The Foundations of Gentry Life: The Multons of Frampton and their World 1270-1370 (The Past and Present Book Series)

In The Foundations of Gentry Life, Peter Coss examines the formative years of the English gentry. In doing so, he explains their lasting characteristics during a long history as a social elite, including adaptability to change and openness to upward mobility from below, chiefly from the professions. Revolving around the rich archive left by the Multons of Frampton in South Lincolnshire, the book explores the material culture of the gentry, their concern with fashion and their obsession with display. It pays close attention to the visitors to their homes, and to the social relationships between men and women. Coss shows that the gentry household was a literate community, within a literate local world, and he studies closely the consumption of literature, paying particular attention to household entertainment. Beyond their households, then gentry could assert their pre-eminence in the local community through involvement with the Church and the management of their estates. Treating the relationship between gentry and Church in both devotional and institutional terms, Coss shows how religious practice was a means for the gentry to assert social dominance, and they increasingly treated the Church as a career path for their kin. Protecting their estates was of similar importance, and legal expertise was highly prized-it consequently provided a major means of entry into the gentry, as well as offering further opportunities for younger sons. Overall, Coss reveals that the cultural horizons of the gentry were essentially local. Nevertheless there were wider dimensions, and the book concludes with observations on how national and chivalric concerns interacted with the rhythms of regional life. Contents......Page 8 List of illustrations......Page 10 Acknowledgements......Page 12 List of abbreviations......Page 14 Permissions......Page 15 1. Introduction......Page 16 2. The Multons and Frampton......Page 24 3. The gentry household: the locus of consumption......Page 45 4. Household, locality, and social interaction......Page 69 5. The gentry estate: the locus of production......Page 90 6. Commercialization and estate management......Page 115 7. Human resources: the lord and his tenants......Page 130 8. The church as cultural space......Page 155 9. The gentry and the parish......Page 179 10. The culture of the cartulary: the gentry family and the protection of estates......Page 200 11. Lawyers and literacy......Page 224 12. Literature and household entertainment......Page 245 13. The urban dimension: the gentry, towns, and merchants......Page 272 14. Cultural horizons......Page 297 Bibliography......Page 304 B......Page 320 C......Page 322 E......Page 324 G......Page 325 H......Page 326 K......Page 328 L......Page 329 M......Page 330 P......Page 332 R......Page 333 S......Page 334 T......Page 335 W......Page 336 Z......Page 338 Peter Coss brings to life the day-to-day domestic life of the medieval gentry, from their obsession with display, to social codes of conduct and the treatment of guests. Drawing on the rich and rarely studied archive of the Multon family of Frampton, Coss provides an essential contribution to the study of 'gentry culture'.