Peter Crooks
My primary research interest is in Ireland in the period 1171-1541 and, arising from that, in the wider 'English world' or 'Plantagenet empire' of which Ireland formed an important part. Before returning to Trinity in 2013, I was a Past and Present Society Research Fellow at the Institute of Historical Research and a Lecturer in Late Medieval History at the University of East Anglia. I am currently completing a monograph entitled England's First Colony: Power, Conflict and Colonialism in the Lordship of Ireland, 1361-1460. I am the principal editor of 'CIRCLE: A Calendar of Irish Chancery Letters, c.1244-1509' (https://chancery.tcd.ie/), a reconstruction of the Irish chancery rolls destroyed in the 1922 cataclysm at the Four Courts. A four-volume print edition of CIRCLE will appear with the Irish Manuscripts Commission. In September 2013, I co-founded (with Professor S. Duffy) the Trinity Medieval Ireland Series (TMIS), the first volume of which has been published as: The Geraldines and Medieval Ireland: The Making of a Myth.
I am also interested in 'empire', not least as a means of subverting or complicating the narratives of centralization and uniformity that have dominated much research on the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries in Europe. These are the centuries normally classified as 'late medieval', a problematic term used more for the purposes of sub-disciplinary gate-keeping than for any real meaning that it holds. The challenge of research on this period -- sandwiched as it is between the 'high medieval' and the 'early modern' -- is to understand and describe its historical developments without resort to narratives of either decline or anticipation. So long as 'medieval' is understood to be a chronological descriptor (and a Eurocentric one at that), rather than a value-laden term with an implicit developmentalist agenda, then its use need not foreclose on meaningful structural comparisons, whether synchronic or diachronic in perspective.
I essayed a general interpretation of England's empire, which adopts such perspectives, in 'State of the Union: Perspectives on English Imperialism in the Late Middle Ages' (Past and Present, no. 211). In July 2014, together with David Green and W. Mark Ormrod, I co-convened the Harlaxton Medieval Symposium, which took as its subject 'The Plantagenet Empire, 1259-1453' (now published as Harlaxton Medieval Studies no. 26). My work on England's late-medieval 'empire' has sparked a research interest in the history of empires and colonialism more generally. With Timothy H. Parsons (Washington in St Louis), I am co-editor of Empires and Bureaucracy in World History: From Late Antiquity to the Twentieth Century (Cambridge University Press, 2016).
Address: Department of History, Trinity College Dublin
I am also interested in 'empire', not least as a means of subverting or complicating the narratives of centralization and uniformity that have dominated much research on the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries in Europe. These are the centuries normally classified as 'late medieval', a problematic term used more for the purposes of sub-disciplinary gate-keeping than for any real meaning that it holds. The challenge of research on this period -- sandwiched as it is between the 'high medieval' and the 'early modern' -- is to understand and describe its historical developments without resort to narratives of either decline or anticipation. So long as 'medieval' is understood to be a chronological descriptor (and a Eurocentric one at that), rather than a value-laden term with an implicit developmentalist agenda, then its use need not foreclose on meaningful structural comparisons, whether synchronic or diachronic in perspective.
I essayed a general interpretation of England's empire, which adopts such perspectives, in 'State of the Union: Perspectives on English Imperialism in the Late Middle Ages' (Past and Present, no. 211). In July 2014, together with David Green and W. Mark Ormrod, I co-convened the Harlaxton Medieval Symposium, which took as its subject 'The Plantagenet Empire, 1259-1453' (now published as Harlaxton Medieval Studies no. 26). My work on England's late-medieval 'empire' has sparked a research interest in the history of empires and colonialism more generally. With Timothy H. Parsons (Washington in St Louis), I am co-editor of Empires and Bureaucracy in World History: From Late Antiquity to the Twentieth Century (Cambridge University Press, 2016).
Address: Department of History, Trinity College Dublin
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CIRCLE: A Calendar of Irish Chancery Letters by Peter Crooks
CIRCLE is the culmination of nearly four decades of work reconstructing these lost records. It brings together all known letters enrolled on the Irish chancery rolls during the Middle Ages (1244–1509) drawing on originals, facsimiles, transcripts and calendars located in archival repositories in The Republic of Ireland, Northern Ireland, England and the USA.
