Description
How did local reputations and politics collide in inheritance disputes? This paper will examine the strategies which could be employed to navigate the complexities of legal jurisdiction and local custom in the Plantagenet World and we how might approach the place of family and memory in Plantagenet Politics.Private petitioning provided a mechanism by which subjects of the Plantagenet kings could bring their complaints before parliament to be heard directly by the king, council, House of Lords or commons thereby bypassing local judicial systems which were often corrupt and under the control of powerful local magnates, their families and their retainers.
Through an examination of private petitioning as a weapon of political disputation the paper will bridge the gap between scholarship which has focused on the parliamentary frameworks of petitioning and scholarship which has considered the importance of social memory in legal and political disputation. In particular it will draw attention to a selection of thirteenth and fourteenth century petitions which demonstrate the various tropes of delegitimisation which could brought out in these cases, allegations of bastardy, alien origin and forgery.
Ultimately this paper will demonstrate that at the heart of all of these disputes was a battle of wills over the material political benefits as well as more widespread familial legacies and political legitimacy.
| Period | 24 Apr 2025 → 25 Apr 2025 |
|---|---|
| Event title | Bristol Centre for Medieval Studies PGR Conference 2025: Memory and Legacy |
| Event type | Conference |
| Location | Bristol, United KingdomShow on map |
| Degree of Recognition | National |
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