Book Series Studies and Texts, vol. 124

A Chronicle of All That Happens. Voices from the Village Court in Medieval England

S. Olson

  • Pages: 253 p.
  • Size:130 x 195 mm
  • Language(s):English
  • Publication Year:1996

  • € 34,00 EXCL. VAT RETAIL PRICE
  • ISBN: 978-0-88844-124-9
  • Hardback
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Summary

That the village may have been a vital community and the villager a significant participant in medieval society are historical possibilities that only recently have begun to receive attention from scholars. Numerous specialized village studies, as well as analyses by historians of culture, have done much to redress our ignorance of the history of the small-scale cultivators who made up the great mass of Europe's population, and who supported - and informed - its rich and complex cultural development in the Middle Ages. This study draws upon this important body of work and attempts to initiate a new line of methodological questions, using the minutes of the local courts that regularly met in two English villages over the years 1280- 1460, a period of dramatic changes and ever-shifting challenges.