England

Anthony Dent describes how, before the reign of Edward II, the office of ‘royal carter’ did not exist; he was then paid threepence a day for the King’s peregrinations.

The Sheriff’s office under the Norman Kings fulfilled its duties of Saxon times, writes Irene Gladwin, and was awarded to the magnates among the Conqueror’s supporters.

Anthony Dent describes how the last wolves of Yorkshire lived on into the reign of Henry VIII, but by then had almost vanished from England.

Henry Marsh describes how England and Scotland became the first European countries to begin freeing their serfs, towards the close of the twelfth century.

Letha Musgrave introduces William of Ockham  a native of Surrey, the Franciscan scientist and philosopher who was deeply involved during his own lifetime in the politics of medieval Church and State.

William Seymour describes how Robert Bruce defeated the army of Edward II in Stirlingshire and eventually secured recognition of Scottish independence.

J.J.N. McGurk describes how Jewish settlements in England followed the Norman Conquest, and pogroms began only a century later.

Alan R. Young describes how, in sixteenth and seventeenth century England, village witches were prosecuted as the scapegoats for local anxiety.

Stella Margetson describes how English drama arose from the series of religious plays in which men of the Middle Ages expressed their profound, but direct and simple faith.

During the long reign of Henry III, writes J.J.N. McGurk, England was a turbulent country with an ambitious, bold and able baronage.