Archaeologists are DNA testing some bones they've found to see if they might be the remains of Richard III. Are there any other members of the Royal Family....

[seeker]

where DNA testing might produce interesting results?

Two more recommendations to add to that list:
Ian Mortimer's The Time Travellers Guide to Medieval England. (He's also written A Time Travellers Guide to Elizabethan England)
and
The Amateur Historian's Guide to Medieval and Tudor London, which is a sort of London A-Z for the likes of us.

Does anyone have recs. for a good academic text on Catherine Howard? I am getting all interested in her and I could do with a good weighty biography.

What are your academic recs for C14th/15th btw, mad? I want to know what I've missed!

If we are doing vaguely academic recs, btw, there is an absolutely gorgeous book by Eamon Duffy called 'Marking the Hours', which is all about people's annotations in their prayer books, with lots of lovely photos of illuminated manuscripts and lots of great details about people's lives. It is academic and quite serious, but it would also make a lovely coffee-table book if you wanted something to flip through.

(Though, on an academic note, be cautious of the footnotes. They're shite.)

Thanks so much LRD.

Can I add Fatal Colours - Towton by George Goodwin to the list. It has a foreward by Davis Starkey (sorry LRD) but its brilliant.

Tis ok, I just had to put that bit in. What a tosser. But I loved his book on Elizabeth when I was doing A Level (so much that my teacher had to point out gently that I should probably try reading at least one other book).

I love the Time Traveller's Guide to Medieval England. I bought it at the gift shop at RIII's old place, Middleham Castle, as it happens.
Am waiting for the Elizabethan one to come out in paperback....

shite being a historically accurate descriptor then LRD ?

Of course, happy!

Nah, I'm just sore because he didn't reply to me when I emailed asking him to clarify something he'd footnoted inaccurately, but to be fair he's a very busy man and it was a very minor point, just one I needed to know about.

It would be fairer to say the footnotes are rather, erm, sparing in detail.

I enjoyed this too, but its not for the faint hearted

LRD Useful overviews I kept going back to when studying were Anthony Tuck, Crown and Nobility 1272-1461 and Maurice Keen, England in the Later Middle Ages.

Personal top recommends would be:

Anything by K B McFarlane, the Daddy of the 15th C. Incredibly influential, changed the way we thought about "robber barons" and such. His books are hard to get hold of and very dry, but also very elegantly written.

Shaping the Nation by Gerald Harriss (part of the new Oxford History of England, haven't read it all but it's the new standard history really)

The Wars of the Roses by Christine Carpenter.

Henry VI and the Politics of Kingship by John Watts.

(McFarlane taught Harriss, who taught Carpenter, who taught Watts, so this is slightly a nested "school" of fifteenth century studies.)

Otherwise, here is a page with a pdf reading list which has an amount of books on it which I believe could best be measured in "metric fucktons".

If you click into paper 4 on same page maybe there will be something about Catherine Howard on that list?

I contacted Alison Weir, asking her to help me out with a point she'd briefly mentioned in her Eleanor of Aquitaine biography that I wanted to investigate further for my own book. She was utterly charming and very helpful ? as has been virtually everyone I've contacted, from falconers to bowyers and archers.

Thanks mad. God, that list reminds me why I didn't do history at university, it scares the hell outta me!

I've read quite a lot of the basic 'big spread of time' histories inc. the McFarlane, but not Carpenter ... I do love 'families' of academics. It's really interesting seeing how people's thoughts develop in relation to one another.

Thank you!

happy that is lovely.

It's incredibly cool you get to talk to falconers. Jealous.

Falconry is glorious, I'm sure there will be somebody near you offering Falconry days or experiences LRD
My main problem is that I get swept away by all this stuff - I got in touch with a local field archery club and they invited me up for a day. They taught me how to shoot a longbow and how to make and fletch arrows, I was so taken with it that I joined their club and DH ended up having a bow made especially for me for our silver wedding. I know, I know, who needs diamond eternity rings!

By the way, that was the political/constitutional list, this is the economic/social list which has a bit more gender and family related stuff on it. If anyone has any medieval gender studies recommends I'd be very pleased to have them?

Thank you.

Medieval gender studies - I can do lit-heavy if it helps? Anything by Jocelyn Wogan-Brown is good, as is Liz Herbert McAvoy, Diane Watts, Carol Meale, P J Goldberg.

(Btw, I am worried I sounded rude above, asking for the rec and then saying I'd read 'basic' stuff ... I didn't mean to at all. I didn't do undergrad history and so have funny gaps in my knowledge, but I am fairly history-heavy in my work now - I do a funny mixed course where we're all double-supervised with supervisors in two disciplines and we're encouraged to teach undergrads across the disciplines. I'm not being dismissive of McFarlane/Keen etc. at all. I really hope it didn't come across like that!)

happy - wow. That's awesome.

What a shame I've just had my anniversary, I'm sure DH could have got me something like that instead of a bunch of flowers for a fiver (deludes self).

Nooo, no I didn't that that at all LRD. Thanks for the names!

think that.

mad - oh, that's good. Thanks.

LaQ - I would be hanging around coffee shops with books tucked ostentatiously under my arm, I think ...

Am loving this thread and very excited about the discoveries in Leicester.

Someone upthread mentioned Lawrence Stone - his book 'The Family, Sex and Marriage in England 1500-1800' is really fab and well worth a look.

LRD - I've never found a decent biog of Katherine Howard but Susanna Dunn wrote a fictional account of her life - 'Confession of Katherine Howard' which I enjoyed.

Peter Ackroyd's new book on the Tudors is just out, and although I haven't read it yet I really enjoyed the first volume of his History of England series, 'Foundation', and am hoping that volume 2 will be just as good.