The Townshends and their World

A scholarly history of the rise of the Townshends, the most famous landowning family in Norfolk, telling the story of individual members of the family and setting the dynasty in its context. Their activities reveal much about the role of the gentry in late medieval and early Tudor England.

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This is the first scholarly history of the rise of the Townshends, who were to become the most famous landowning family in Norfolk. C. E. Moreton exploits to the full the rich family archives in order to tell the story of individuals such as Roger Townshend I, a prominent lawyer of the late fifteenth century, and his son, also Roger, a leading country gentleman. Dr Moreton traces the growth in the Townshends' wealth and power in the late Middle Ages, and sets them in their context as a major gentry family. Their lawsuits, their estates policy, and their sheep-farming activities reveal much about the nature of the gentry's relationship to land and its role in local society in late medieval and early Tudor England.