Early Modern Britain, 1450-1750

"The first two chapters will consider the societies and governance of England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales in about 1450. Chapter one will focus on the workings of power and law, with particular emphasis on kings and their more powerful subjects. Chapter two will consider the economy--above all the relationship between landlords and peasants--together with the lower levels of government and the functioning of communities, concluding with a discussion of 'mental worlds', above all religion and the spirit world. Both chapters emphasise diversity, which derived from ethnic and linguistic differences and the fundamental contrast between highland and lowland societies. Highland regions tended to be sparsely populated, dependent primarily on pastoral farming, with few towns and limited trade. Lowland regions focused more on arable farming, with larger villages, significant towns, and more developed manufactures and trade. In social and cultural terms the most striking contrasts were those between Celtic and what I shall very crudely describe as 'feudal' societies and governments, England and Scotland, more especially Lowland Scotland. We shall consider the development of systems of law and Parliaments, which became the mechanisms through which kings could negotiate with their more powerful subjects, levy taxes and make laws. We shall also consider the ways in which 'feudalism' changed, in terms of the relationships between lord and peasant, between greater and lesser lords, and between lords and the king, concluding with a discussion of the supposedly degenerate 'bastard' feudalism found in England by the mid fifteenth century"--