DAVID CROUCH (ed.), Howden: Town and Liberty. The Victoria County History of the Counties of England. A History of the County of York: East Riding

Abstract

For example, Helen Lacey studies a particular type of speech made by subjects through various cases of ‘defamatory political gossip’. She underlines how this problem was handled by English authorities in the general context of ‘contemporary sensitivities to defamation’ and in particular times of unrest (‘Defaming the King: Reporting Disloyal Speech in Fourteenth-Century England’, pp. 71–93). In these essays, individuals always appear in their links to government. Though affected by the loss of members of his entourage, Edward III handled their death with practical sense. In ‘An Emotional Pragmatism: Edward III and Death’ (pp. 39–70), James Bothwell studies notably funeral arrangements and mortuary effigies of members of the king’s familia and shows how mourning could be both a personal and a public affair. Further from the monarchy, two types of individuals emerge in their relationships to the structures of government: there are those who make the State work, and those who try to play with the system. The first is Thomas Hoccleve. In ‘The Medieval “Side-Hustler”: Thomas Hoccleve’s Career in, and out of, the Privy Seal’, pp. 144–163), Helen Killick retraces his career and shows how as a senior clerk he had access to more interesting and lucrative writing tasks and how he had more time for other literary and scribal activities. The second, Thomas Boulton, a chief taxer in charge of the levy of the subside granted by the Parliament in 1332, tried to take advantage of his position to commit fraud. Through the analysis of the responses from Exchequer and the punishment of Boulton, Jonathan Mackman shows how individual trajectories were impacted by the political agenda of a Crown in want of money. The starting point of these contributions is often a person, an institution or a specific source, but their authors always manage to draw general conclusions and to give the reader an insight into political culture. It is an important book for people studying Late Medieval England and a beautiful homage paid to a great historian who died too soon but whose legacy will continue.