Providing a new narrative of how local authority and social structures adapted in response to the decline of lordship and the process of state formation, Spike Gibbs uses manorial officeholding – where officials were chosen from among tenants to help run the lord's manorial estate – as a prism through which to examine political and social change in the late medieval and early modern English village. Drawing on micro-studies of previously untapped archival records, the book spans the medieval/early modern divide to examine changes between 1300 and 1650. In doing so, Gibbs demonstrates the vitality of manorial structures across the medieval and early modern era, the active and willing participation of tenants in these frameworks, and the way this created inequalities within communities. This title is part of the Flip it Open Programme and may also be available Open Access. Check our website Cambridge Core for details. Shows how lordship and state formation affected local authority in the transition between medieval and early modern England. Spike Gibbs is Junior Professor for the Economic History of the Middle Ages at the University of Mannheim. His writing on manorial officials, felony forfeiture and managing stray animals has been published in journals such as the Journal of British Studies and the English Historical Review. This is his first book.