Cement or Solvent? Kinship and Politics in Late Medieval England: The Case of the Nevilles

Abstract

This article examines the significance of kinship among the late medieval English nobility through a case study of the Nevilles of Middleham, one of the most prolific and best‐matched noble houses which also, notoriously, failed to co‐operate in politics. It argues that it is wrong to treat the whole kinship network (lineage) as a family, an approach which raises unreal expectations of solidarity among quite distant relatives, substitutes instead the nuclear family, and suggests a life‐cycle of evolution from family of origin to new family. It illustrates the development of distinct and even contradictory identities with the Warwick inheritance dispute of 1449–61 and Edward IV's fostering of political divisions among the Neville brothers in 1469–70. Kinship was a cement that dissolved with the passage of time. It was not itself a source of division.