Essays offering a guide to a vital source for our knowledge of medieval England.
The Inquisitions Post Mortem (IPMs) at the National Archives have been described as the single most important source for the study of landed society in later medieval England. Inquisitions were local enquiries into the lands heldby people of some status, in order to discover whatever income and rights were due to the crown on their death, and provide details both of the lands themselves and whoever held them. This book explores in detail for the first time the potential of IPMs as sources for economic, social and political history over the long fifteenth century, the period covered by this
Companion. It looks at how they were made, how they were used, and their ‘accuracy’, and develops our understanding of a source that is too often taken for granted; it answers questions such as what they sought to do, how they were compiled, and how reliable they are, while also exploring how they can best be usedfor economic, demographic, place-name, estate and other kinds of study.
Michael Hicks is Professor of Medieval History, University of Winchester.
Contributors: Michael Hicks, Christine Carpenter, Kate Parkin, Christopher Dyer, Matthew Holford, Margaret Yates, L.R. Poos, J. Oeppen, R.M. Smith, Sean Cunningham, Claire Noble, Matthew Holford, Oliver Padel.
Tabla de materias
Introduction – Michael Hicks
Crossing Generations: Dower, Jointure and Courtesy – Michael Hicks
The Lesser Landowners and the Inquisitions
Post Mortem – Christine Carpenter
Tales of Idiots, Signifying Something: Evidence of Process in the Inquisitions
Post Mortem – Kate Parkin
The Value of Fifteenth-Century Inquisitions
Post Mortem for Economic and Social History – Christopher Dyer
‘Notoriously Unreliable’: The Valuations and Extents – Matthew Holford
The Descriptions of Land found in the Inquisitions
Post Mortem and Feet of Fines. A Case Study of Berkshire – Margaret Yates
Correcting Josiah Russell’s Measurements of Late Medieval Mortality using Inquisitions
Post Mortem –
A Great Historical Enterprise: The Public Record Office and the Making of the Calendars of Inquisitions
Post Mortem – Sean Cunningham
Writs and the Inquisitions
Post Mortem: How the Crown managed the System – Claire Noble
‘Thrifty Men of the Country’? The Jurors and their Role – Matthew Holford
Place-names and Calendaring Practices – Oliver J. Padel
Sobre el autor
MICHAEL HICKS, the academic director, is Emeritus Professor of Medieval History at the University of Winchester and author of Richard III: The Self-Made King (Yale, 2019), among many other books and articles.