Richard III: A Study of Service [Paperback]

This intelligent, academic work should be in the collection of anyone who wants to understand the medieval concepts of lordship and service. Richard's reign, especially as "Lord of the North," is used to exemplify many important issues surrounding medieval administration. Highly recommended.

An excellent study of medieval "affinities." There is much in this work that is new to the study of Richard III, and all that is here is enlightening. Highly recommended for scholars of the period.

As history writing goes (and it has its own priorities or agenda if you will) Richard duke of Gloucester was not someone likely to inspire hundreds if not thousands of books over the last five centuries, from novels and plays to strict academic tracts and fascinate millions of people across the globe. The life of a medieval duke, even one who had as tumultuous, fractured, and as varied a fortune by age 30 as Richard experienced, would be, at best, lucky to find himself in the footnotes of other dignitaries. Of course, he changed all that, and we too have been twisting in the wind with him as to why he changed it all, and, if he thought of it that way.

To paraphrase Ian Mortimer, a current medieval historian, "history" isn't something that `happened' - it was in the act of happening, it was in the "now" for those involved, as imperfectly as they themselves saw their actions and those of others. To write history effectively it helps if the writer can keep history in the present as it was for the men and women living it. (Compare a `history movie' to a documentary, one has the sweep of packaged personalities and conflicts, while the other has startling immediacy and unresolved issues and questions).

To that point this Study, written more than two decades ago, is not only still pertinent it fills a very real need, it connects us to the Richard as he was happening. While I might, and do, quibble with many of her conclusions,(and I would have broadened the context or parallels) for Ricardian literature - or any study of a historical figure - this book remains groundbreaking: by asking, who is this Richard duke of Gloucester, who is he as he transitions into King Richard, and who are the people around him that experience this change with him?

It can be called an investigation into Richard's aim and achievement at "good lordship" and it involves dozens of names, family and patronage ties, titles, offices, and it may read a bit formal (it was an expansion of her Ph.D. thesis after all) but try to remember Horrox has collected, formatted, arranged, and summarized an enormous amount of material and effort almost never devoted to this man, either as duke or king in the modern era (I suspect Caroline Halsted's 1844 volumes of over a 1000 pages will remain the leader in this area) but it isn't just to drag every archive out into the open and leave readers suffocating under a pile of details. She does have a purpose, a conclusion of her own, which I may not agree with, or perhaps I should say it only begins an explanation, it doesn't answer all of my questions, but it is a serious, sober, meaningful starting point.

With the glut of novelistic histories being written the current reader may find Horrox a bit dry, if this is the case then consider her a fine, deliberate resource, and pursue your own lines of inquiry and know at least she was not playing fast and loose with her sources. This is not an intemperate or flashy writer, and that is another major asset for anyone studying Richard, it brings a solemnity with it, in a sense her seriousness about the Subject infuses this much maligned king (to borrow Annette Carson's succinct description) with a credibility that can only encourage future generations of scholars and readers to take this man seriously as well. And that is always a good thing.

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