THE SOCIAL STRUCTURE OF THE PARTICIPANTS OF THE BATTLE OF NORTHAMPTON ON JULY 10, 1460 AND THE SIEGE OF LONDON TOWER

• Main Author: A. G. Prazdnikov
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Kemerovo State University 2017-03-01
• Series: Вестник Кемеровского государственного университета
• Subjects: the wars of the roses; battle of northampton; social structure of the participants; house of lancaster; house of york
• Online Access: https://vestnik.kemsu.ru/jour/article/view/2113
• ISSN: 2078-8975; 2078-8983

The social history of the Wars of the Roses is still relevant, as the extent of its social influence remains a matter of debate. Determination of the personal composition of participants of the most important events of the conflict will help in solving this problem. A prosopography method provides the good opportunity to determine the involvement of representatives of different social strata. The study subject is a group of 49 people who took part in the battle of Northampton and the siege of London Tower in 1460, on the side of both Lancaster and York. The greatest part of them was lords, which is connected with the nature of the sources: chronicles is usually mentioned only the names of the commanders. At the same time, the main peculiarity of the battle was the presence of a large number of Church prelates. The reason for this was the support of the Yorkists by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Bourchier, and the papal legate Francesco Coppini. There are only nine names of the knights who participated in the battle and the siege in the chronicles, although the representatives of the gentry were middle and lower officers. The research has shown that family and personal connections played a decisive role in the choice of the parties to the conflict. The majority of the participants, their brothers and sons, as a rule, remained faithful to one particular dynasty, which does not allow one to estimate the age of the Wars of the Roses as the time of breaking the traditional system of relations.