Vol. 1: 1278 (6 Edw. I) through 1325 (19 Edw. II); vol. 2: 1326 (1 Edw. III) through 1377 (51 Edw. III); vol. 3: 1377 (1 Ric. II) through 1411 (13 Hen. IV); vol. 4: 1413 (1 Hen. V) through 1437 (15 Hen. VI); vol. 5: 1439 (18 Hen. VI) through 1467-1468 (7 & 8 Edw. IV); vol. 6: 1472-1473 (12 & 13 Edw. IV) through 1503 (19 Hen. VII)

The new religious orders of the 12th and 13th centuries - the military orders and the mendicants - were established as international orders. Yet they were inevitably dependent on regional and local conditions for recruitment and finance, and could not escape involvement in the power structures, whether secular or ecclesiastical, of the areas in which they were based. This book examines the tensions that arose from this, and how they evolved and were manifested. It looks in particular at the orders’ early expansion, and at the special conditions that applied in frontier regions, notably those in Northern and Central Europe which have typically been less well studied.

John Tiptoft, Earl of Worcester, is arguably the most intriguing, controversial and possibly misunderstood figure of the Wars of the Roses period. Politically adept, he occupied a string of important offices, first under the Lancastrian Henry VI and then the Yorkist Edward IV.A man of action, he held commands on both and sea, in England, Ireland and Wales.As Constable of England he acted as Edwards enforcer and earned the sobriquet Butcher of England for his beheadings and impalements. Yet he was also an outstanding Renaissance scholar who studied at Oxford, Padua and Ferrara, a collector of books and patron. This, in conjunction with his political actions, makes him a proto-Machiavellian Prince.Peter Spring also looks beyond the Earls public life to glean insights into the man himself, concluding that the available information generally reveals an attractive personality. He presents a balanced reappraisal, seeing him, as did many contemporary Europeans and some fellow countrymen, as a man of great intellect and capability who did not shirk the hard tasks imposed by a merciless age.Worcesters execution for the application of Roman law, lampooned as the laws of Padua, demonstrated the danger of indentification with continental influences in an England increasingly defining itselfthrough common law, Parliament, and soon religionagainst Europe. The contemporary denigration of his character by little Englander chroniclers reflected a deepening antipathy towards the cosmopolitan a recurring trait in the English character perhaps re-emerging with Brexit.