The site contains over 20,000 Irish chancery letters translated from Latin into English, together with an unparalleled collection of digital images of surviving medieval chancery letters and rare printed volumes.
Books by Peter Crooks
Published papers by Peter Crooks
This essay starts from the assumption that it is the very peculiarity of the wider realm of the Plantagenet monarchs that makes it typical when considered in comparative terms as an empire. Among the structures that provided a degree of cohesion more than sufficient to warrant the ascription of that label was the royal bureaucracy. The ‘transnational’ nature of this bureaucracy, and its role in creating a political culture and a shared imperial ‘space’, are key themes in the pages that follow. A second theme, paradoxically, is the brittleness of that same bureaucracy. The overseas empire of the Plantagenets was unusual in the late Middle Ages for its capacity to mobilise resources and co-ordinate action across geographically dispersed territories. By comparison, the Catalan overseas ‘empire’ of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries has been shown to be a chimera. And yet, for all the sophistication of its military and bureaucratic apparatus, the administrative reach of England’s medieval empire was frequently beyond its grasp. Many of the lands that came into Plantagenet possession, whether through inheritance or conquest or a combination of the two, were subsequently lost—sometimes wrested away in wars of re-conquest (as occurred in Scotland and France), sometimes lost by piecemeal nibbling at the edges (as occurred across much of Ireland). The final part of the chapter seeks to show that an explanation for this brittleness must take account of the markedly different attitudes of officialdom towards the various peoples subject to the English crown. The key question is not to what extent was the English ‘official mind’ willing to devolve power upon local elites in general, but rather which particular ethnic groups were deemed sufficiently responsible and civilized to exercise the offices of government, and how did the ‘rule of difference’ constrain the Plantagenets’ exercise of power across their empire.
THREE ARMIES IN BRITAIN: THE IRISH CAMPAIGN OF RICHARD II AND THE USURPATION OF HENRY IV, 1397–1399. By Douglas Biggs. Pp xvi + 295, illus. Leiden: Brill, 2006. €110 hardback (History of Warfare, vol. 39).
INQUISITIONS AND EXTENTS OF MEDIEVAL IRELAND. Edited by PaulDryburgh and Brendan Smith.Pp vi, 290. Kew: List and Index Society, 2007. Distributed to subscribers: £17 members, £22.50 non-members paperback (List and Index Society, vol. 320).
DE COURCY: ANGLO-NORMANS IN IRELAND, ENGLAND AND FRANCE IN THE ELEVENTH AND TWELFTH CENTURIES. Pp 205, illus. By Steve Flanders. Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2008. €55 hardback.
IRELAND AND WALES IN THE MIDDLE AGES. Edited by Karen Jankulak and Jonathan M. Wooding. Pp 296.Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2007. €55 hardback.
MEDIEVAL IRELAND: TERRITORIAL, POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC DIVISIONS. By Paul MacCotter. Pp 320, illus. Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2008. €55 hardback.
MANX KINGSHIP IN ITS IRISH SEA SETTING, 1187–1229: KING RÖGNVALDR AND THE CROVAN DYNASTY. Pp 254, illus. By R. Andrew McDonald. Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2007. €55 hardback.
IRELAND AND THE ENGLISH WORLD IN THE LATE MIDDLE AGES: ESSAYS IN HONOUR OF ROBIN FRAME. Pp xii + 241. Edited by Brendan Smith. Basingstoke: Palgrave MacMillan, 2009. £50 hardback.
THE ANNALS OF IRELAND BY FRIAR JOHN CLYN. Edited by Bernadette Williams. Pp 303. Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2007. €65 hardback.
CIRCLE is the culmination of nearly four decades of work reconstructing these lost records. It brings together all known letters enrolled on the Irish chancery rolls during the Middle Ages (1244–1509) drawing on originals, facsimiles, transcripts and calendars located in archival repositories in The Republic of Ireland, Northern Ireland, England and the USA.
The site contains over 20,000 Irish chancery letters translated from Latin into English, together with an unparalleled collection of digital images of surviving medieval chancery letters and rare printed volumes.
