Description
Book SynopsisIn the last decades of the thirteenth century the British Isles appeared to be on the point of unified rule, dominated by the lordship, law and language of the English. However by 1400 Britain and Ireland were divided between the warring kings of England and Scotland, and peoples still starkly defined by race and nation. Why did the apparent trends towards a single royal ruler, a single elite and a common Anglicised world stop so abruptly after 1300? And what did the resulting pattern of distinct nations and extensive borderlands contribute to the longer-term history of the British Isles?
In this innovative analysis of a critical period in the history of the British Isles, Michael Brown addresses these fundamental questions and shows how the national identities underlying the British state today are a continuous legacy of these years. Using a chronological structure to guide the reader through the key periods of the era, this book also identifies and analyses the following do
Trade Review
'This is a wide-ranging text drawing together, via a scholarly interdisciplinary apparatus, a wealth of primary and secondary sources...deriving from the Continent, Britain, and Ireland. Using chronicles, state documents, parliamentary records, and diplomatic correspondence, Brown provides a comprehensive and in-depth analysis of the volatile and often turbulent nature of sovereignty...Disunited Kingdoms is a significant addition to the promising historiography encompassing late medieval and early modern European, British and Irish socio-political affairs.'- Katherine Basanti, University of Aberdeen
Table of ContentsIntroduction: Warlords and Sovereign Lords 1. Edward the Conqueror 2. Robert Bruce 3. Sovereignty and War 4. Rulers and Realms 5. Peoples, Crises and Conflicts 6. Elites and Identities 7. Borderlands: Lords and Regions 8. Hundred Years Wars: The European Context 9. Politics and Power in the British Isles (c.1360-1415) 10. Four Lands: The British Isles in the Early Fifteenth Century. Conclusions Nations and Unions
