Petitions and Strategies of Persuasion in the Middle Ages

Thomas W. Smith gained his PhD from Royal Holloway, University of London; he is presently Keeper of the Scholars and Head of Oxbridge (Arts and Humanities) at Rugby School. ANTHONY MUSSON is Head of Research at Historic Royal Palaces. GWILYM DODD is Associate Professor of History at the University of Nottingham, UK. HELEN LACEY is Associate Professor in Late Medieval History at Mansfield College, University of Oxford, UK. KIRSI SALONEN is a professor of medieval history at the University of Bergen. Professor PHILIPPA HOSKIN is Gaylord & Dorothy Donnelley Fellow Librarian, Corpus Christi College, and Keeper of the Parker Library, University of Cambridge. She is also General Editor of the Lincoln Record Society. Thomas W. Smith gained his PhD from Royal Holloway, University of London; he is presently Keeper of the Scholars and Head of Oxbridge (Arts and Humanities) at Rugby School. The late W. MARK ORMROD was Professor Emeritus of History at the University of York; he published extensively on later medieval history.

• Foreword - W. Mark OrmrodIntroduction: Medieval Petitions and Strategies of Persuasion - Thomas W. Smith and Helen KillickBlood, Brains and Bay-Windows: The Use of English in Fifteenth-Century Parliamentary Petitions - Gwilym DoddPetitioners for Royal Pardon in Fourteenth-Century England - Helen LaceyThe Scribes of Petitions in Late Medieval England - Helen KillickPatterns of Supplication and Litigation Strategies: Petitioning the Crown in the Fourteenth Century - Anthony MussonPetitions of Conflict: The Bishop of Durham and Forfeitures of War, 1317-1333 - Matthew PhillipsA Tale of Two Abbots: Petitions for the Recovery of Churches in England by the Abbots of Jedburgh and Arbroath in 1328 - Shelagh Sneddon'By Force and Arms': Lay Invasion, the Writ de vi laica amovenda and Tensions of State and Church in the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries - Philippa M. HoskinThe Papacy, Petitioners and Benefices in Thirteenth-Century England - Thomas W. SmithPlaying the System: Marriage Litigation in the Fourteenth Century - Frederik J G PedersenKiller Clergy: How did Clerics Justify Homicide in Petitions to the Apostolic Penitentiary in the Late Middle Ages? - Kirsi Salonen

Overall, the collection's strength lies not just in the individual chapters-all of which are well researched and effectively argued and, as I hope I have shown, thought provoking-but in the sum effect of the volume. It brings the technical, theoretical and practical aspects of both secular and ecclesiastical petitioning together in a very effective package.