Essays offer a lively snapshot of important topics.

Essays offer a lively snapshot of important topics.

The essays presented here draw on a number of different approaches and perspectives to address and illuminate key aspects and issues of the period. Longitudinal studies of king's confessors and corrodies of the crown provide insights into the intersection of political, religious and demographic currents over thelongue durée, and are complemented by studies of documentary sources of various kinds - newsletters, chronicles, and municipal archives - to challenge current understandings of important events and processes such as the deposition of Edward II, the evolving identity of the parliamentary peers, and Richard II's vision for the house of Lancaster. Prosopographical and biographical studies of post-plague clerics, and of knights within comital affinities and within their own individual affinity groups, shed light on county communities and gentry society; they also demonstrate the impact of the Black Death on society at large, especially on the question of religious continuity and discontinuity at the parish level.

Contributors: Paul Dryburgh, Pierre Gaite, Chris Given-Wilson, Michael Jones, Taylor Kniphfer, Samuel Lane, Jonathan Mackman, Alison McHardy, Matt Raven, David Robinson.

The King's Confessors and the Royal Conscience in Late Medieval EnglandChris Given-Wilson
'Such maintenance as...': Corrodies of the CrownAlison K. McHardy
'Vos maisons sount pris al eops le counte': Walter Bedwyn, Treasurer of York, and the Return of Piers GavestonJonathan Mackman and Paul Dryburgh
The Deposition of Edward II: The Kenilworth EmbassiesSam Lane
The English Parliament and the Trial of the 'Peers of the Land' in Henry of Lancaster's Revolt (1328-29): The Origins of a PrivilegeMatthew Raven
A Brotherhood Uncovered: Investigating the Knightly Following of Thomas Beauchamp, earl of Warwick, 1329-1369Pierre Gaite
The Black Death and Clerical Prospects in EnglandDavid Robinson