Camden Classic Reprints – serie

This book contains a collection of political verses, venality satires and songs of social protest from medieval England. First edited by Thomas Wright in 1839, these so-called 'political songs' are reissued here on behalf of the Royal Historical Society. The collection provides a fascinating insight into medieval responses to contemporary events. A wide-ranging introduction from Peter Coss offers observations on authorship, audience, the means of dissemination and the use of the languages involved. The reader is brought up to date on the critical study of the poems and on their significance and potentiality for the modern historian and literary scholar. Professor Coss corrects Wright's dating where necessary and puts each item into its full contemporary context, making these fascinating verses accessible to the modern reader.

The Stonor letters and papers form one of only three surviving archives of gentry correspondence from late medieval England. The collection - which includes documents ranging from love letters to household accounts - provides us with a wealth of otherwise unobtainable detail about the lives and careers of a gentry family, their servants and their friends. Much of the material comes from the period of the Wars of the Roses, and allows us an insider's view on national events and the people involved in them. Originally edited by the historian C. L. Kingsford at the beginning of the century, the complete collection is reissued here, with a new introduction and annotation by Christine Carpenter. In many ways more representative of gentry life than the Paston letters, the Stonor letters and papers will be invaluable to scholars of late medieval England, and will make fascinating reading for anyone interested in the Wars of the Roses or life in medieval England.

The Stonor letters and papers form one of only three surviving archives of gentry correspondence from late medieval England. The collection - which includes documents ranging from love letters to household accounts - provides us with a wealth of otherwise unobtainable detail about the lives and careers of a gentry family, their servants and their friends. Much of the material comes from the period of the Wars of the Roses, and allows us an insider's view on national events and the people involved in them. Originally edited by the historian C. L. Kingsford at the beginning of the century, the complete collection is reissued here, with a new introduction and annotation by Christine Carpenter. In many ways more representative of gentry life than the Paston letters, the Stonor letters and papers will be invaluable to scholars of late medieval England, and will make fascinating reading for anyone interested in the Wars of the Roses or life in medieval England.

This book contains a collection of political verses, venality satires and songs of social protest from medieval England. First edited by Thomas Wright in 1839, these so-called 'political songs' are reissued here on behalf of the Royal Historical Society. The collection provides a fascinating insight into medieval responses to contemporary events. A wide-ranging introduction from Peter Coss offers observations on authorship, audience, the means of dissemination and the use of the languages involved. The reader is brought up to date on the critical study of the poems and on their significance and potentiality for the modern historian and literary scholar. Professor Coss corrects Wright's dating where necessary and puts each item into its full contemporary context, making these fascinating verses accessible to the modern reader.

This diary is the only eye-witness account of the English Civil War by a participant on the King's side who was not an officer. The diarist, Richard Symonds, was a royal Lifeguardsman for the crucial two years of 1644-5, which included the battle of Naseby and the Royalist defeat. The value of his diaries to our understanding of the Civil War is considerable. It provides a distinctive picture of the face of battle in the Civil War, of the feelings of a sensitive and passionate follower of the King, and of the variety of military experience the war afforded. This 1998 reissue enhances Symond's diary by placing it in a rich historical context for the first time, and adds a great deal of material supplied by recent historical scholarship. This book will be invaluable to scholars and students of the English Civil War, as well as to local historians, war-gamers and Civil War re-enactors.

The Encomium Emmae Reginae is a political tract in praise, as its title suggests, of Queen Emma, daughter of Duke Richard I of Normandy, wife of King Ethelred the Unready from 1002 to 1016, and wife of the Danish conqueror King Cnut from 1017 to 1035. It is a primary source of the utmost importance for our understanding of the Danish conquest of England in the early eleventh century, and for the political intrigue in the years which followed the death of King Cnut in 1035. It offers a remarkable account of a woman who was twice a queen, and of her determination to retain her power as queen-mother. This reprint, which contains the definitive text and translation of the Encomium Emmae Reginae first published in 1949, traces the basic outline of Queen Emma's career and transports us to the heart of eleventh-century politics by defining as clearly as possible the historical context in which the Encomium was written.

This diary is the only eye-witness account of the English Civil War by a participant on the King's side who was not an officer. The diarist, Richard Symonds, was a royal Lifeguardsman for the crucial two years of 1644-5, which included the battle of Naseby and the Royalist defeat. The value of his diaries to our understanding of the Civil War is considerable. It provides a distinctive picture of the face of battle in the Civil War, of the feelings of a sensitive and passionate follower of the King, and of the variety of military experience the war afforded. This 1998 reissue enhances Symond's diary by placing it in a rich historical context for the first time, and adds a great deal of material supplied by recent historical scholarship. This book will be invaluable to scholars and students of the English Civil War, as well as to local historians, war-gamers and Civil War re-enactors.

Agatha Ramm's two volumes containing correspondence between Gladstone and his Foreign Secretary, Lord Granville, conducted at the height of British colonial power during the years 1868-1876, were published originally in 1952. This correspondence is now available in a single volume, and lends the mass of government papers usually studied by historians 'the enlivening touch'. The correspondence contained in the volumes is between two men who wrote to each other privately, but about matters which were, as Professor Matthew states in his introduction, 'the very stuff of official diplomatic exchange'. It also deals with the period of opposition during Disraeli's government of 1874-1880, as well as a wide range of non-political matters, in which the two men were active whether in or out of government. This Reprint gives the reader a valuable insight into the two correspondents and will, therefore, be of great interest to scholars of British history.