The social networks of the Buckinghamshire gentry in the thirteenth century

Abstract

This empirical study offers a contribution to a continuing debate about the county community and the significance of feudal ties by analysing the contacts of twenty small and middling knightly families. It explores their geographical range and the relative significance of horizontal and vertical ties. The evidence indicates a world dominated by local connections, stretching five to ten miles from a family manor. Nonetheless, the gentry were not necessarily restricted by county boundaries in their connections, as patterns of monastic patronage show. Nor were their social networks always limited to their neighbourhood. The search for good marriages mobilised wider networks, while financial pressures led families to look to towns like Oxford and London for credit. Ties with feudal superiors were rare, except for tenants of the honor of Wallingford, who had links with the earls of Cornwall. Horizontal ties with other gentry families and family members significantly outnumbered those with any other groups, and this applied both to supportive relationships and conflictual ones. Placing this study in the context of other gentry studies, I conclude by emphasising the prevalence of local ties mainly with those on the same social level or below. Although there is evidence to suggest that wealthier families with several manors had wider ranging connections, the everyday world of these men was apparently a fairly parochial one.