Böcker av David Crouch

An authoritative and comprehensive account of an important area centred around the town of Howden.

Everything you ever wanted to know about the almost perfekt country... For fans of Stig Abell, Helen Russell and anyone who wants to know how the world really works.

The official records of England are the focus of this volume - their origin, their use, and what they reveal.

New interpretations of the effect of Magna Carta and other aspects of the reign of King John.

Expert coverage and new assessments of the reign of King Stephen, set in social, political and European context.

Detailed investigation of the religious gild, showing its importance to all aspects of medieval life.

The tournament was a mock battle, at its height between 1100 and 1300, conducted by two arbitrary battalions over many square miles of open country. It was a one-day event, but when joined to ancillary festivals it could extend it to several days. Tournament holding had penetrated England, Germany and Austria by 1200.

William the Conqueror's victory in 1066 was the beginning of a period of major transformation for medieval English aristocrats. In this groundbreaking book, David Crouch examines for the first time the fate of the English aristocracy between the reigns of the Conqueror and Edward I. Offering an original explanation of medieval societyone that no longer employs traditional "e;feudal"e; or "e;bastard feudal"e; modelsCrouch argues that society remade itself around the emerging principle of nobility in the generations on either side of 1200, marking the beginning of the ancien rgime.The book describes the transformation in aristocrats' expectations, conduct, piety, and status; in expressions of social domination; and in the relationship with the monarchy. Synchronizing English social history with non-English scholarship, Crouch places England's experience of change within a broader European transformation and highlights England's important role in the process. With his accustomed skill, Crouch redefines a fascinating era and the noble class that emerged from it.

Crouch provides a broad definition of aristocracy by examining the way aristocrats behaved and lived between 1000 and 1300. He analyses life-style, class and luxurious living in those years.

This book combines a simple dual biographical study of Waleran of Meulan and Robert of Leicester, the twin sons of Robert, Count of Meulan and Earl of Leicester, with an exploration of the exercise of power in twelfth-century Normandy and England. The twins were dominant and colourful characters, whose lives reveal many new points about the politics of the period, in particular the Norman rebellion of 1123-4, the wars of Stephen's reign in Normandy and England and the early years of Henry II. The book analyses the twins' followings, revenues and lands, and studies their relations with the church, their level of literacy, and heraldry. It also contains the first in-depth study of Norman feudal society in the duchy itself, suggests reasons why Normandy was more difficult to govern than England, and explores the use of patronage in twelfth-century society.