Download PDF | Gwilym Dodd, Helen Lacey, Anthony Musson - People, Power and Identity in the Late Middle Ages_ Essays in Memory of W. Mark Ormrod-Routledge (2021).
377 Pages
Mark Ormrod’s scholarship sets new standards of meticulous archival research into late medieval society. This collection of groundbreaking essays celebrates his wide-ranging influence over several generations of scholars. The seventeen chapters in this collection focus primarily on the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries and are grouped around the themes of resistance, residence, religion, rule, record and reputations. Close scrutiny of medieval records lies at the heart of the volume, allowing for exciting new insights into late medieval life and political culture. The essays demonstrate the interconnectedness of the localities and the crown and of religious and political ideas, identities and practice. As such they follow the lead of Ormrod’s hugely important contributions to medieval studies in the last thirty years.
Gwilym Dodd is Associate Professor of History at the University of Nottingham. Helen Lacey is Supernumerary Fellow in Medieval History at Mansfield College, University of Oxford. Anthony Musson is Head of Research at Historic Royal Palaces.
Introduction
Gwilym Dodd
This book was originally intended as a Festschrift for W. Mark Ormrod, to celebrate his astonishingly productive and distinguished career as a medieval historian. Tragically, however, he did not live to see the publication of the volume, though he knew that it was underway and was eagerly anticipating its completion. The present publication is therefore offered as a tribute to his memory, and in acknowledgment of the enormous contribution Mark made to scholarship and academic life in a period stretching from the completion of his PhD in 1984 to his untimely death in August 2020.
Given the need to keep the volume within manageable proportions, it was clearly impracticable to commission essays from all the scholars who might have wished to contribute. Among the many who share the interests and approaches evident in his own work, the contributors assembled here have therefore been drawn from colleagues and research collaborators who worked most closely with Mark: it is a measure of the remarkable breadth of his intellectual impact that such a wide field of subject matter is represented. The contributors to this volume do not include Mark’s many former PhD students and those who worked with him on some of the big research projects that he instigated in the course of his career: a separate volume incorporating essays from those connected to Mark in these ways was published in July 2020.1 Mark was unquestionably one of the finest and most influential late medieval historians of his generation. His research transformed our understanding of how England was governed between 1250 and 1450 and will be an enduring legacy for future scholars.
His roots, however, lay in South Wales, in Neath, where he was born to Margaret and David Ormrod on 1 November 1957, the eldest of three brothers, followed by Nicholas and Jonathan. From early on he showed the same determination to achieve excellence that was to be the hallmark of his academic work: he was a brilliant singer, a skilled clarinet player (he played in the West Glamorgan Youth Orchestra) and was head boy at Neath Boys’ Grammar School. He also loved acting – he played the lead in West Side Story in the sixth form and regularly trod the boards of the Neath Little Theatre, which had been co-founded by his maternal grandfather. Mark read History at King’s College, London, where he graduated in 1979 with the highest first-class degree recorded at that time, before embarking on research at Oxford under the supervision of James Campbell for a doctoral thesis on ‘Edward III’s Government of England, c. 1346–1356’. He then held a British Academy Fellowship at St Catharine’s College, Cambridge, and a number of temporary positions at the Universities of Sheffield, Evansville (British Campus) and Queens University Belfast. In 1990 he moved to a lectureship at the University of York and was promoted to Professor in 1995. His best-known publication is a biography of Edward III (Yale, 2011).
A work of monumental proportions, extending to over 700 pages, Mark succeeded where previous scholars had failed by providing a comprehensive overview of the reign of one of England’s most important and longest serving monarchs. In a brilliant and truly groundbreaking narrative, notable for its deftness of interpretation, its mastery of published and unpublished sources and its eloquence and sheer readability, Mark’s biography was received with the highest critical acclaim and will be the definitive work on the subject for generations to come. Mark would never have wished to be pigeonholed solely as Edward III’s biographer, however, nor even just as a political historian. In an astonishing publication record stretching across thirty years, Mark published over eighty book chapters and articles, fourteen edited collections and (as author or co-author) eight other books. As a historian, he was something of a force of nature. Together, this research established Mark as a leading authority on numerous aspects of the workings of the late medieval English state, including notably its finance, law and parliament, but much else besides. It was a particular hallmark of Mark’s scholarship that he never allowed his work to be circumscribed by traditional subject boundaries. In fact, his work constantly transformed and enlarged the parameters and methods of historical research – some of his most important contributions explored the themes of governance, reputation and identity through the lens of social and cultural history.
