CONTENTS


LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

INTRODUCTION

A NOTE ON MEDIEVAL ENGLISH MONEY

MAP OF MEDIEVAL ENGLAND AND ITS NEIGHBORS

CHAPTER ONE: THE ANGLO-SAXON WORLD, ca 500–1066

1 Gildas on the Coming of the Anglo-Saxons

2 Letters on the Gregorian Mission

3 Laws of Æthelbert of Kent

4 Bede on the Conversion of King Edwin of Northumbria

5 An Anglo-Saxon Burial: The Ely “Princess”

6 Riddles from the Exeter Book

7 Slavery in Anglo-Saxon England

8 Treaty between King Alfred the Great and Guthrum

9 Alfred the Great’s Preface to the Pastoral Care

10 The Battle of Maldon

11 Labor and Daily Life from Ælfric of Eynsham’s Colloquy

12 Anglo-Saxon Wills

13 The Cotton Anglo-Saxon World Map

14 The Wolf’s Sermon to the English

15 Laws of Cnut

16 Cnut’s Letter to the English People

17 Praise of Queen Emma

18 The Life of King Edward Who Rests at Westminster

CHAPTER TWO: THE NORMAN ERA, 1066–1154

19 The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle on the Norman Conquest

20 The Text of the Bayeux Tapestry

21 Doing Penance for the Norman Victory

22 Castles in Norman England

23 Domesday Book

24 Orderic Vitalis’s Account of His Life

25 Anselm of Canterbury on His Feud with William Rufus

26 Gilbert Crispin’s Disputation of a Jew with a Christian

27 Church Reform: The Council of Westminster

28 Henry I’s Coronation Charter

29 Eadmer’s Account of Queen Edith-Matilda

30 The Founding of the Gilbertine Order

31 William of Malmesbury on the Civil War between Stephen and Matilda

32 The Battle of the Standard

CHAPTER THREE: THE ANGEVIN ERA, 1154–1216

33 Gerald of Wales’s Description of Henry II

34 The Constitutions of Clarendon

35 The Murder and Miracles of Thomas Becket

36 Glanville’s Treatise on the Laws and Customs of the Kingdom of England

37 Jocelin of Brakelond on the Misfortunes of Henry of Essex

38 The Political Career of Eleanor of Aquitaine

39 The Cult of King Arthur

40 Town Charters

41 William fitzStephen’s Description of London

42 Thomas of Monmouth’s Life of Saint William of Norwich

43 Reginald of Durham’s Life of Saint Godric, Hermit of Finchale

44 The History of William Marshal

45 John of Salisbury’s Policraticus

46 Richard of Devizes on the Third Crusade

47 Enforcing the Forest Law

48 Letters of Innocent III and King John

49 Roger of Wendover’s Account of the Rebellion against King John

50 Magna Carta

CHAPTER FOUR: THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY, 1216–1299

51 Letters of Queen Isabella of Angoulême

52 Henry de Bracton’s Notebook: Cases from the Royal Courts

53 Persecution and Expulsion of English Jews

54 The Ancrene Wisse

55 Thomas of Eccleston on the Coming of the Friars Minor to England

56 The Baronial Cause: The Song of Lewes

57 The Miracles of Simon de Montfort

58 The Household Roll of Countess Eleanor of Leicester

59 Summonses to Parliament

60 London Coroners’ Rolls

61 Plan of the Village of Wharram Percy

62 Manorial Life, from the Hundred Rolls

63 The Statutes of Merton College, Oxford

64 Roger Bacon’s Account of His Academic Career

65 The Conquest of Wales

66 Edward I’s Confirmation of Charters

CHAPTER FIVE: AN AGE OF DISASTERS, 1300–1399

67 Parish Life in the Diocese of Exeter

68 Correspondence of the Queen with London

69 The Manner of Holding Parliament

70 A Chronicle of the Great Famine

71 The Royal Response to the Famine

72 Manor Court Rolls

73 A Proof of Age Inquest

74 London Craft Guild Ordinances

75 Urban Environmental Problems and Regulations

76 Articles of Accusation against Edward II

77 Dispute between an Englishman and a Frenchman

78 Jean Froissart on the Battle of Crécy

79 Thomas Bradwardine’s Victory Sermon after Crécy

80 The Black Death

81 Post-Plague Wage and Price Regulations

82 Chronicle Accounts of the Peasants’ Revolt

83 A Peasants’ Revolt Trial

84 Ordinances of the Guild of Saint Katharine at Norwich

85 Robert Manning of Brunne’s Handlyng Synne

86 The Growth of Lollardy

87 The Deposition of Richard II

CHAPTER SIX: THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY, 1399–1500

88 Chronicle of the Reign of Henry V

89 Statutes of the Order of the Garter

90 Financing the Agincourt Campaign

91 Order of the Pageants of the York Corpus Christi Play

92 Poems about Raising Children

93 London Wills

94 Apprenticeship Documents

95 Visitations of Monasteries

96 A London Chronicle on the Wars of the Roses

97 The Cely Letters

98 The Accession of Richard III

99 The Battle of Bosworth

100 The Rediscovery of Richard III

101 Polydore Vergil’s Account of Henry VII

102 An Italian Relation of England

SOURCES

INDEX OF TOPICS