Fourteenth Century England has quickly established for itself a deserved reputation for its scope and scholarship and for admirably filling a gap in the publication of medieval studies. HISTORY This collection represents the fruits of new research, by both established and young scholars, on the politics, society and culture of England and its dependencies in the fourteenth century. Drawing on a diverse range of documentary, literary and material evidence, the studies offer a range of methods, from micro-history and prosopography to the study of institutions, texts and events. The early fourteenth century provides a particular focus of interest, with studies contributing new reflections on the personnel of parliament, the household of Edward II, the politics of Edward III's minority, and reactions to the great famine of 1315-22 and the Black Death of 1348-9. The wars withScotland and France give the opportunity for significant new assessments of international diplomacy, the role of the mariner in the logistics of war, English loyalties in Gascony and the pious practices of medieval knights. Richlytextured with personal and local detail, these new studies provide numerous insights into the lives of great and small in this tumultuous period of medieval history. W. Mark Ormrod is Professor of Medieval History atthe University of York. Contributors: Benoit Grevin, Alison K. McHardy, J.S. Hamilton, Guilhem Pepin, Eliza Hartrich, Phil Bradford, J.S. Bothwell, Craig Lambert, Andrew Ayton, Graham St John, Christopher Phillpotts

Since the mid-twentieth century, political histories of late medieval England have focused almost exclusively on the relationship between the Crown and aristocratic landholders. Such studies, however, neglect to consider that England after the Black Death was an urbanising society. Towns not only were the residence of a rising proportion of the population, but were also the stages on which power was asserted and the places where financial and military resources were concentrated. Outside London, however, most English towns were small compared to those found in contemporary Italy or Flanders, and it has been easy for historians to under-estimate their ability to influence English politics. Politics and the Urban Sector in Fifteenth-Century England, 1413-1471 offers a new approach for evaluating the role of urban society in late medieval English politics. Rather than focusing on English towns individually, it creates a model for assessing the political might that could be exerted by towns collectively as an 'urban sector'. Based on primary sources from twenty-two towns (ranging from the metropolis of London to the tiny Kentish town of Lydd), Politics and the Urban Sector demonstrates how fluctuations in inter-urban relationships affected the content, pace, and language of English politics during the tumultuous fifteenth century. In particular, the volume presents a new interpretation of the Wars of the Roses, in which the relative strength of the 'urban sector' determined the success of kings and their challengers and moulded the content of the political programmes they advocated.