The versatility he demonstrated in the sources he used and the methodologies he employed marked him out as a scholar of truly exceptional abilities and set the gold standard for a new type of cultural history of medieval politics. Mark was also a brilliant communicator. He had what he often praised in the work of others: innate flair. He understood the importance of making history interesting and engaging. Both in his published work and the countless talks he gave to academic and non-academic audiences, and to the undergraduate and graduate students he taught, Mark demonstrated a remarkable ability to make complex ideas easy to comprehend, and he enabled his readers and listeners to connect to his subject matter effortlessly. Mark never forgot that behind the fog of 600–700 years of time were real people living real lives, often in adverse circumstances. It was his ability to empathize with these people that made his work so engaging. Mark’s work overturned long-held orthodoxies and shaped new fields, but in critiquing the work of others he was unfailingly modest, generous and respectful. After the earlier peripatetic stages of his career, Mark gained permanent employment at the University of York in 1990, and it was here that he revealed a deeply conscientious commitment to the life of the University, taking on a number of challenging managerial roles. Under his leadership in 1998–2001 and 2002–2003, the Centre for Medieval Studies flourished. In 2001 and from 2003 to 2007 he was Head of the Department of History. He was a natural choice as the first Dean of the newly created Faculty of Arts and Humanities at York in 2009, a position that he held until his retirement in 2017.
That he was able to sustain such a prodigious publication record in the face of these heavy administrative responsibilities remained a source of bafflement to many of his colleagues, and stands as testimony to his phenomenal work ethic, dedication and efficiency. His invaluable service to the University was matched by exemplary service in the cause of wider scholarship through leadership of externally funded research projects. It was characteristic of Mark’s approach that he saw research fundamentally to be not just the pursuit of individual endeavour, but a collaborative and collective enterprise. Further underlying this ethos was a deeply held conviction in the importance of making scholarship and medieval records as accessible and relevant to the widest range of audiences. In 2003–2007 he led the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC)-funded Medieval Petitions project, which made possible the delivery of 18,000 fully searchable entries in The National Archives online catalogue; in 2012–2015 he co-led the AHRC project England’s Immigrants 1350–1550, which produced a database containing 66,000 entries; and in 2014–2015 he co-led the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation project The Archbishops’ Registers of the Diocese of York, 1225–1646, which established two major online research facilities. Over the course of his career Mark captured over £4 million of research funding – a truly remarkable achievement in a Humanities-based subject.
The numerous collaborative partnerships these and other projects produced, both within York and beyond – notably with colleagues at The National Archives – remained for Mark a source of great professional pride. The opportunities the projects provided in helping younger scholars find their feet within academia also remained, for Mark, a key driving force. From 2008 to 2011, he served as a member of the council for the Royal Historical Society, and between 2008 and 2015 he chaired the British Academy English Episcopal Acta Project.
As is testified by his regular open lectures and talks to history societies, as well as his numerous contributions to popular historical journals, newspapers, magazines and TV documentaries, Mark was committed to a ‘public engagement’ agenda long before this became fashionable or a requirement of the Research Excellence Framework. In conjunction with the Historical Association and the Runnymede Trust his England’s Immigrants 1350–1550 contributed to changes in the national school curriculum in 2015, focusing on the long history of immigration in Britain. This work also led to the creation of the Runnymede Trust’s ‘Our Migration Story’, which won the Guardian Award for Research Impact in 2019.
