Accounts of the Stewards of the Talbot Household at Blakeme

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Linda Jack

Accounts of the Stewards of the Talbot Household at Blakeme

Legg inn av Linda Jack » 10 mar 2005 03:01:02

I have not yet seen this volume myself, but it looks to be of some
interest to those researching the Talbot and LeStrange families. This
is a portion of a much longer book review by Sara Butler.

Best, Linda

Ross, Barbara, ed. and trans. Accounts of the Stewards of the Talbot
Household at Blakemere 1392-1425</i>. Shropshire Record Series, vol. 7.
Keele: The University of Keele, 2003. Pp. v. + 219. $27.00 (pb).
ISBN: 0-9536020-4-4. Reviewed by Sara M. Butler, Loyola University New
Orleans

"...Ross's work is not just a translation of these accounts. Her
introductory chapter, as well as her brief preparatory remarks at the
beginning of each account, adeptly places these records in context. She
provides detailed insight into the lives of both the Talbots and the Le
Stranges (the family who occupied the home prior to the Talbots--the
sole heiress, Ankaretta Le Strange of Blakemere married Richard, Fourth
Lord Talbot in the late 14th century). Both marcher families were
instrumental in regulating the confusion and disruption caused by Welsh
incursions into England, and the interplay between marcher lordship and
Welsh insurgents plays out in the background of all of these records.
Ross also provides an insightful commentary into life as a woman in
this period; her records give her the opportunity to examine, among
other things, marriages as family alliances, the difficulties of being
both a widow and a foreigner under English law, and the high number of
female brewsters (some married, some single) whose services were
employed at various times by the family. Moreover, in both the formal
introduction and her preliminary comments to each chapter, Ross
attempts to highlight the number of ways these records can be used to
better understand the medieval household, which, as she points out, "is
not an easy one for a 21st-century reader to grasp" (xix). She calls
attention to trade relations (both local and long-distance), luxury
goods, transportation difficulties, ale production, debates over the
number of meals consumed by the household on a daily basis, and the
number of employees working in a medieval household. In an effort to
make this work more readily accessible to readers, she also provides a
useful glossary with a discussion of medieval money, weights, and
measures, and a selected bibliography of readings relevant to the Le
Strange and Talbot families, and the medieval household in general.
This meticulous and assiduously-organized text equips the reader with
everything one needs in order to understand these records in context.
As such, it should prove to be a valuable source for medieval
historians."

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