Abstract
This book takes as its subject the many hundreds of parish churches built in England in the middle ages by the gentry, the knights and esquires, the lords of country manors. It uses lordly engagement with the parish church as a way of opening up questions about gentry, piety, and sociability, focusing on the gentry as founders and builders of churches, worshippers in them, holders of church advowsons, and patrons and sponsors of parochial communities. It also looks at how the gentrys interest in the parish church sat alongside their patronage of the monks and friars, and their use of private chapels in their manor houses. The book successfully weaves together themes in social, religious, and architectural history, examining in all its variety a subject that has hitherto been considered only in journal articles. Written in an accessible style, the book makes a significant contribution not only to the history of the English gentry but also to the history of the rural parish church, an institution now in the forefront of medieval historical studies.
