Description

Book Synopsis
This book examines the fifteenth-century gentry of Leicestershire under five broad headings: as landholders, as members of a social community based on the county, as participants in and leaders of the government of the shire, as members of the wider family unit and, finally, as individuals. Economically assertive, they were also socially cohesive, this cohesion being provided by the shire community. The shire also provided the most important political unit, controlled by an oligarchy of superior gentry families who were relatively independent of outside interference. The basic social unit was the nuclear family, but external influences, provided by concern for the wider kin, the lineage or economic and political advancement, were not major determinants of family strategy. Individualism among the gentry was already established by the fifteenth century, revealing its personnel as a self-assured and confident stratum in late medieval English society.

Table of Contents
List of maps; Acknowledgments; Abbreviations; Introduction; 1. Leicestershire: the county, the Church, the crown and the nobility; 2. The gentry in the fifteenth century; 3. Land and income; 4. A county community and the politics of the shire; 5. The gentry and local government, 1422–1485; 6. Household, family and marriage; 7. Life and death; Conclusion; Appendices; Bibliography; Index.

A Gentry Community Leicestershire in the Fifteenth Century c1422c1485 19 Cambridge Studies in Medieval Life and Thought Fourth Series Series Number 19

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      View other formats and editions of A Gentry Community Leicestershire in the Fifteenth Century c1422c1485 19 Cambridge Studies in Medieval Life and Thought Fourth Series Series Number 19 by Eric Acheson

      Publisher: Cambridge University Press
      Publication Date: 10/30/2003 12:00:00 AM
      ISBN13: 9780521524988, 978-0521524988
      ISBN10: 0521524989

      Description

      Book Synopsis
      This book examines the fifteenth-century gentry of Leicestershire under five broad headings: as landholders, as members of a social community based on the county, as participants in and leaders of the government of the shire, as members of the wider family unit and, finally, as individuals. Economically assertive, they were also socially cohesive, this cohesion being provided by the shire community. The shire also provided the most important political unit, controlled by an oligarchy of superior gentry families who were relatively independent of outside interference. The basic social unit was the nuclear family, but external influences, provided by concern for the wider kin, the lineage or economic and political advancement, were not major determinants of family strategy. Individualism among the gentry was already established by the fifteenth century, revealing its personnel as a self-assured and confident stratum in late medieval English society.

      Table of Contents
      List of maps; Acknowledgments; Abbreviations; Introduction; 1. Leicestershire: the county, the Church, the crown and the nobility; 2. The gentry in the fifteenth century; 3. Land and income; 4. A county community and the politics of the shire; 5. The gentry and local government, 1422–1485; 6. Household, family and marriage; 7. Life and death; Conclusion; Appendices; Bibliography; Index.

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