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Food security is discussed with a particular focus on the decades either side of 1300, years characterised by poor weather and significant fluctuations in food availability, evident especially in the varied performance of grain harvests. Examining access to food and the vulnerability of the food supply in a period of particular pressure on food resources allows reflection on stresses on food availability in these decades as well as the range of approaches that individuals and institutions could employ in seeking to respond to them. The article discusses relative entitlement and contemporary perceptions of the same. While its focus is upon rural society and the experience of the peasantry, there will necessarily be some reference to the urban context, which cannot be separated from the experience of the countryside, and the attempts of institutions such as government to respond to issues relevant to food security in this period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Manor courts held by landlords for their tenants and other local people existed in their thousands across medieval England. Debate persists concerning the character of these institutions during their heyday in the decades before 1350. This article uses a new database containing hundreds of manorial personal actions – lawsuits which treated areas roughly equivalent to modern tort and contract law – to explore the work of the manor courts, and to reconstruct their development over the first century for which records of their proceedings survive. It is argued that although local variation among manor courts persisted, overall there was a broad process of 'convergence'. Yet this was not simply a top-down development involving the transmission of practices from the courts of common law, or the communication of external rules by lawyers or landlords. Instead, the suitors, litigants and jurors of the manor courts played a decisive role in this process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A bibliographic essay is presented which discusses 2009 books and scholarly articles about the history and historiography of Europe from 1200-1500. Subjects include the history of law, the Crusades, and rural economy. Books discussed include "A History of the Abbey of Bury St Edmunds 1182-1256: Samson of Tottington to Edmund of Walpole," by A. Gransden, "Holy Rulers & Blessed Princesses: Dynastic Cults in Medieval Central Europe," by G. Klaniczay, and "Guests in the House: Cultural Transmission Between Slavs & Scandinavians 900-1300," by M. Roslund.

The article discusses the economic relationship between lords and their peasant tenants under the European feudal system, with particular focus given to the work of Marxist historian Rodney Hilton. The way in which this relationship eventually led to the shift from a feudal mode of production to a capitalist one is examined. The author explains the political aspects of the feudal rent system, including its impact on the rise of peasant movements in the late Middle Ages, and provides the case of the imprisonment of tenant farmer Robert Kyng by William Bray, abbot of Bury St. Edmonds, England.

The article provides an overview of articles, books and other information resources related to the late middle ages history. They include "Edward III and the English Peerage. Royal Patronage, Social Mobility and Political Control in Fourteenth Century England," by J. S. Bothwell, "A Second Domesday? The Hundred Rolls of 1279-80," by S. Raban and "Murder and Monarchy: Regicide in European History, 1300-1800," edited by R. von Friedeburg.

The article provides an overview of several books about the history of Great Britain and Europe in the later Middle Ages. It includes "The Struggle for Mastery: Britain 1066-1284," by D. A. Carpenter, "King Edward II: Edward of Caernarfon, His Life, His Reign, and Its Aftermath, 1284-1330," by R. M. Haines, "A Brief History of the Hundred Years' War," by D. Seward and "Christ's Poor Men: The Carthusians in England," by G. Coppack and M. Aston.

Focuses on a court case held in a manorial court on April 5, 1296, at the Bury Saint Edmunds manor of Hinderclay in Suffolk. Circumstances surrounding the case; Details on who were involved in the case; Striving of anthropologists and historians to understand how individuals view the legal mechanisms available for dispute resolution.

Reports on the Seventh Anglo-American Seminar on the Medieval Economy and Society held on July 13-16, 2001 in Dublin, Ireland. Success of the discussion in building and maintaining exciting themes and issues; Presentations about dendrochronological research.