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The primary aim of this thesis was to investigate the history of the Cistercian Abbey at Boxley in Kent (1146-1538) through its surviving written archive to provide a comparison to existing studies of individual houses that have focused on larger Benedictine houses. The documents considered include early deeds in addition to household and estate accounts that date to the late fourteenth century. Founded by William of Ypres, who had left England and returned to Flanders by 1157, initially Boxley Abbey had only a moderate endowment of lands. With an absent founder who had left no heir, it fell to the early abbots to build up estate holdings by any means. The surviving deeds reflect this. The abbey acquired land, piece by piece through grants, purchases and exchanges. By the beginning of the fourteenth century, they had established nine granges. They also established strong ties with a number of local families. The estate and household accounts reveal the considerable impact that The Black Death had on the economy and administration of this small house and the subsequent response of the Boxley monks to it. The Black Death opened up career opportunities for a small group of capable young monks who held all of the main offices of the abbey in the years following it. Boxley used the same system of accounting employed by large monasteries, the obedientiary system, but adapted it for a small house with fewer monks who were capable of holding office. A partially centralised bursars’ office administered the bulk of the Boxley revenues to maintain both abbot and convent. A significant figure was John Herrietsham, who first entered the abbey in 1345, was abbot of Boxley by 1357, and held this post for at least the next fifty years. He led a number of important changes in the internal economy of the abbey His attempts to maximise the revenues of the estates and limit spending within the household culminated in the 1360 Assessment of Revenues. An unexpected finding of this thesis was the income of the Boxley rood of grace, recorded in the late fourteenth-century bursars’ accounts. This income emerged in the accounts at a critical time in the Boxley economy and provided the monks with a valuable, and probably not therefore wholly typical, source of revenue. The abundant accounts of the bursars, sub cellarers, kitchener and granator are further analysed to reveal the positive impact their disposable income had upon lifestyle and diet within the abbey and household and they reveal just how far it had moved the monks of Boxley Abbey away from the original Cistercian ideals by the end of the fourteenth century.

This thesis investigates an aspect of Southampton's history not previously explored, the effects of smallpox on the town and its environs during the eighteenth century. The work provides a new viewpoint on the town's efforts to establish and maintain itself as a sea bathing and spa health resort, while at the same time supporting sick and wounded military personnel, prisoners of war and billeted troops. The study undertakes a detailed analysis of the town's inoculation records, held within the `Inoculation Book' and from this produces new information on the prevailing attitudes towards the poor, smallpox and inoculation in the town. Brief comparisons with Salisbury and Winchester demonstrate two alternative attitudes towards outbreaks of the disease and the use of inoculation, within these communities. The thesis attempts to assess the efficacy of each approach. This would merit further detailed investigation in the future. Throughout the eighteenth century there were reports of inhabitants fleeing from the towns to rural areas during smallpox outbreaks. The thesis investigates the plausibility of this premise for the Southampton area, and drawing on modem scientific research together with established ecological observation, places these combined findings within the historical context. This has resulted in an entirely new and important evaluation of the role of the rural ecological environment in the survival of earlier generations and would benefit from further investigation in other areas of the country.

Cage chantries were institutions that celebrated masses for the good of the soul of their founder. In late medieval England chantries were the most popular type of religious foundation and could be founded at existing altars, in existing chapels, or involved the building of an external or free-standing chapel. Cage chantries were physically separate chapels erected within existing churches in the period 1366 to 1555. These were erected in cathedrals, collegiate and parish churches. Fifty-four have been positively identified for this study. This group has been examined within both its documentary and physical contexts, as far as evidence allows. These chapels were founded disproportionately in monastic churches, an important factor as so few of these buildings survived the Dissolution of the Monasteries in the 1530s. Therefore these are representative of the others that were most probably founded, but have not survived or been identified. Physically these chapels appear only in churches with a clerestory and at least one aisle. Within these physical constraints, this group has emerged to allow an analysis of the process of foundation not seen in other studies. This process involved not only the endowment or funding arrangements for the celebration of perpetual masses for the soul of the founder, but also an insight into the choices made. The choices for founders included not only the church in which the chapel was located, but also the location within that building. These were small chapels with little room for a congregation, yet proved a popular choice due to the flexibility of their possible locations. Many were close to spiritually significant sites such as shrines or altars or were linked physically to the building projects of their founders. These founders are demonstrated not to endow these chapels in the form described by other chantry studies. A comparison of the process outlined by Kathleen Wood- Legh with the majority of this group has highlighted some of their common features. It is the foundation process and the type of mother house that proscribe the documentary sources available for study. Each cage chantry encapsulates the aspirations of its founder modified by practical considerations, both of space within their mother church and also the permission of these authorities. These were essentially highly personal foundations, located mainly in prestigious churches. While cage chantries are not an aberration of their age, nevertheless as a group they illustrate a flexibility both in the use of physical space and the means of founding a perpetual institution for the benefit of their souls after death that illuminates intercessionary institutions more generally.

