The Mobile Woman and the Migrant Voice: Women's Writing, Englishness, Cultural Identity and Sexuality 1938-1960

The principal aim of this project is to examine the Research Questions outlined above, presenting the findings of the analysis in the form of a monograph. Using as a vantage point the English army of 1327 and the collective experience of the noblemen, knights and esquires who served in it, the patterns of military service among the nobility and gentry during the 1310s, '20s and early 1330s will be investigated.
The analysis will examine: individual military careers within the context of family traditions of service; the composition of the retinues of particular captains, from magnates to royal household knights; and geographical patterns of recruitment. A quantitative assessment will be offered of the extent to which the social and political elite, differentiated according to status and locality, were active participants in the king's wars during the 1320s. This will be accompanied by an examination of the relationship between military service and the other 'public' roles performed by the nobility and gentry, principally in the spheres of politics and shire administration.