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Linda S. Clark is a distinguished scholar of fifteenth-century England, best known for her important contribution to the study of the late medieval English parliament. She has served as general editor of 'The Fifteenth Century' since 2003. This special volume in the series marks her four decades of work for the History of Parliament Trust. As is appropriate, its essays focus above all on Parliament and the personalities that served in its chambers, but they also illuminate a wider range of themes that have long concerned students of the later middle ages, including the lawlessness of the gentry and nobility, the acquisition and management of their estates, and their self-expression in pageantry and legend. Other social groups, ranging from the mercantile élite of the city of London and their Italian trading partners to England's common soldiers, also make an appearance. Several of the papers collected here have a geographical focus in London and East Anglia, but other regions are also represented. The collection thus pays tribute to the breadth of Dr Clark's contribution to the field, both in her own writing, and in her long-standing commitment to facilitate the publication of the original research of others. Contributors: A. J. Pollard, Simon Payling, Charles Moreton, Colin Richmond, J. L. Bolton, James Ross, Carole Rawcliffe, Elizabeth Danbury, Matthew Davies, Hannes Kleineke, David Grummitt, Caroline M. Barron

The first few decades of the fifteenth century were glorious ones for English arms in France, giving the landed classes the opportunity to follow a traditional and honourable calling and to win fame, if not fortune, across the Channel. In some cases fortunes were made, and successful soldiers like the well-known East Anglian knight, Sir John Fastolf, invested their newly acquired wealth in land at home. Whether Fastolf received a good return from his considerable investments is a matter for debate but he was far from an uninterested landowner. He kept a close eye on the management of his estates and proved a hard, frequently harsh, taskmaster in his dealings with his employees and tenants. One of Fastolf's brothers-in-arms was a fellow East Anglian, his friend and relative, Sir Henry Inglose. Like Fastolf, he enjoyed a successful military career and a litigious and irascible old age. Again like Fastolf, he invested some of his spoils of war in land at home, and a series of accounts for one of his acquisitions, the Norfolk manor of Haveringland, suggests that he took a similarly keen interest in estate management. Unlike Fastolf, he fathered several surviving children, although, perversely, he failed to provide properly for them in his will. In the will he ordered the sale of much of his estates – although not Haveringland – so ensuring that his family slid down the social scale after his death.

A single case from the plea rolls of the English central law courts of the Middle Ages is detailed. The lawsuit was brought by Sir Robert Townshend against three men for breaking into his town house at Norwich England in 1549.