Research Catalog

The Estates of the English Crown, 1558-1640

Title: The Estates of the English Crown, 1558-1640 / edited by R.W. Hoyle.
Publication: Cambridge [England] ; New York : Cambridge University Press, 1992.

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Status	Format	Access	Call Number	Item Location
Request for On-site Use Request Scan How do I pick up this item and when will it be ready?	Text	Request in advance	HD604 .E88 1992	Off-site

Additional Authors

Hoyle, R. W.

Description

xviii, 440 pages; 24 cm

Summary

This collection of essays is the first full account of the largest estate in early modern England, against which the fortunes of all other estates may be judged. Previous accounts have tended to regard the Crown lands as a resource to be plundered by successive monarchs in times of need: much of the monastic land confiscated by Henry VIII had been sold by the time of his death, and the estates had mostly been liquidated to meet the demands of expenditure by 1640.
It is not denied in these essays that the estates suffered from the attrition of periodic sale, but the estates are here seen as a continuing enterprise of complexity and sophistication. The volume looks sympathetically at the problems of administering estates quite different in scale to any others in England, and attempts to show how what has often been seen as weak management on the Elizabethan estates was a reasonable response to insurmountable difficulties.
What emerges more generally is a sense not only of endeavour but also of failure. Each essay is concerned with the dialogue between the Exchequer and its local administrators and tenants. The success and failure of initiatives launched by the Exchequer is illustrated by examples drawn from many communities throughout England.
The essays draw on a wide range of sources to explain why the estates could never satisfy the demands placed on them and how the problems of tenurial reform identified here were far from unique.

Subject

Bibliography (note)

Contents

List of Public Record Office classes cited -- 1. Introduction: aspects of the Crown's estate, c. 1558-1640 / Richard Hoyle -- 2. The Elizabethan Crown lands: their purposes and problems / David Thomas -- 3. The Elizabethan Duchy of Cornwall, an estate in stasis / Graham Haslam -- 4. Exchequer officials and the market in Crown property, 1558-1640 / Madeleine Gray -- 5. Power, patronage and politics: office-holding and administration on the Crown's estates in Whales / Madeleine Gray -- 6. Tenure on the Elizabethan estates / Richard Hoyle -- 7. Leases of Crown lands in the reign of Elizabeth I / David Thomas -- 8. Customary tenure on the Elizabethan estates / Richard Hoyle -- 9. 'Shearing the hog': the reform of the estates, c. 1598-1640 / Richard Hoyle -- 10. Jacobean Phoenix: the Duchy of Cornwall in the principates of Henry Frederick and Charles / Graham Haslam -- 11. The Crown as projector on its own estates, from Elizabeth I to Charles I / Joan Thirsk.
12. Disafforestation and drainage: the Crown as entrepreneur? / Richard Hoyle -- 13. From swanimote to disafforestation: Feckenham Forest in the early seventeenth century / Peter Large -- 14. Reflections on the history of the Crown lands, 1558-1640 / Richard Hoyle.

ISBN

052136082X

LCCN

91034372

OCLC

Owning Institutions

Columbia University Libraries