Law, laity and solidarities

Pauline Stafford is Professor of Medieval History at the University of Liverpool. Janet L. Nelson is Professor of Medieval History at King's College, University of London. Jane Martindale taught Medieval History at the University of East Anglia and is a Life Member of Clare Hall, University of Cambridge

The primary focus of this collection by leading medieval historians is the laity, in particular the ideas and ideals of lay people. The contributors explore lay attitudes as expressed in legal cases, charters, chronicles and collective activities. Highlights the centrality of kinship, whilst stressing its limitations as an all purpose social bond. Ranges chronologically and geographically from the seventh century to the eve of the Reformation, from Western Britain to papal and urban Italy, from Carolingian dynastic politics to the decline of medieval pilgrimage in the sixteenth century, and from the courts of twelfth-century France to the fifteenth-century wards of London.

Introduction1. Writing about Charles Martel - Paul Fouracre
2. Peers in the early middle ages - Janet L. Nelson
3. Stepmothers in Frankish legal life - Brigitte Kasten
4. Political ideas in late tenth-century England: Charters as evidence - Pauline Stafford
5. Medieval mentalities and primative legal practice - Michael Clanchy
6. The problem of treason: the trial of Daire le Roux - Stephen D. White
7. Between law and politics: Thr judicial duel under the Angevin kings - Jane Martindale
8. Local custon in early common law - Paul Brand
9. 'Slaves of the Normans'? Gerald de Barri and regnal solidarity in early thirteenth-century England - John Gillingham
10. Kinsmen, neighbours and communities in Wales and the Western British Isles, c.1100-c.1400 - Rees Davies
11. Lay kinship solidarity and Papal law - David d'Avray
12. Laity, laicicization and Philip the Fair of France - Elizabeth R. Brown
13. Lay solidarities: The wards of medieval London - Caroline Barron
14. Language, laughter and lay solidarities: and inquiry into the decline of pilgrimage and crusading - Charles T. Wood
15. Lay/Clerical distinctions in Early India - Romila Tharpar
A bibliography of Susan Reynold's work
Index