Identifying for the first time the true nature of maintenance, this study uses primary sources to reach new findings on its lawfulness.

Divorce, as we think of it today, is usually considered to be a modern invention. This book challenges that viewpoint, documenting the many and varied uses of divorce in the medieval period and highlighting the fact that couples regularly divorced on the grounds of spousal incompatibility.

Maintenance, Meed, and Marriage in Medieval English Literature deftly interrogates the relationship between lord and man in medieval England. Employing the study of medieval analogies this book is the first to explore how the relationship between lords and retainers was depicted in literature by Chaucer, Gower, Langland, and Lydgate. Kennedy uses close readings and medieval letter collections to provide a documentary look at how lords and men communicated information about their relationships and reveals surprising information about both medieval law and society.

This book examines the evolution of mills - whether powered by water, wind, animals or humans - during an important era of English history. It focuses not only on the structures themselves, but also on the people who acted as entrepreneurs, workers, and customers for the industry. Together they created one of the most recognizable and enduring features of medieval society.

Explores the role of criminal intent in constituting felony in the first two centuries of the English criminal trial jury.

Medieval bridges are startling achievements of design and engineering comparable with the great cathedrals of the period, and are also proof of the great importance of road transport in the middle ages and of the size and sophistication of the medieval economy. David Harrison rewrites their history from early Anglo-Saxon England right up to the Industrial Revolution, providing new insights into many aspects of the subject. Looking at the role of bridges in the creation of a new road system, which was significantly different from its Roman predecessor and which largely survived until the twentieth century, he examines their design. Often built in the most difficult circumstances: broad flood plains, deep tidal waters, and steep upland valleys, they withstood all but the most catastrophic floods. He also investigates the immense efforts put into their construction and upkeep, ranging from the mobilization of large work forces by the old English state to the role of resident hermits and the charitable donations which produced bridge trusts with huge incomes. The evidence presented in The Bridges of Medieval England shows that the network of bridges, which had been in place since the thirteenth century, was capable of serving the needs of the economy on the eve of the Industrial Revolution. This has profound implications for our understanding of pre-industrial society, challenging accepted accounts of the development of medieval trade and communications, and bringing to the fore the continuities from the late Anglo-Saxon period to the eighteenth century. This book is essential reading for those interested in architecture, engineering, transport, and economics, and any historian sceptical about the achievements of medieval England.

The book investigates a riveting, richly documented conflict from thirteenth-century England over church property and ecclesiastical patronage. Oliver Sutton, the bishop of Lincoln, and John St. John, a royal household knight, both used coveted papal provisions to bestow the valuable church of Thame to a familial clerical candidate (a nephew and son, respectively). Between 1292 and 1294 three people died over the right to possess this church benefice and countless others were attacked or publicly scorned during the conflict. More broadly, religious services were paralyzed, prized animals were mutilated, and property was destroyed. Ultimately, the king personally brokered a settlement because he needed his knight for combat. Employing a microhistorical approach, this book uses abundant episcopal, royal, and judicial records to reconstruct this complex story that exposes in vivid detail the nature and limits of episcopal and royal power and the significance and practical business of ecclesiastical benefaction. This volume will appeal to undergraduate and graduate students alike, particularly students in historical methods courses, medieval surveys, upper-division undergraduate courses, and graduate seminars. It would also appeal to admirers of microhistories and people interested in issues pertaining to gender, masculinity, and identity in the Middle Ages.