Programme: Spring Term 2025
Wednesday 19th March, 7.30pm.
Ali Al-Khafaji
Chair: Paul Dryburgh
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The ‘Prince de Cestre’ and the Curious Case of TNA SC 8/305/15233
This paper examines the source known as TNA SC 8/305/15233, a document derived from the unpublished ‘Ancient Petitions’ found in the National Archives in the class SC 8. It is argued that this source has been wrongfully dated to 1397-9, owing largely to its reference to a ‘Prince de Cestre’ i.e. Richard II. In fact, it will be demonstrated that this was the one and only such reference thus far discovered to Edward the Black Prince – Richard II’s father – before his death in 1376, and that the writer had not written this denomination entirely in error. My paper firstly focuses on establishing the dating of the document before considering the broader context of Cheshire’s constitutional position in the late fourteenth century. This includes the Black Prince’s stewardship over the earldom of Chester, the sense of separateness from England long harboured amongst the county community and revitalised with the official creation of a principality by Richard II in 1397, and the possible ramifications of this rare denomination – Prince de Cestre – being associated with the Black Prince over twenty years before Richard II officially adopted it.
Ali Al-Khafaji
is a PhD student (4 th year, PhD & Graduate Teacher) at the University of Bristol, working under the supervision of Professor Brendan Smith and Dr John
Reeks. His thesis explores the themes of Englishness, foreignness, and allegiance in English political culture during the reign of Richard II. Ali was the Second Prize winner of the 2023-24 Mortimer History Society Essay Prize.
Wednesday 2nd April, 7.30pm.
Dr Hannah Boston
Chair: Philip Hume
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Property and locality in medieval Shropshire
This paper will explore ideas of property in Shropshire between the eleventh and thirteenth centuries. Across England, this period saw fundamental changes in the seigneurialisation and intensification of control over land and its inhabitants. How these changes played out on the ground, however, was shaped by local conditions of environment, society, and seigneurial structure. This paper will discuss the process of integration of new ideas, and how legal change from the top interacted with local law and custom.
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Dr Hannah Boston
is a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow at the University of Lincoln. Her project focuses on local legal communities and transmission of ideas in Shropshire and Lincolnshire, 1000-1307. Her first book, Lordship and Locality in the Long Twelfth Century, was published in 2024.