This thesis contributes new and unique evidence to the debates surrounding population changes in late medieval England. Through the use of documentary evidence it investigates both mortality and life expectancy rates of the students of Winchester College and New College, Oxford, from 1393 - 1540. In so doing it provides the largest single closed population group examined to date for this period and, importantly, the first sample to follow the experiences of children and adolescents. Source materials are analysed, with particular attention paid to their applicability to the study. Research methodology is also considered, in particular database construction and design, essential parts of the manipulation and analysis of such a large dataset. The records of the two colleges are examined in detail, and analyses presented focusing on the admission rates, departure information and mortality rates within each institution. The latter identified changes across the study period and also possible correlations with national disease outbreaks. Analyses of age data for the scholars contribute valuable interpretations of how the two institutions functioned over the course of the study period and how their administrative practices responded to changing mortality patterns and recruitment demands. Life expectancy rates for the scholars are calculated and analysed. Significantly the life expectancy rates of the Winchester sample demonstrate a better experience than that of previously published monastic samples. The Winchester sample follows scholars out into the wider medieval population (post-education), perhaps providing data that is more representative of the wider community than the monastic studies. Interpretations support the hypothesis that underlying mortality patterns were the cause of changes in life expectancy, and that these patterns were likely to be observed across the population. The conclusions from this large and original dataset are placed within the context of the wider historiographical debates. The need for new, relevant and more diverse samples is emphasised to advance the interpretations of population changes and the economic and social history of late medieval England.

This study is based on all the surviving probate inventories and their associated wills for two Hampshire cities, Winchester and Southampton, up to 1575. The first surviving inventory for Southampton Is dated 1447, whilst that of Winchester is dated 1500. This is the first in-depth study of furnishings, and interiors, for a whole range of socio-economic groups, from artisans to the urban elite, in the first three quarters of the 16th century. It fills the gap between the recent publication of royal inventories, and the earlier ones based on rural communities, and opens up a whole new perspective on the lives of this 'middling' group of people By comparing two quite different types of community: Winchester with its concentration of ecclesiastical, and educational institutions, and Southampton with its port and corresponding merchant, and maritime residents, it shows distinct differences in their household belongings.

The title of the thesis is The Role of the Prior of St John in Late Medieval England, c. l 300-1540. ' It investigates the unique political role of the Prior of St John in England between 1300 and 1540. It looks at changes in the Prior's public roles over time, with reference to particular moments when individual Priors were senior political figures. It further examines changes in the English Priory and the resulting development of the Prior's role. It also investigates of the effect of events in the eastern Mediterranean and the ensuing consequences for the Hospitallers and Prior of England, analyses the relationship between the Prior's connections with powerful merchants and the appointment of several priors as treasurer of England, and explores of the loss of the order's political control of its estates to local gentry and aristocrats. Chapter 1, the introduction, includes the aims, hypothesis, international background, historiography and methodology. Chapter 2 covers the financial role of the Prior, examining the role played by the three Priors who became treasurers of England, and discusses the Prior as a source of finance for the crown. Chapter 3 looks at the military duties of the Prior in service to the crown. Chapter 4 considers the diplomatic aspect of the Prior's international role. Chapter 5 examines the Prior's political role in national politics, focusing on the development of his role in parliament, great council, and king's council. Chapter 6 treats the Prior and the secularisation of the order in England based on the extant English Hospitaller lease books between 1492 and 1539. Chapter 7, the conclusion, assimilates the information in the preceding chapters, commenting on and analysing the Prior's place in English society. The main conclusion is that the Prior became much more involved in the English political system during the late fourteenth and especially mid-fifteenth centuries than has previously been supposed. This thesis is the only in depth study of the Prior spanning later medieval England. This enables it to chart changes in the Prior's role that shorter studies on individual Priors (Prior Nablous, 1184-1190, Prior Malory, 1432-1440) cannot perceive. In addition, it is the only study to make extensive use of the English National Archives (Public Record Office), whereas other Hospitaller histories draw the bulk of their information from the Hospitaller archives on Malta or from printed primary sources. Furthermore, the study is unique in its concentration the Prior's service to the English crown and in its approach, viewing this service as beneficial, rather than contradictory to the Hospitallers' interests. For the above reasons, this thesis makes a significant contribution to our knowledge of late medieval history, crossing the boundary between `national' and crusading history.

