Gwilym Dodd & Craig Taylor 
Monarchy, State and Political Culture in Late Medieval England 
Essays in Honour of W. Mark Ormrod

The essays collected here celebrate mark the distinguished career of Professor W. Mark Ormrod, reflecting the vibrancy and range of his scholarship on the structures, personalities and culture of ruling late medieval England. Encompassing political, administrative, Church and social history, the volume focusses on three main themes: monarchy, state and political culture. For the first, it explores Edward III’s reactions to the deaths of his kinfolk and cases of political defamation across the fourteenth century. The workings of the ‘state’ are examined through studies of tax and ecclesiastical records, the Court of Chivalry, fifteenth-century legislation, and the working practicesof the privy seal clerk, Thomas Hoccleve. Finally, separate discussions of collegiate statutes and the household ordinances of Cecily, duchess of York consider the political culture of regulation and code-making.


GWILYM DODD is Associate Professor of History, University of Nottingham; CRAIG TAYLOR is a Reader in Medieval History at the University of York.


Contributors: Elizabeth Biggs, James Bothwell, Gwilym Dodd, Helen Killick, Helen Lacey, Joanna Laynesmith, Jonathan Mackman, Anthony Musson, Sarah Rees Jones, E.H. Watt.

Table of Content

Professor W. Mark Ormrod: A Personal Appreciation – Sarah Rees Jones

The ‘Unfortunate’ Fraudster: Thomas de Boulton and the East Riding Lay Subsidy of 1332 – Jonathan Mackman

Negotiating and Creating Collegiate Statutes in the Fourteenth Century – Elizabeth Biggs

An Emotional Pragmatism: Edward III and Death – J. S. Bothwell

Defaming the King: Reporting Disloyal Speech in Fourteenth-Century England – Helen Lacey

Law and Arms: the Politics of Chivalry in Late Medieval England – Anthony Musson

‘Nother by addicions, nother by diminucions’: the Parliament of April 1414 and the Drafting of Late Medieval English Legislation – Gwilym Dodd

The Medieval ‘Side-Hustler’: Thomas Hoccleve’s Career in, and out, of the Privy Seal – Helen Killick

The Order, Rules and Constructions of the House of the Most Excellent Princess Cecily, Duchess of York – Joanna Laynesmith

Archbishops’ Registers Revealed: Church, State and Society in the Registers of the Archbishops of York, 1225-c. 1650 – Helen Watt

About the author

GWILYM DODD is Associate Professor of History at the University of Nottingham.