This dissertation is a study of the middling ranks of the landed classes in one English county during the Angevin period. The introduction discusses the problems of defining this social group and identifying its members. The first chapter deals with the relation between knights and their feudal lords. It explores the slow decline of the honor as an effective social and political unit, the reasons for and effects of this decline and the means by which magnates continued to attract followers after their tenants ceased to provide active service. The second chapter concerns family life within the knightly class. The topics in this chapter include family solidarity, marriage, the modification of primogeniture by gifts of land to younger sons and daughters, the role of women, and family discord. The third chapter deals with the relations between the knightly class and the Church. It discusses the support offered by the knightly class to the monastic revival in northern England, the motives behind this support, the participation of Yorkshire knights in the Crusades and the quality of knightly piety. The fourth chapter is about knights as landholders. It deals with the sources of knightly income, the relations between knights and peasants, the contributions of knights to economic development, the participation of knights in the land market and the question of the prosperity of the knightly class. The fifth chapter describes knightly lawlessness and the important roles knights had in the judicial system of the period. It then discusses the quality of justice where knightly malefactors were concerned. The last chapter explores the relations between the knightly class and the royal government, concentrating on the tasks knights performed for the royal government, the financial burdens placed on the knightly class by the crown, and the participation of knights in the Magna Carta revolt.
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