MISSED OPPORTUNITIES? Religious Houses and the Laity in the English "High Middle Ages"

by David A. Postles

Although there have been some recent overviews of religious houses and the relationship between the religious and the laity in the late eleventh to early fourteenth centuries, none has contained a really coherent theme. This volume offers an overarching theme which gives cohesion to the collection of missed opportunities and disappointment. The efflorescence of foundations of religious houses in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries in England offered the prospect of religious revitalization. Those opportunities are recounted and examined in detail. Ultimately, however, it all ended in disappointment as the religious failed to fulfill both their obligations and the expectations of them, so that the affective relation between the enclosed religious and the laity was eclipsed by the early fourteenth century.

318 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2009

About the author

Dr. David A. Postles is an Honorary Senior Research Fellow at the University of Hertfordshire ("i.e. hanger-on with great interest in the excellent work being done at UH.")

I'm a strange beast who concentrated on early-modern history (British and European) as an undergraduate until I irrationally selected a special subject on medieval economy and manorial society. I subsequently published on medieval matters in Journal of Ecclesiastical History, Journal of Medieval History, Agricultural History Review, Journal of Interdisciplinary History, Continuity and Change, Cambridge Law Journal, and so on. Whilst at the University of Leicester, I was increasingly involved in teaching and learning in the early-modern ('Tawney's century') modules and consequently changed the focus of my research. Since my favourite colleagues worked in the School of English, I was gradually induced into some fields of English literature. When I retired in 2005, I became associated with the School of English at Leicester as a University Research Fellow. My pusillanimous efforts have attempted to consider the relationships of (dramatic) representation and (social) 'reality', which is the subject of some of my most recent books:
* Social Dramas: Literature and Language in Early-Modern England (2010) and Social Proprieties in Early-Modern England (1500-1680) (2006).

Additionally, I recently brought together collections of previously published essays with a sprinkling of new material in:
* Social Geographies in England (1200-1640) (2007); and
Missed Opportunities? Religious Houses and the Laity in the English "High Middle Ages" (2009).

On my way, I've been interested in applying statistical techniques (non-parametric), concordance analysis, GIS, and formal social network analysis - not always appropriately, I suspect. My current work on inequality explores Gini coefficients and Lorenz curves in early-modern England and capital accumulation through specialties (bonds) and associated interest, for which I have a Leverhulme Emeritus Fellowship for one year.