The Leicestershire Gentry in the Fifteenth Century c.1422-c.1485

Abstract

The heated and often vitriolic debate, the 'Storm over the Gentry', which attempted to explain the origins of the English Civil War, produced much sound and fury. Like any storm, it eventually abated, leaving in its wake, if not tattered reputations, certainly bruised egos and, no doubt, the belated recognition by some British historians that the age of chivalry is indeed dead. But it would be unfair to suggest that the sound and fury signified nothing beyond the obvious or that, after all, the debate had been little more than a storm in a tea-cup. On the positive side, the controversy soon revealed that theory had overrun the available evidence and that more research was required. A new generation of historians readily accepted the implied challenge, producing county and regional studies which shed light on, as opposed to generating heat about, the economic and political concerns of the sixteenth- and seventeenth-century gentry. ... Who were the gentry and what were their concerns? How did they cope with the problems attendant on teetering and toppling crowns? If their horizons were hardly confined to cabbages did they resent the intrusion into their community of the affairs of kings? Or did they relish the opportunity to play a part on the national stage? Answers to such questions can be forthcoming only by providing a detailed study of the local aristocratic community and the relationships formed not only amongst its members but also between them and the central government, either directly or through noble intermediaries. As a further response to McFarlane's challenge, it is these questions which the current study attempts to address.