This essay starts from the assumption that it is the very peculiarity of the wider realm of the Plantagenet monarchs that makes it typical when considered in comparative terms as an empire. Among the structures that provided a degree of cohesion more than sufficient to warrant the ascription of that label was the royal bureaucracy. The ‘transnational’ nature of this bureaucracy, and its role in creating a political culture and a shared imperial ‘space’, are key themes in the pages that follow. A second theme, paradoxically, is the brittleness of that same bureaucracy. The overseas empire of the Plantagenets was unusual in the late Middle Ages for its capacity to mobilise resources and co-ordinate action across geographically dispersed territories. By comparison, the Catalan overseas ‘empire’ of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries has been shown to be a chimera. And yet, for all the sophistication of its military and bureaucratic apparatus, the administrative reach of England’s medieval empire was frequently beyond its grasp. Many of the lands that came into Plantagenet possession, whether through inheritance or conquest or a combination of the two, were subsequently lost—sometimes wrested away in wars of re-conquest (as occurred in Scotland and France), sometimes lost by piecemeal nibbling at the edges (as occurred across much of Ireland). The final part of the chapter seeks to show that an explanation for this brittleness must take account of the markedly different attitudes of officialdom towards the various peoples subject to the English crown. The key question is not to what extent was the English ‘official mind’ willing to devolve power upon local elites in general, but rather which particular ethnic groups were deemed sufficiently responsible and civilized to exercise the offices of government, and how did the ‘rule of difference’ constrain the Plantagenets’ exercise of power across their empire.
THREE ARMIES IN BRITAIN: THE IRISH CAMPAIGN OF RICHARD II AND THE USURPATION OF HENRY IV, 1397–1399. By Douglas Biggs. Pp xvi + 295, illus. Leiden: Brill, 2006. €110 hardback (History of Warfare, vol. 39).
INQUISITIONS AND EXTENTS OF MEDIEVAL IRELAND. Edited by PaulDryburgh and Brendan Smith.Pp vi, 290. Kew: List and Index Society, 2007. Distributed to subscribers: £17 members, £22.50 non-members paperback (List and Index Society, vol. 320).
DE COURCY: ANGLO-NORMANS IN IRELAND, ENGLAND AND FRANCE IN THE ELEVENTH AND TWELFTH CENTURIES. Pp 205, illus. By Steve Flanders. Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2008. €55 hardback.
IRELAND AND WALES IN THE MIDDLE AGES. Edited by Karen Jankulak and Jonathan M. Wooding. Pp 296.Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2007. €55 hardback.
MEDIEVAL IRELAND: TERRITORIAL, POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC DIVISIONS. By Paul MacCotter. Pp 320, illus. Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2008. €55 hardback.
MANX KINGSHIP IN ITS IRISH SEA SETTING, 1187–1229: KING RÖGNVALDR AND THE CROVAN DYNASTY. Pp 254, illus. By R. Andrew McDonald. Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2007. €55 hardback.
IRELAND AND THE ENGLISH WORLD IN THE LATE MIDDLE AGES: ESSAYS IN HONOUR OF ROBIN FRAME. Pp xii + 241. Edited by Brendan Smith. Basingstoke: Palgrave MacMillan, 2009. £50 hardback.
THE ANNALS OF IRELAND BY FRIAR JOHN CLYN. Edited by Bernadette Williams. Pp 303. Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2007. €65 hardback.
Tuesday 9 December 2014 at 7 pm in the Thomas Davis Lecture Theatre.
The James Lydon Lectures in Medieval History and Culture
Professor John Gillingham (London School of Economics, Emeritus)
Tuesday 21 October 2014 at 7 pm
Thomas Davis Lecture Theatre (Room 2043)
Admission Free • All Welcome
About the lecture:
‘A raid by Muirchertach Ua Briain against the men of Bréifne, and he plundered them and carried off their women and cattle to Munster’ (Annals of Inisfallen, 1111).
In this series of lectures, Professor John Gillingham analyses the conduct of war as slave raid, a type of warfare in which women and children were prized items of plunder. Gillingham places the evidence from Irish narrative sources into a Europe-wide context and explores (amongst other factors) the part played by Christian teaching from the writings of St Patrick onwards in the discontinuance of enslavement in warfare. The ending of this practice was a significant moment in the rise of chivalry and the notion of non-combatant immunity—a key norm in modern discussions of the ‘laws of war’.