Abstract
Recent research has taken a critical approach to community, emphasizing how communities define themselves by those they excluded as much as by those they included. Surprisingly, despite the centrality of the concept of communitas to the development of English political culture, this work has little influence on writing on the late medieval state. This article suggests how it might do so through one case study which illustrates the attitude towards foreigners of those who claimed to represent the community of the kingdom, especially the Commons in parliament. Concentrating on the case of the unpaid dowry of the countess of Kent, Lucia Visconti, this paper considers how concepts such as the law of marque, and of the common profit, bring to light certain features of English attitudes to the foreigner, in particular the influence of urban and mercantile ideas about how one should treat those outside the community of the kingdom.
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