It was indicative of Mark’s intellectual generosity that he saw himself as much the facilitator of other peoples’ research as a researcher himself. Initiatives that flourished in York because of his leadership and support included the White Rose College of the Arts and Humanities (the AHRC-funded collaborative doctoral training centre), the York Festival of Ideas and the Centre for Christianity and Culture. He struck up a very close working relationship with the Borthwick Institute for Archives. Mark was also one of the founders of the internationally acclaimed York Medieval Press (working in association with Boydell and Brewer), and it was under his directorship and leadership in 1998–2005 that it took wing to become a major publisher of academic titles in its own right. Mark’s desire to nurture academic talent and provide a supportive research environment for younger scholars was as important to him as any of his other accomplishments. In the course of his career he supervised twenty-nine2 PhD theses and mentored over a dozen research assistants. He was a man of great kindness and intellectual generosity, offering support and encouragement to anyone – in or outside York – who approached him. Those who benefitted from this support – not just students, but friends and colleagues alike – will remember his wisdom, clear thinking and patience. He was a prolific attender of conferences, where he was unfailingly generous about sharing his ideas and discoveries.
His commitment to the wider research community was particularly shown in his enthusiasm for the annual International Medieval Congress at Leeds, where, with his encouragement, many of his research students presented their research for the first time. Honest enquiry, free thinking and open debate remained the essence of his approach to his mentoring and to his work. His was the purest form of research mentality, devoid of all dogmatism and ego. Despite his eminence in academia, Mark remained disarmingly down to earth and approachable.
Possessed of the sharpest of intellects, he was nevertheless quite happy to discuss less high-brow subjects and was firmly rooted in the real world. He will be remembered for the twinkle in his eye and his mischievous sense of humour. He laughed a lot and took a genuine interest in others. He was blessed with the love and support of his partner, Richard Dobson, and family. In the course of his long illness Mark displayed remarkable but entirely characteristic sanguinity. He was researching until the very end: his latest book Women and Parliament in Later Medieval England (Palgrave) was published in July 2020 and a second book (Winner and Waster) was delivered to the publisher Boydell and Brewer just ten days before he died. When he died Mark was not coming to the end of his publishing career: in many ways it could be said that the best was yet to come. Quite simply, he loved to research. It is immensely sobering to reflect on what great intellectual treasures have been lost to the study of the late Middle Ages as a result of these unfulfilled plans.
The essays in this volume honour the achievements and lasting legacy of a bright and brilliant academic career. The themes into which they are grouped – divided into six typically Ormrodian-style alliterative subheadings – encapsulate the major strands that run throughout the groundbreaking work that Mark produced, though each in different ways also speaks to the wider themes with which the book as a whole is focused: people, power and identity. While the contributors have approached the task of exploring the ideas and questions in Mark’s work in different ways, all have written essays that have broad implications. Some consider the experiences and activities of whole groups of people (McHardy; Kowaleski), whilst others illuminate big themes through the prism of case studies (Lambert, Wogan-Browne). Many of the contributions in this volume examine the negotiation of power, some within confrontational contexts (Crook, Dryburgh, Federico, GivenWilson, Arvanigian), others in an environment of shared interests and cooperation (Biggs, Hamilton).
Whilst Curry’s contribution speaks to the invaluable work Mark did in opening up the records of medieval central government to historical scrutiny, other chapters resonate with his pioneering work on identity and reputation (Green, Taylor, Bennett, Phillips, Lambert). We are also particularly pleased to include discussions focusing on medieval female subjects (Wogan-Browne, Barber, Green), since much of Mark’s work – including his penultimate monograph – explored the importance of gender in the late medieval state and society. None of the chapters fit exclusively into the categories to which they have been assigned, but each addresses in varying proportions the overall strands or themes which inspired the title of the volume. In writing them, the contributors have been conscious of the exacting standards Mark set in his own work: his attention to the detail, his ability to synthesize complex material and offer engaging and penetrating new insights; his faithfulness to the records and sources he used; his intellectual integrity. The volume is offered in tribute to one of academia’s brightest stars, an exceptional scholar and an outstanding human being.
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