Law, Laity and Solidarities: Essays in Honour of Susan Reynolds

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.

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