Bastard Feudalism, English Society and the Law

A fresh look at the idea of bastard feudalism, deploying little-used records to provide new insights. Regulation of the distribution of liveries and the practice of retaining, which underpinned the so-called system of bastard feudalism in late medieval England, are the subject of this book. Rather than relying primarily on the records of noble estates, as much previous scholarship has done, it draws on the records of the court of King's Bench, covering all 336 known cases of illegal livery and r