The records of manorial courts have been used increasingly as the principal source for the reconstruction of rural and small town society in Medieval England. They offer a unique source with which to investigate peasant demography, family patterns, the village community and economy, thecharacteristics and instruments of customary law and the ways in which that law was perceived and exploited by landlords and tenants. The essays in this collection provide novel approaches to all of these themes and are written by many of the historians who have pioneered the use of this sourcecategory in the last two decades. In two introductory chapters, the editors review the historiography of manorial court rolls and account for their origins as a distinctive record of customary law within the broad context of medieval European society. A valuable appendix contains an inventory of the most comprehensive manorial courtroll series arranged systematically on a county-to-county basis, detailing the repository in which they are located. This book will serve as an essential reference tool for any serious study of medieval English rural society. | Medieval Society and the Manor Court by Zvi Razi, Hardcover | Indigo Chapters