Since Dyos's seminal work on Camberwell in 1961 various studies have investigated the growth of the Victorian suburbs of large cities with industrial and manufacturing economies. However, little has been researched on the cathedral and market centres. In 1851 Winchester's population stood at just 13,752 of whom 2,424 lived in four outlying parishes whose agricultural lands were predominantly under the control of three traditional estate owners: the Dean and Chapter of Winchester Cathedral, Winchester College and William Simonds. Changes in land law and decreasing agricultural rents acted as a catalyst for the transformation of fields to residential properties for Winchester's growing middle classes. By 1891 the population in these parishes had increased three and a half fold, to 8,361 and growth accelerated throughout the 1890s and 1900s. In 1912 the first independent professional valuation of Winchester's real estate took place giving reliable information on acreage, rental and rateable value, ownership and occupation. This thesis has been completed under the auspices of the Winchester Project, set up in 1988 by archaeologists, geographers and historians at the University of Winchester to reconstruct the life of Winchester from 1550 to the present. This study centres on tracing the development of building plot and street in the Victorian and Edwardian suburbs. Their comparative manageable size makes such a study achievable. Development is traced from the 1840s Tithe Apportionment through to the 1912 valuation by examining the purchasing of the land by developers and builders and their selling transactions to the house owner.

The pipe rolls of the bishopric of Winchester not only impart in-depth detail about England's wealthiest see in the Middle Ages, but also provide an account of the demographic, economic and social conditions on the estate. This thesis examines evidence from the pipe roll of 1348-9 for the impact of the plague on seventeen Hampshire units of account of the bishopric of Winchester. The work has involved both interpretation and analysis of the pipe roll: its physical appearance, palaeography and subject matter within the text, the findings of which can be found in chapters one and two. By using other pipe rolls of the bishopric of Winchester both before and after 1348-9 the work also compares and contrasts. This analysis focuses specifically upon information relating to the plague of 1348-9, and assesses the immediate impact of the Black Death on Hampshire. The work begins by exploring the pipe roll as a historical document, combined with a review of previous historical writings on the Black Death. This review is followed by an investigation of the physical aspects of the pipe roll as well as the financial and administrative structure of the account. Chapter three assesses the number of heriots received and debates their value for measuring mortality. Chapter four addresses the Black Death's influence on wages as well as other forms of remuneration, while chapter five considers the impact of the Black Death upon both marriage and entry fines. Chapter six addresses the fair of St Giles and the influence of the Black Death upon the bishop's income received from the fair. The Conclusion establishes that the pipe roll supports the hypothesis that the bishopric of Winchester was profoundly affected by the arrival of the Black Death in 1348 and that this has implications for the broader analysis of the impact of the plague in the fourteenth century. Study of the pipe roll of 1348-9 has therefore enabled this work to assess, for the first time, the effects of the Black Death upon seventeen units of account on the Hampshire estate.

