Edward I and the Governance of England, 1272–1307, by Caroline Burt

Abstract

‘One of England’s most innovative, conceptually creative, focussed [sic] and successful rulers’; Caroline Burt’s downright verdict on Edward I rests, not on a survey of the whole range of his governance, but on her researches into his enforcement of the law and his personal responsibility for initiatives in peace-keeping. This is a book essentially about the king’s responses to crime, disorder and disputes, and about the effectiveness of those responses. Although she casts her net more widely, Dr Burt concentrates on three sample counties, Shropshire, Warwickshire and Kent, each differing in the problems of control and management which it presented to the Crown. In the main she proceeds chronologically, dividing Edward’s career as prince and king between six chapters, beginning each with a narrative introduction, continuing with a discussion of local conditions in her chosen counties, and concluding with some thoughts on the local and national outcome of the king’s judicial policies. Her work combines a rigorously statistical approach (in so far as this is possible) with more humane studies of particular incidents and episodes, and with a close scrutiny of local appointments, particularly appointments to the shrievalties, on which good order was so dependent.