In this study of local authority in England across the later middle ages and the early modern period, Spike Gibbs sets out a series of questions for investigation. In particular he seeks to answer five questions, although with supplementary queries it is actually closer to nine or ten (pp. 20–1). The core questions to be asked relate to transition of manorial institutions to structures chiefly intended to service the needs of the local community rather than lordship or the state, the ease of access to officeholding in such institutions, the prevailing links between lordship and these institutions, their responsiveness to economic and social conditions, and the changing relationship between local office holding and state formation. Overall, Gibbs proposes that his volume offers ‘a new narrative [of change] from a world dominated by powerful lords to a world dominated by a central state’ (p. 21). In this respect, he also contends that manorial officeholding, with its medieval origins, provided an apparatus which also met the expectations of the early modern state and, as such, a pre-existing office-holding cohort within communities was ready made to adjust its business according to the prevailing conditions.
In six core chapters, Gibbs examines the main research questions outlined above, moving from a discussion of the changing role of both manorial officers and courts, through aspects of manorial officeholding to issues related to state formation. The volume's core research resides in five manorial case studies, based on three manors from eastern England (Horstead, Norfolk; Cratfield, Suffolk; Little Downham, Cambridgeshire) and two southern and western manors (Fordington, Dorset; Worfield, Shropshire). These have been selected above all for the record survival which allows investigation across the later medieval/early modern divide, but also suggests a variety of forms of lordship, communal organisation, and landscape. The discussion is effectively located within a careful and informed review of an extensive range of secondary literature which is a strength of the volume. There is also an impressive breadth to the discussion, with not only a necessarily broad chronological range but, in terms of office-holding and its significance, an effective coverage of different forms of officerholding, including, latterly, interesting reflections on churchwardens and constables, and their relationship to manorial administrative structures. A concluding chapter explores the main observations and findings and offers interesting comparison with contemporary developments in other European contexts.
While Gibbs is to be applauded for seeking to explore this long period of transition and to extract a view of changing governance in this way, there are inevitable challenges inherent in such an exercise. In the first instance, the nature of source survival as well as the inconsistency of court practice and coverage limit the scope for consistent and altogether compelling results. So, for instance, most of the court roll series, with the exception of Fordington, appear to show patchy, or, in two cases, no survival for the pre-Black Death period. By the time we can see the bulk of the surviving courts in action it is possible that they had already shifted in their practice and that by focusing, largely, on post-plague courts our sense of continuity rather than of change is accentuated. Further to this, Gibbs tends, in order to argue that manorial officeholding was always in some measure attuned to the expectations of the community as much as to the demands of lordship or the state, to conflate types of officeholding. Take, for instance, his discussion of officeholding and customary tenure in which Gibbs is keen to show that officeholding was not dependent, even in the pre-Black Death period, upon unfree tenure; in doing so he focusses upon chief pledges of tithing systems and picks out the relatively few instances where freemen were expected to serve as chief pledges (p. 125). Given that chief pledges are a rather particular category of office-holder, a position related to communal policing and ancient obligation attached to the nascent state, and also given that the bulk of these were customary tenants whose obligation was to serve as chief pledge, this does seem to be stretching a point. Even allowing for some slight tenurial variance in this particular role, other key manorial offices such as that of reeves and haywards were almost certain to be held by the unfree in the pre-Black Death period. Later developments in tenure, including the greater recourse to leasehold, did see a shift in the relationship between tenure and officeholding, of course, but the argument for a willing office-holding peasantry for whom officeholding was a choice in support of a wider community rather than an obligation in relation to the expectations of lordship is strained here.
The text is usefully supported by a number of figures, maps and tables which set out information on, inter alia, range of presentments, and office-holding as a proportion of total manorial populations. There are also three appendices addressing aspects of research method and findings, in relation to categorisation of presentments, the identification of individuals, and manorial populations. While the clarity of the discussion could, on occasion, be sharpened, the concluding sections, especially with their comparative focus, offer an engaging and thought-provoking reflection upon the origins and development of local officeholding at the manorial level and its importance for broader political structures. By encouraging historians to reflect upon the long history of manorial governance and its implications for the burgeoning early modern state Gibbs has provided a valuable service, and one that reflects upon earlier work, not only on manorial elites and officeholding but also on the nature of the village community and of the distribution of power in early modern England.
