Four things dominated the life of the medieval noble: warfare, politics, land and family. It is with these central themes that this book is concerned. The author provides a comprehensive synthesis and analysis of an especially formative age in the history of England's nobility, and age which was to play such a crucial role in the centuries to come.

The fourteenth century was, for the English, a century which witnessed dramatic and not always easily explicable changes of fortune. In 1300, England's population was around seven million, and Edward I seemed to be on the verge of turning the British Isles into an English Empire. By 1400, its population was between three and four million (due mainly to the Black Death), dreams of a 'British' empire had all but crumbled, and instead England had become embroiled in a war - the Hundred Years' War - which was not only ultimately disastrous, but which also established the French as the 'national...

This is the first complete edition of the Chronicon Anonymi Cantuariensis, a contemporary narrative that provides valuable insights into medieval war and diplomacy, written at Canterbury shortly after the mid-fourteenth century. The previous edition, published in 1914, was based on a manuscript from which the text for the years 1357 to 1364 was missing. Presented here in full with a modern English translation, the chronicle provides a key narrative of military and political events covering the years from 1346 to 1365.
Concentrating principally on the campaigns of the Hundred Years War and...