Content area
Abstract
My research has concentrated on the problem of maintaining order in a medieval community. Great Yarmouth between 1366 and 1381 has been the focus, as the borough has an excellent survival rate among its court rolls. The period was partly dictated by the demands on the best availability of records, but also by the need to find a period of relative normality before the impact of the Peasant’s Revolt. The first chapter focuses on the records that have been used to analyse methods of policing. The second investigates the type of disorder that troubled the borough and the challenges faced by attempts to maintain order. The third and fourth chapters analyse the different methods of policing, as recorded in the Great Yarmouth court rolls. They investigate the differences between ‘official’ policing and ‘social’ policing, and argue that the two relied on each other to function, meaning that the official courts were at least partly dependent on the populace to operate. The fifth chapter is an analysis of the ways unwilling members of the community might be forced to perform their expected roles in the maintenance of order, and argues that society was flexible in the sanctions it might impose. The final chapter is an investigation of the experience of policing in the lives of the populace of Great Yarmouth, as observed through a series of case studies. These will be used to argue that policing was a regular part of the lives of the Great Yarmouth populace during this period. It will also be demonstrated that members of the Great Yarmouth community combined a role in policing with occasional acts of misbehaviour. Overall this thesis seeks to apply traditional methods of studying mutual responsibility in rural environments to an analysis of policing in a medieval urban centre.
