Preface 1. Introduction: The Countries of England 2. The People of England 3. Organizing the Countryside: Villages, Hamlets and Farmsteads 4. England’s Historic Towns and Cities 5. The Greatest Buildings in the Land 6. Parish Churches and Chapels 7. Timber-Framed Houses 8. Earning a Living in the Countryside 9. Packmen, Carriers and Watermen 10. Family Life and Society Select Bibliography Index
Examines the differing nature of the various local societies that were found throughout England in the medieval and early modern periods.
David Hey was Emeritus Professor of Local and Family History at the University of Sheffield, UK.
[A] work of profound imagination and reach that provides testimony
to the continuing vitality of local and regional history.
*Times Literary Supplement*
A highly individual and admirable book … The Grass Roots of English
History is a very personal vision of what local history might be
[and] as an alternative reading of our history, it deserves our
attention.
*Reviews in History*
Hey (emer., Univ. of Sheffield, UK) published seminal studies on
English local history for half a century, and, sadly, passed away
while this book was in production. He begins this excellent survey
by noting that until the 19th century, most English folk identified
with their local "country"; that is, one of hundreds of small
agricultural and market communities individualized variously by
their distinctive dialects, farming practices, crafts, or building
styles. Tax and census records reveal that descendants of core
families remained in these "countries" from 1377 to 1911. Hey
describes other continuities as well as the significant changes in
many such locales from the time of the Roman occupation to the eve
of industrial society. Highlighted along the way are recent
remarkable discoveries; for example, that castles were built
largely for non-military purposes, and that some existing
timber-framed buildings date to the early 13th century. Although
specialist studies inform the narrative throughout, Hey's
attractive prose will make the book accessible to both
undergraduates encountering local history for the first time and
general readers—perhaps someone preparing to visit the English
countryside for the 1st or 20th time. Summing Up: Highly
recommended. All public and academic levels/libraries.
*CHOICE*
The book is extremely well written, strongly engaging, by an author
whose work in regional history … and so many other topics is well
known and highly respected. Hey’s personality and intellectual
persona shine through everywhere, just as they did in his
gregarious and companionable life. I expected to be much interested
and informed by this book on the “grass roots” and basis of English
society in the early modern period, and I was.
*Journal of British Studies*
The book is saturated with illustrative examples and fascinating
detail ... Practitioners of local and family history will find this
book a valuable and informative guide to academic work on local
societies in pre-industrial England to help contextualise their own
endeavours. Academic readers, in turn, will find some suggestive
arguments that may well benefit from further research.
*The English Historical Review*
[The book's] most valuable ingredient is likely to be its very
current updating of established interpretations in the light of
recent work ... A book to make us think about how people lived in
local worlds ... and to add to David Hey’s important and
distinctive contribution to appreciating the still developing role
of local and family history in their fullest senses.
*Family & Community History*
This is a book which will increase your understanding of the lives
of ordinary English people.
*Essex Family Historian*
David Hey is a celebrity among family and local historians, whose
books have done more than any others to form a field, to inspire
research into family history and show the relevance of this to
historical studies. This book goes wider, into the ‘grass roots’
and basis of English society in the early modern period. It
displays his intellectual persona everywhere. It is highly
readable, an excellent interpretative work, up-to-date,
wide-ranging in themes, regions and chronology. It is especially
welcome for stressing what early modern people termed ‘countries’:
differing regions and their distinctive qualities. It will
certainly promote many further scholarly enquiries along these
lines.
*K.D.M. Snell, Director of the Centre for English Local History,
University of Leicester, UK*
David Hey’s latest book is a magnificent overview of England’s
past, which serves to unite the worlds of landscape history, family
history and local history. Dealing with subjects as diverse as the
distribution and meaning of English surnames, the development of
the rural landscape, the origins and growth of towns, and the
character and significance of parish churches and other great
buildings, Hey provides a context and framework for local studies
which local and family historians, as well as the general reader,
will find both useful and informative. A clear, concise and
immensely readable contribution to the literature.
*Tom Williamson, Professor of History, University of East Anglia,
UK*
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