Well, this is definitely what blogs are for: to help folks back home keep up with you, and to vent your thoughts when you don't have anyone else to talk to....
Day 2 at the archives. I'm not sure that I really needed to spend an entire week here in London, since I'm not ready to actually start researching the dissertation, and I think I've done about all I can with the records for the time being. Of course, I still need to look into lodging and such for the spring. Also, tomorrow I think I'm going to avail myself, if possible, of the University of London's holdings. Mostly in connection with that conference next week...
I think that the only way to become familiar with the medieval records is, well, to become familiar with them. Like anything, you can't learn it overnight.
Now, I don't (yet) claim to be an expert, but I am becoming more than ever convinced that those who argue for a peaceful, law-abiding England under Edward III are creating castles out of air, for three reasons. First, volume of surviving petitions from all the counties; these are people who want royal intervention to end oppressions, felonies, etc. Second, the layers and layers of legal officials, not all of whom either a) heard the same cases, or b) were royal officials. This last has been pointed out by Charles Donahue, as an oft-overlooked category of English justice and administration. Third, and contrary to the views of G. L. Harriss and Christine Carpenter, it seems that violence was NOT the 'last resort' of the desperate, the losers, and the fringes of society (close paraphrase of a quote from Harriss), but was business-as-usual for a large portion of the landed and powerful in society. In petitions which I have read, both here at the archives and more extensively in the Patent Rolls, there is often no mention of previous litigation. Rather, it seems that a disagreement between individuals turned violent before the king's justice became involved or was asked to intervene...
Ok, time to go. More tomorrow.
Btw, I have the greatest respect for Harriss and Carpenter as scholars--this is simply a professional disagreement....
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