Locality and Polity - A Study of Warwickshire Landed Society, 1401-1499 (Hardcover, New)

This is a comprehensive study of minor landowners - the gentry - in one county in fifteenth-century England. In common with other recent local studies of the later middle ages, it builds upon the seminal work of K. B. McFarlane, looking at the political and social world in the localities from which the nobles drew their power. The books aims to present a fully-rounded picture of the experiences of the gentry, relating their private and their public lives, their permanent concerns to the changing needs of local and national politics. Its approach is thus both thematic, exploring the main elements, often private in nature, which moulded their public actions, such as marriage, estate management and senses of family, and chronological, presenting a detailed narrative of politics and account of political structures and relationships. The work takes a conscious stand for a return to a more 'constitutional' form of political history than the orthodoxy of the moment for the period, which takes patronage and personalities to be the prime movers in politics.