethos of Visigothic society as it is...

The first systematic attempt to reconstruct from original manuscript sources and early printed books the medieval doctrines relating to the just war, the holy war and the crusade. Despite the frequency of wars and armed conflicts throughout the course of western history, no comprehensive survey has previously been made of the justifications of warfare that were elaborated by Roman lawyers, canon lawyers and theologians in the twelfth and thirteenth century universities. After a brief survey of theories of the just war in antiquity, with emphasis on Cicero and Augustine, and of thought on...

This study of Cheshire and Lancashire society in the late fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries is a unique attempt to reconstruct the social life of an English region in the later Middle Ages. Drawing on the voluminous archives of the two palatinates and the extensive muniment collections of local families, it offers an unusually rich and wide-ranging analysis of a dynamic regional society at a dramatic stage in its history.

The English Franciscan, William of Ockham (c. 1285 1349), was one of the most important thinkers of the later middle ages. Summoned to Avignon in 1324 to answer charges of heresy, Ockham became convinced that Pope John XXII was himself a heretic in denying the complete poverty of Christ and the apostles and a tyrant in claiming supremacy over the Roman empire. Ockham's political writings were a result of these personal convictions, but also include systematic discourses on the basis and functions of spiritual and secular power as well as exhaustive discussions of Franciscan poverty and the...