NEW TITLE FROM THE YORKIST HISTORY TRUST: PRE-PUBLICATION OFFER

Late Medieval Bristol: Time, Space and Power
By Peter Fleming

‘The mayor making’ taken from The Maire of Bristowe is Kalendar by permission of Bristol Archives

Late Medieval Bristol: Time, Space and Power is an investigation of identity, community construction and political power in fifteenth-century Bristol. Written by Peter Fleming (emeritus Professor of Medieval History at the University of the West of England), this major study breaks with the traditional historiography associated with the writings of Eleanor Carus-Wilson, David Harris Sacks and Evan Jones. Their approaches, rooted in economic and social history, are replaced with one grounded in the cultural turn and its concern with meaning, self-perception and ideological messaging. The book examines how one of the greatest urban centres of England sought to construct its identity. How did Bristol’s merchant elite seek to create and use ‘history’ to bolster the position of their parvenu town and provide an ideological justification for their own position within it? How did Bristol’s merchants engage with literature and poetry to present commerce as a noble art and mystery, rather than the ‘grubby profession’ portrayed by the Church, gentry and aristocracy? And, lastly, how did Bristol’s rulers respond to the great dynastic conflicts of fifteenth-century England and position their community in the Yorkist Age?

This monograph is the product of over thirty years of research by Bristol’s leading medieval historian. It was fully written and almost ready to be sent to the intended publishers by 2013. However, the author’s increasing ill health, as he battled with advancing MS, first paused and then entirely halted progress on the book. The Yorkist History Trust have brought this major and groundbreaking work of scholarship to fruition, to be published in late 2023.

The book will contain a List of Subscribers for those who pre-order the book by 10th October 2023 – a special price of £25.00 is available for subscribers (free P&P on UK orders, £10.00 extra for overseas). To order a copy, please email christian.steer@york.ac.uk with the following information:

  • Name to appear in the List of Subscribers (no titles)
  • Postage information
  • Telephone number or email address in case of any queries.

Cheques should be made payable to “SHAUN TYAS PUBLISHING” and should be sent to Yorkist History Trust, P.O. Box 6302, Newbury, Berkshire, RG14 9QU; to pay by PayPal/bank transfer, please indicate preferred method in your email.

%d