This study of Sparsholt village concentrates on the period from 1841 to 1901, using the decennial Census Enumerators' Books (CEBs). Sparsholt, population around 400 post-1850, is about three miles (five kilometres) northwest of Winchester in the Hampshire downlands, a region of arable farming. For most of the century there were just two major landowners, the Dean and Chapter of Winchester Cathedral and the Hervey Bathurst family of Clarendon Park, Wiltshire; both absentee. In that respect, Sparsholt was therefore neither a typical 'open' nor 'closed' village. The thesis demonstrates that meaningful findings can be obtained with a village having a population of under 500 in 1901, an important issue as the populations of 61.5% of villages in England and Wales were so sized. These results are achieved by linking data from the seven CEBs to a wide range of other local and national sources,considering particularly the impact of the agricultural recession in the last quarter of the century. In contrast, most CEB-based rural studies examine much larger communities, but investigate only one to four CEBs at most, make less in-depth use of other sources and generally do not cover the period of the agricultural recession. In developing Sparsholt's microhistory, the study initially tracks its demographic profile and occupations from the CEBs, and then models its changing socio-economic structure by using other sources and analytical approaches. The latter is achieved by relocating the population found in the 1851 CEB on to contemporary tithe maps and then following the development of each of the main farms and trade or craft businesses and the owners thereof for the rest of the century. Clear evidence is found for the impact of the agricultural recession in the last two decades of the century. The effect is seen through the increase in the average age, changing gender balance and widening birthplace profile of the village. There was also a greater variety of occupations pursued and a progressive consolidation of farmland into the hands of major landowners, who were not traditionally farmers, as historical farmers and owners exited the business. Additionally, increasing democratisation in the village's affairs is observed through electoral enfranchisement and successful trades or craftsmen largely replacing the earlier land-owning farmers in the administrative activities of the village.

This thesis is based on the analysis of a single document, the Southampton Book of Fines (1488-1594), in the context of other Southampton documents and contemporary materials surviving in other towns. This thesis analyses the first half of the book (1488-1540), some 156 folios. The Book of Fines is a unique document which fills gaps in Southampton's documentary record at a time in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries when the town was undergoing major economic change. It therefore contributes to a much better understanding of other elements in the archive. Critical analysis in this document of the period 1488-1540 is crucial to understanding the nature of mayoral income and expenditure and its effects on the town's economy during the Tudor period up to the Reformation This thesis argues, using the mayoralty of the instigator of the Book of Fines, Thomas Overay, as the benchmark, that the mayors of Southampton enjoyed considerable autonomy in the expenditure of monies accrued during their individual mayoralties. The funds that were collected under the Overay formula were available to individual mayors as a separate income stream from other town monies. This thesis explores ways which individual mayors prioritised this personal expenditure, thereby illuminating an aspect of town government for which the source material is unparalleled elsewhere in England.

The main argument of this thesis is that the landscape and locality of Clarendon Forest and Park were strongly influenced by the presence (or, later, absence) of Clarendon Palace, which fell into decay in the late fifteenth century. This contention is addressed by taking the landscape as the unit for study, rather than focusing on the palace and extrapolating 'outwards'. A primary aim is to restore the wider conceptual landscape by considering the forest alongside the relict landscape of the park, and it is argued throughout that, because medieval forests are archaeologically elusive, the best way to achieve this is through an intensive documentary methodology. Attention is drawn throughout to the capacity of documents to illustrate how estates were managed over time. This is demonstrated particularly in Chapters Two and Three, the main findings of which (including observations of a major change in attitude and landscape use in the early- to mid- fourteenth century) are drawn together in the conclusions of those chapters. The thesis, representing an unprecedented systematic study of manuscript sources for Clarendon Park and Forest held at central and regional record offices, is supported by references to printed primary sources. It has resulted in the compilation of a main computer database listing over 800 relevant documents held at the Public Record Office alone (Appendix 11), from which those that might prove most useful were selected and transcribed. The transcriptions, arranged by subject, form several substantial and searchable electronic databases facilitating cross-checking and comparison, some of which are reproduced here as Appendices. The written sources themselves have informed the structure of the thesis. Their worth in a study such as this is explored in Chapter One, following a brief background history of Clarendon and an elucidation of the study's academic and historiographical context. Chapter Two then addresses ecology and economy, while the park's 'built environment' is considered in Chapter Three in order to provide new insights. Settlement is explored in Chapter Four, which reveals Clarendon Forest to have been a landscape of control in which assarting, in particular, was restricted. Chapter Five expands on this point by addressing 'closure' and conflict in the landscape. It examines also Clarendon's 'social topology', partly by employing gender as a tool to elucidate the nature of social closure, and ends by considering the palace as a scene of social negotiation. The Conclusion, Chapter Six, expands on the management of the forest and park and the phasing of the latter's use based largely on materials in Chapters Two and Three. It concludes that the hypothesis is supported; this unique landscape and locality was indeed profoundly influenced by the existence of a royal park and palace at its centre. Nevertheless, what has emerged strongly in the course of the study are the myriad ways in which the forest, in turn, shaped the lifecycle' of the palace.

