England in the Late Middle Ages

First published in 1952. Includes 31 photographs. (1) map of England (1) map of France (1) genealogy family-tree of Edward III. During the last generation a vast amount of research has been done on all aspects of the late Middle Ages in England, and this has radically modified previous views; yet no general synthesis has hitherto been attempted. Moreover, the period has suffered undue neglect and disparagement in comparison with the preceding ‘Age of Faith’ or the subsequent triumphs of Elizabethan England. But our generation may well find a particular interest in an England afflicted by war and disillusionment—from which it eventually recovered; and the late Middle Age in England was a time not merely of violence and decay but of growth and creativeness. Its Canterbury Tales and its Paston Letters, its ballads and its carols, its Perpendicular churches and its unsurpassed wood-carving, are still an essential part of English culture. It was an age of decisive importance for the future—the time of a developing Parliament and common law, of a government learning how to cooperate with the governed, of the rise to political and social importance of the middle classes, of a new pride in the English tongue, English ways, and English nationality. A. R. Myers, M.A., Ph.D., F.S.A., F.R. Hist. S., is now Professor of Medieval History in the University of Liverpool. A Yorkshireman, he was educated at Huddersfield College and Manchester University, where he gained his First Class Honours in History in 1934. His education inknowledge ofhuman nature was advanced most rapidly during his wartime career in the Royal Navy, whether on active service in the North Sea, the Atlantic, or the Mediterranean, or in shore establishments at Winchester and Hove. His final naval rank was that of Lieutenant-Commander. He has contributed numerous articles and reviews to various historical journals at home and abroad; his books include The Household of Edward IV (1959), English Historical Documents 1327-1485 (1969), London in the Age of Chaucer (1972) and Parliaments and Estates in Europe to 1789 (1975). He is President of the Record Society of Lancashire and Cheshire and, from 1973 to 1976, was President of the Historical Association of Great Britain.