Historical Studies (Chinese Edition)

No.4, 2018

 

A Legal or a Historical Narrative: The Rise and Development of English Copyholders from the 14th to the 16th Centuries (Abstract)

 

Huang Chungao

 

Copyholders formed the greater part of the landholding population in England. Previous research has been fruitful and far-reaching, but there is still space for further academic endeavors. The most noteworthy aspect is the way the legal perspective dominates the research narrative. However, the compulsory focus on law inevitably ignores historical complexity and diversity. In the legal narrative, the rise and developmental course of copyholding moved from manor courts to royal courts. But in the historical narrative, this process was a direct expression of two phases of social and economic change and of the tussle between the lord of the manor and the copyholders, as seen in the wishes of the former and in manorial customs. For a true picture of the English copyholders, one needs to combine the legal and the historical narratives.