H-Albion review of Gibbs on State Formation in Medieval and Early Modern England (pasted)

 

Rodriguez on Gibbs, 'Lordship, State Formation and Local Authority in Late Medieval and Early Modern England'

Gibbs, Spike. Lordship, State Formation and Local Authority in Late Medieval and Early Modern England. : Cambridge University Press, 2023. xii + 279 pp. $110.00 (cloth), ISBN 9781009311830.

Reviewed by Jeremy M. Rodriguez (University of Central Florida)
Published on H-Albion (April, 2025)
Commissioned by Jeffrey R. Wigelsworth (Red Deer Polytechnic)

Printable Version: https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showpdf.php?id=60898

Alex “Spike” Gibbs investigates the manorial officeholding in late medieval and early modern England. He seeks to answer five questions in his book, ultimately seeking to provide a “new narrative” demonstrating the transition from a “world dominated by powerful manorial lords” to “a world dominated by a central state from the perspective of the local village community” (p. 21). Gibbs builds off the work of English economic historians such as Peter Larson, who similarly argued against an abrupt transition of economic practices from medieval to early modern England. More widely, Gibbs is building off two branches of literature in the historiography: the medievalists and the early modernists. For the medievalists there are two strands. One strand is led by historians such as H. S. Bennett and Paul Vinogradoff and has focused on “account and court rolls,” treating officers as “seigniorial servants” (p. 4). On the other hand, the second strand, led by G. C. Homans and the “Toronto School,” has focused on court rolls, attempting to better understand the social structure of the villages (p. 5). Literature has also argued for the decline of manorial institutions after the Black Death, which is what Gibbs challenges in his monograph. The second branch of literature is led by early modernists, such as Keith Wrightson, and posits that there was a development of a “middling sort” that contributed to state formation. Gibbs propounds the importance of looking at the longue durée by analyzing both late medieval and early modern manorial officeholding. He states that looking at the longue durée allows him to “examine the impact of the economic and social transformations of this period on the exercise of authority and the nature of local governance in village communities” (p. 20).

Gibbs’s study is a comprehensive manorial case study focusing on the manors of Horstead, Cratfield, Little Downham, Worfield, and Fordington. He chose these five manors for both their more extensive records as well as their regional and local-level similarities and differences (p. 21). The book itself is organized in an understandable order, examining changing roles, manorial officeholding, and misconduct, which then lead to state formations. The book could be divided between the major focus of manorial officeholding (chapters 1 through 4) and then state formation (chapters 5 and 6). Chapter 1 employs a quantitative approach, looking at the presentments that were made “for the courts leet and baron seen at all the manors” (p. 37). Presentments, defined as “the business brought by officials to manorial courts in response to charges made by stewards,” allowed Gibbs to observe “the changing nature of officials’ roles” (p. 239). He finds that communities were able to collaborate with elites when choosing officials. Although the communities sometimes had a large influence over who would be elected as an official, those with a higher status still could “monopolise office through controlling selection systems” (p. 114). However, manorial officeholding developed into more than a seigniorial position and into “functions outside lords’ direct concerns” (p. 143). While direct lordship was declining, manors adapted to the circumstances, allowing for continued function. The last two chapters focus on state formation, in which the structures that were found in Tudor and Stuart England were built from “the governance structures of the medieval manor court” (p. 226). Gibbs argues that there was not a decline in the importance of medieval manors, but, rather, they were “put to new purposes in response to wider economic and social changes between 1300 and 1650” (p. 11).

Gibbs utilizes a wealth of primary sources, including court rolls, account rolls, court books, extents, quarter session books, quarter session files, and many more throughout his monograph. Naturally, most of these sources come from the five manors that he looks at, providing a plethora of data to pull from. He extrapolates data on trends from these sources to build off the studies of the many historians he mentions. Instead of firmly arguing against these historians, he discusses their thesis, then proceeds to demonstrate how he is challenging this concept.

While the book’s structure is quite straightforward, it is not necessarily the easiest read. The diction used is difficult to understand at times, as various words such as “presentments” are not clearly defined at first. If one were well familiar with the medieval and early modern economics, this would not be an easy book to get through. Gibbs provides appendices with somewhat clearer definitions at the end of the book; however, these definitions would have been better placed within the content itself instead of after. That said, the appendices do provide a lot of clarification on the difficult topics. He also provides many tables and graphs throughout the monograph which can be helpful for the reader. The problem, likely due to the publisher and not the author, is that the graphs are difficult to read. Since it is a grey-scale book, graphs with multiple variables have up to four different shades of grey, which make it difficult to fully grasp.

Gibbs’s longue-durée approach allows for a bigger-picture understanding of how late medieval manors did not decline in importance but instead adapted to the social and economic changes that were necessary to persist in the early modern period. Additionally, he shows the development of a “middling sort” and how it came about. Ultimately, even with its minor flaws, Gibbs’s monograph is a must-read for English economic historians or historians that study periodization.

Citation: Jeremy M. Rodriguez. Review of Gibbs, Spike. Lordship, State Formation and Local Authority in Late Medieval and Early Modern England. H-Albion, H-Net Reviews. April, 2025.
URL: https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=60898

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.