Includes bibliographical references (p. 289-306) and index.
Contents
The formation of the English gentry -- The roots of the English gentry -- The Angevin legacy : knights as jurors and as agents of the state in the reign of Henry III -- The crisis of the knightly class revisited -- Knights in politics : minor landowners and the state in the reign of Henry III -- Knighthood, justice and the early Edwardian polity -- The explosion of commissions and its consequences -- Identity and the gentry -- Knights, esquires and the origins of social gradation in England -- Crystallisation : the emergence of the gentry.
