Societies, Cultures and Kinship 1580-1850

This work maps the cultural and physical divisions of medieval England. It concentrates on the level of hierarchy immediately above individual local societies, using detailed case studies of networks of linked communities in the East Midlands, the South and East Anglia. The societies studied are respectively on the periphery of a "cultural province", central to another such province and linked closely to a major urban centre. The text is a synthesis of modern continental historical scholarship, social anthropological and geographical techniques, and English medieval history. Included in the investigations are findings about the role of women in defining the sense of local community during the medieval period.

Introduction - an agenda for English local history, Charles Phythian-Adams; the significance of kinship networks in the 17th century - south-west Nottinghamshire, Anne Mitson; town or urban society? St Ives in Huntingdonshire, 1630-1740, Mary Carter; communities of common interest - the social landscape of south-east Surrey, 1750-1850, Evellyn Lord.