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Introduction After the Norman invasion, an important and relatively sizeable Jewish community existed in Winchester until the nationwide expulsion of the Jews from England in 1290. It was one of the earliest settlements, dating from at least the 1140s, and its size and significance grew thereafter, especially from the late twelfth century onwards when Jewish business activities had to be officially recorded in archae (chests), leading to concentration in certain towns. 1 It was also one of the longest established Jewish presences in medieval England
Between 2008 and 2015 extensive archaeological excavations were conducted at the former leprosarium and hospital of Saint Mary Magdalen, Winchester, Hampshire, England ( Figure 5.1 ). This work represents one of the first wide-scale excavations of an English leprosarium with its associated cemetery, 1 and has allowed for the cross-comparison of different forms of archaeological data, including burial, artefactual and structural material. It has also provided an important insight into the origins and development of one of the earliest leprosaria , and
This book explores the legal actions of women living in three English towns – Nottingham, Chester and Winchester – during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. For the first time, it brings together women’s involvement in a wide range of litigation, including pleas of debt and trespass, as well as the actions for which they were punished under local policing and regulations. The book details the multiple reasons that women engaged with the law in their local communities, all arising from their interpersonal relationships and everyday work and trade. Through the examination of thousands of original court cases, it reveals the identities of hundreds of ordinary urban women and the wide range of legal actions that they participated in. This wide-ranging, comparative study examines the differing ways that women’s legal status was defined in multiple towns, and according to different situations and pleas. It pays close attention to the experiences of married women and the complex and malleable nature of coverture, which did not always make them completely invisible. The book offers new perspectives on women’s legal position and engagement with the law, their work and commercial roles, the gendering of violence and honour, and the practical implications of coverture and marital status, highlighting the importance of examining the legal roles and experiences of individual women. Its basis in the records of medieval town courts also offers a valuable insight into the workings of these courts and the lives and identities of those that used them.
This book is a study of the history and memory of Anglo-Jewry from medieval times to the present and explores the construction of identities, both Jewish and non-Jewish, in relation to the concept of place. The introductory chapters provide a theoretical overview focusing on the nature of local studies. The book then moves into a chronological frame, starting with medieval Winchester, moving to early modern Portsmouth, and then it covers the evolution of Anglo-Jewry from emancipation to the twentieth century. Emphasis is placed on the impact on identities resulting from the complex relationship between migration (including transmigration) and the settlement of minority groups. Drawing upon a range of approaches, including history, cultural and literary studies, geography, Jewish and ethnic and racial studies, the book uses extensive sources including novels, poems, art, travel literature, autobiographical writing, official documentation, newspapers and census data.
This book aims to provide a broad introduction to the structure and composition of the English manor between c. 1200 and c. 1500 and to serve as a user's guide to its principal records. It considers the form, evolution and usefulness to historians of a group of closely related records: surveys, custumals, extents, terriers and rentals. Manorial accounts build upon the 'static' information contained in surveys, extents and rentals by recording in detail how the individual elements of the manor were managed and what they actually yielded over the agricultural year. The earliest known manorial accounts survive from the bishop of Winchester's estate in the 1200s and 1210s, where they were enrolled with other estate and household records. The abundant records of manor courts represent the single most important source for the study of English local society in the Middle Ages, and offer unique and highly detailed information relating to a wide range of subjects. The book provides a general introduction to the manorial court, its format, procedures and business, and its usefulness to the historian, and considers changes to its business in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. The decline of the frankpledge system, and by extension the declining powers of the leet court, is mirrored by a fall in the business conducted in manor courts during the fifteenth century.
1 The day of a thousand years: Alfred and the Victorian mania for commemoration They called it ‘the day of a thousand years’. By noon on Friday 20 September 1901, in spite of inclement weather, thousands of spectators were crowded into the centre of Winchester or perched aloft on any available rooftop. A public holiday had been declared in the city, flags fluttered from every tower, and bunting rustled from windows and balconies. At the city’s West Gate a grand procession was forming – composed of British ambassadors from every corner of the Empire; prominent
for forestalling a verdict1 and extending her moments against foreclosure and maintaining their permeability—or likewise as Sarah Winchester’s task of attempting to build a metaphorical house that never ceased, with her construction of the Winchester House,2 we might better perceive this conjunctive impulse that behaves in peculiar ways, finding it again in the large melting wax candle sculptures of Urs Fischer. Scheherazade tells a story; a king’s edict However, first, to understand a work of art and its capacity to recapture the moment that counts—making the
history. 9 The figure who embodied the new type of woman more than anyone else, and one who can shed light on the activities of other women, is Licoricia of Winchester. She is first mentioned in the sources as the widow of Abraham of Canterbury. Not only was her name preserved in the chronicles due to her business and economic successes, but also, and extraordinarily, her son was named after her. As a