This book presents a fresh view of crucial processes of change, offering through an interdisciplinary analysis fresh insights into both the history and literature of the land in early modern England. It examines a wide range of source material concerned with the practices and values of rural England--sermons, pamphlets, satiric verse and drama, husbandry and surveying manuals, chorographic texts, and rural poetry. It traces important developments in patterns of representation, which at once parallel and promote the nation's shift toward modern standards of individualism and mercantilism.

This is a comparative study of the role of English and French towns in feudal society in the middle ages. In bringing together much material which dissolves old categories and simplifications in the study of medieval towns, Professor Hilton provides an important new perspective on medieval society and on the nature of feudalism. He argues that medieval towns were not, as is often thought, the harbingers of capitalism, and emphasises the way in which urban social structures fitted into, rather than challenged, feudalism.

This book is a study in the evolution of English society between c. 1180 and c. 1280. The argument proceeds by means of a detailed analysis of the honour and locality of Coventry, concentrating upon the nature of lordship and upon the social and economic fortunes of knights, free tenants and local administrators, and the relationships between them. A further dimension is added by the existence of an important seignorial borough at the centre of the locality. The book therefore not only explores the role of the town in the evolution of the knightly class, but also examines more broadly the...

In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, urbanisation 'revolutionised' English society as much as industrialisation. Central to this urbanising process, and the civic culture it inspired, was the bringing together of people in large numbers - to celebrate, commemorate, vilify or validate. Contemporary observers found the power and potential of urban crowds both awesome and alarming. They witnessed the capacity of the masses to confer honour and prestige upon a proud city elite or, by turning hostile, to bring civic ruin. Yet this ambivalent relationship between the individual...

Praise and Paradox explores the relationship of language, literary structure, and social ideology in the popular Elizabethan literature that praised merchants, industrialists and craftsmen. Part I defines a canon of 296 popular vernacular works, relates the increasing popularity of tales about tradesmen to the development of the English economy and the expansion of the Elizabethan audience, and discusses the social origins of the popular authors. Part II is concerned with the change of the merchant's literary image from that of a greedy usurer to that of a 'businessman in armour' who defended...

This book is a contribution to both national and local history. Coventry is taken as a richly documented case-study of the crisis which marked the end of the medieval period for many substantial towns. Its demographic and economic decline is followed from the fifteenth century to a dramatic period of short-term crisis between 1518 and 1525. Attention is then focused on the traditional structure of the community: the life-cycles of the citizens are related to the intricate pattern of social positions within a multi-dimensional survey. The author illustrates how the occupants of this structure...

The essays in this collection focus on the nature of popular protest and agrarian unrest and the development of nationalism in modern Ireland. Some are concerned with particular manifestations of protest - Houghers, Rightboys, Defenders, Ribbonmen, the Land War, Sinn Fein. Others treat more general themes - cultural identity as expressed in Gaelic Irish literature, the dynamics of the potato economy, electoral politics and landlord power, the impact of modernization on Ulster's development. Religion is discussed, and the relationship between agrarian violence and politicization, between...

This study of late medieval Sicily develops a critique of theories of dependence through trade, and a new interpretation of the late medieval economy. It thus addresses current debates on the origins of modern Italian economic dualism, and on the transition from feudalism to capitalism in early modern Europe. Dr Epstein argues that economic development during this period was shaped largely by regional political and institutional structures which regulated access to markets. Following the Black Death, many institutional and social constraints on commercialization were relaxed throughout...

The introduction of the horse brought many advantages to medieval English farming, particularly as an improvement to ploughing and hauling. But the replacement of oxen by horses was by no means inevitable, as the situation often depended upon a number of factors not immediately obvious to modern eyes. These factors, which included such environmental aspects as soil types and terrain, are evaluated to see how they affected the decision to use horses and oxen. The introduction of the horse is furthermore examined in relation to farm production, the improvement in marketing, and the development...

This is a major, groundbreaking study by a leading scholar of continental witchcraft studies, now made available to an English-speaking audience for the first time. The author has compiled a thorough overview of all known prosecutions for witchcraft in the period 1300-1800, and shows conclusively that witch hunting was not a constant or uniform phenomenon: three-quarters of all known executions for witchcraft were concentrated in the years 1586-1630. The book also investigates the social and political implications of witchcraft, and the complex religious debates between believers and...