This project involves the study of bastard feudalism on the estates of the bishopric of Winchester in the period 1280-1530. Among the many theses and books on late medieval noble families and on county communities none has been so well-documented as the bishopric of Winchester. No county that was dominated by the Church has yet been studied. To date, work on ecclesiastical estates has not concerned itself with their political significance. Yet Winchester was the greatest and best recorded episcopal estate, with many parallels, and there were other counties such as Cambridgeshire, Hertfordshire, and Kent, also dominated by the Church. The thesis builds on modem work on the nobility and bastard feudalism. The ecclesiastical patronage of the bishops has been analysed for the whole of the period covered by this study. The main part of the study, however, is based on the bishops' piperolls and account books, which survive almost without interruption from 1208 and form a resource of unparalleled richness and bulk. The changing nature of the estate administration has been discussed at length. The study has concerned itself with the identity and remuneration of officers, with leaseholders and with annuitants. It suggests that the bishops clearly were bastard feudal lords, even if their use of retaining practices was not quite the same as the lay nobility. This material has been compared with evidence oflocal office-holding in order to build up a picture of the bishops' power in central southern England. The bishops retained many local officers. The records of the central courts have been sampled to establish how frequently the bishop sued offending tenants and officers. The thesis thus contributes to regional history, to the understanding of bastard feudalism itself, and to the role of ecclesiastical landowners. Finally, it tests the hypothesis that bishops evolved during the middle ages, from being major magnates akin to the lay nobility into the renders oflands that were exploited for financial and political gain by the local aristocracy who appropriated the patronage, manpower, and resources for themselves. Such developments are clearly observable on the Winchester estate before the Reformation, and presaged the major changes that were to come during the second half of the sixteenth century.

The value of property studies of a considerable time span is undisputed and yet such investigations are rare. Keene's Survey of Medieval Winchester is a notable exception. That project focused on the medieval period and ended in 1550 and so remained divorced from the present experience. This thesis brings the study of property histories into immediate relevance by bridging the early modem and modern period and by formulating a blueprint methodology for the study of property histories. The methodology has been tempered by application to a sizeable case study: all the properties in Winchester High Street. These tenement histories form an appendix. This study has great relevance to the study of other local and urban historical environments. Winchester High Street was the backbone of Hampshire's county town, both economically and topographically. The interrelationship between its structures and their use has been explored using a range of methodological approaches. The successful linkage of primary source material has established shifting occupational and spatial trends over a long time span.

The census enumerators' books (CEBs) of Winchester between 1841 and 1891 are the focus of this thesis. They are examined, in association with other records like trade directories, share contracts and visual evidence of photographs, maps and plans, to track aspects of the economic, social and topographical development of Winchester, with specific reference to the effect of the railways in the later nineteenth century. Surviving rail company records of passengers and freight for this period are scarce and so the census is used to indicate a tangible yet difficult to quantify effect: the impact of the railways upon a city that was neither a railway town nor an industrial centre. The census provides evidence of the structure of the de facto population on census night every ten years, and the CEBs show this detail at the level of the individual. It therefore provides a revealing picture of change and continuity in the city at a time when it experienced its most momentous demographic change since medieval times. As such, the analysis contained within is of relevance to people studying both nineteenth century history and the post-medieval history of Winchester. The methodology employed in this work, a sourceoriented KAE1CD database, is a product of the techniques employed by those working in historical computation. The study uses almost 2 million pieces of information in a database covering a continuous run of 50 years of censuses, allowing both a broad and detailed analysis of the data to take place. Using evidence from CEBs as well as concomitant local sources, this thesis questions the extent to which the railway did affect the city. It finds that despite the redistribution of a larger population throughout the city and many changes in the economic and topographical structure of the city, it is rarely possible to expose a quantifiable influence of rail transport.

This thesis examines the evidence for the parochial layout of Wiltshire in the Anglo-Saxon period, and through a detailed examination of surviving sources reconstructs a network of minsters and their parochiae for much of Wiltshire. Extensive case-studies of certain areas both emphasise the potential difficulties of interpretation when undertaking such reconstruction, and reinforce the main tenets of the `minter hypothesis'. Evidence for connections with the secular administrative pattern is so strong as to indicate a late Saxon system of `hundred minsters', but there is sufficient reason to suggest that this system was subject to alteration prior to 1086, in association with administrative adjustments and the growth of secular and ecclesiastical estates. These conclusions are reinforced by further discussion of lesser churches of Anglo-Saxon Wiltshire, some of which made significant local contributions to the late Saxon parochial layout. Comparison with case studies from other parts of the south suggests that the conclusions of this study have a general validity for the development of ecclesiastical organisation throughout Wessex.

Winchester probate inventories produced between 1650 and 1710 are the focus of this thesis. They are examined, in conjunction with a number of accompanying wills. records of town government and also taxation records, in order to demonstrate change and continuity in the form of domestic space and to analyse the nature of the relationship between the built domestic environment and the people who lived within it. The investigation brings the analysis of inventory evidence of domestic space into the mainstream of contemporary studies of the meanings of consumption. The study is principally based on documentary evidence but reference is made to some of the archaeological evidence also. Particular attention is paid to standing remains in the . cathedral close as outstanding examples of new forms of domestic architecture in the restoration period. Winchester inventories are evidence of the physical environment of the city in a period of considerable social. economic and political change. The examination of these sources is of relevance to people other than those interested in the history of England's former royal capital. The methodology of inventory analysis employed here. using as it does the source-oriented database management software kaeiw, offers a paradigm for future students of this source material. This is one of the first studies in this country to employ such a methodology. As such it affords the opportunity to evaluate the usefulness of techniques available in the new and growing field of historical computation. Inventories contribute to our understanding of continuity and change in areas other than house form and room use. These documents cast light upon the social structure of post-medieval Winchester and provide an indication of the ways in which the city was adapting to changed circumstances in a period after the terminal decline of its staple industries. This study also offers the first attempt to integrate an investigation of the relationships between appraisers and inventoried testators into a wider examination of the consumption of domestic space in this period.

The main source used for this study is the series of Southampton town financial records known as the stewards' books. Little use has been made of the fifteenth-century stewards' books by historians of Southampton except by way of illustration in more general works.1 Preparation of an edition of the 1492-93 steward's book for Southampton Records Series showed that significant areas of research could be undertaken based on an examination of the books within the context of other records of Southampton's medieval town government.2 It was also clear that documenting Southampton's experience ,could contribute to general historical debate concerning the development of towns in the late Middle Ages. Comparison with similar records elsewhere would enable an assessment to be made of the extent to which Southampton followed national trends in the aspects to be considered. There is general agreement amongst historians that, in comparison with many other towns in the late Middle Ages, Southampton prospered in the fifteenth century.3 The main aim of the study is not, therefore, to contribute to general debate concerning the nature and extent of urban decline in the fifteenth century, but to show that Southampton's town government actively contributed to the town's success through good financial practices and investment in property. The town's record of financial management can be examined in several ways. The physical appearance of the stewards' books in terms of format, writing materials and language are important indicators of accounting techniques. Other financial aspects to be considered include the office and duties of the steward and his place in the official 1 hierarchy, the structure of financial control, accounting method, audit, and response to financial commitments. Study of the stewards' books has already indicated their importance as a source for understanding the way in which the town acquired its property during the fifteenth century.4 Further analysis of the entries is necessary to document more precisely the process of acquisition and the ways in which the town government not only maintained but increased property income at a time when many towns were experiencing a falling rental.5 Analysis of rental information also documents changes in the geographical distribution of town property, individual property history, and changes in tenancy. The stewards' books record in detail money spent on repairs to houses rented to tenants and on public works such as the quays and town conduit, indicating the town's commitment to maintain and enhance its investment in property. The record of repair and maintenance is an important source contributing to knowledge of building techniques and improvements in standards of living, and of the artisans who were employed to carry out the work. Special attention will be paid to references in the stewards' book to repairs on the town cranes, both as an example of major investment by the town in its property, and as an unusual opportunity to draw conclusions about their technology and repair methods.