The objective of this research was to examine the development of settlement in Lincolnshire during the 4th-1st millennia B.C. by a detailed investigation of two contrasting areas, the western fen margin and the Bain Valley. To understand how the fen margin settlements evolved it was necessary to study the development of the ancient landscape. This was achieved by a combination of fieldwalking, examination of aerial photographs and by recording fenland drainage sections. By studying the soils and their depositional history it was possible to relate drying out and flooding episodes to the traditional fenland sequences. The excavation of a Bronze Age and Iron Age settlement at Billingborough was described in detail and compared with similar remains from other sites. The Bain Valley was studied by a combination of survey and excavation. An area between Ludford and Tattershall was investigated by fieldwalking transects across the valley and onto the Wolds. A detailed survey of two flint scatters was undertaken. The results of two major excavations at Tattershall Thorpe were presented. One was a Neolithic settlement with associated ceramics and lithic industry the other an Iron Age defended enclosure with waterlogged ditch deposits. The two study areas were then compared, contrasted and discussed in a broader context. Results of the research suggest that a mixed agricultural economy developed on the western fen margin in the Bronze Age and a predominantly pastoral economy in the Bain Valley and on the Wolds. Early in the 1st millennium, in a period of increasing wetness and flooding, settlement patterns changed with the Witham Valley becoming the focus of attention a role it continued to play in the Iron Age. A shift towards semi-urban settlement takes place in the 1st century B.C. with the formation of major Iron Age centres. Extensive land divisions also appear at this time and it is suggested that these may relate to the territories of these centres.

Drawing on postmodern approaches to the practice of history, this thesis examines the historiography of British policy towards European integration since 1945. Its core argument is that historians are subject to a host of pressures. This argument is developed through analysis of seven factors which have influenced the writing of British European policy. Prime amongst them is the influence on historical interpretation of writers' sociological background. The thesis examines the change in the dominant group of writers in the field from politicians to professional historians. It is only in that context, it explains, that the competing interpretations placed on British European policy can be understood. From here, the six other factors at work on writers are examined: the level of analysis writers use to explain British foreign policy, the approach to intentions and outcomes in the international arena, the use of hindsight and empathy in the writing of history, myth-making in contemporary history, the use of sources and the type of study written. The secondary argument advanced in this thesis is that the changing sociological context of the historiography of Britain and Europe can best be elucidated by mapping the writers into schools. Using the typology of historiographical progression set down in American Cold War historiography, the thesis identifies three schools of writing in the historiography of Britain and Europe, 'orthodox', 'revisionist', and 'post-revisionist'. It goes on to draw conclusions about the nature of schools of writing in Britain, drawing particular attention to the comparison with American foreign policy scholarship. The thesis ends by analysing two broader conclusions to emerge from the historiography of Britain and Europe: British historians' obsession with primary sources and implications for the study of the making and implementation of foreign policy. The conclusion also reflects on three broader points of interest: the relationship between questions and answers in history, the lack of attention in methods training courses to the process of narrative construction of historical texts and Britain's continuing inability to define for itself a place in the wider world.

In the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, the rapid growth of population produced both pressure on land and an increase in the demand for com, the supply of which was inelastic, resulting in inflation of food prices compared with manufactured commodities. The consensus of many writers is that the rich grew richer while the poor grew poorer because the larger farmers who could market surpluses of food, and also increase their landholding, benefited at the expense of the smaller farmer, who produced only sufficient for subsistence. Economic change produced social change. Almost fifty years ago, Thirsk maintained that drainage schemes in the 1620s in the Isle of Axholme changed its agricultural economy from pastoral to arable. This thesis will add to her work by demonstrating that economic and social structures were the result of interactions between a number of elements within the Isle's communities of which inheritance practices were a major factor. Partible inheritance, by which landholdings could be divided successively to the point of being no longer able to support a family, had a number of effects: the availability of small plots of land, creating an active land-market, especially for the entrepreneurial farmer; emigration by those unable to make a living from any land they had held, which became available for others; immigration for the purpose of renting or buying these small parcels of land; the growth of debt (credit); and the development of secondary occupations. The economic and social structures of a community were consequently altered, particularly in favour of those who could offer security for their borrowings, and there was a widening divide between the richest and poorest members of society.

The household and military retinue of Edward the Black Prince (1330-1376) was created in the early years of the Hundred Years W ar. This thesis examines the role which the retinue played in that conflict and how the administration of the prince's estates contributed to that effort through the provision of troops, supplies and finance. It aims to place the Black Prince and his retainers annuitants and servants in a national context, investigating their role in the Hundred Years War and A nglo-Gascon political society, whilst also highlighting the individual and collective roles that they played in the prince's retinue. It also demonstrates something of the atmosphere evident within the household through the examples of the chivalric ethic and religious attitudes.These elements are also seen in the links that existed between members of the retinue and household that were created by their common service to the Black Prince but also through a variety of other associations ,familial, financial,political and geographical. The particular status of the heir-apparent governed the nature of his retinue and comparisons are drawn with the other great bastard feudal a ssociations of the day, particularly the royal household and the Lancastrian affinity. The thesis concludes with a biographical appendix, which highlights certain careers and summarises those of others with a wide range of links to the Black Prince.

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This thesis is a study of Gujarati women and children living in the North London Borough of Harrow. It addresses the issues concerning women in the household, that include their relations with other kin and wider networks, caring for children, feeding, and protecting them from evil influences, and their key involvement in ritual practice. Men as husbands, fathers, uncles and grandfathers are also discussed. Children's involvement in ritual from birth, or even before, is addressed and the way they make sense of the world through multiple carers. Households were studied using the methods of participant observation and in-depth, taped, unstructured interviews. Different caste groups, religions and social classes were included in the study group, but the majority were Hindu, and a few Jain. Muslim households were excluded because they represented less than 10% of the Harrow population and would have made the study too broad. Data obtained from a three-month period of research in Ahmedabad, informed the Harrow data, but a direct comparison was not made. The theme of moral continuity emerged from the data as a central concern for Hindu and Jain households. This was linked to kinship ties, respect for elders, obligations, religious festivals and rituals. The joint household remains popular and many younger people are learning Gujarati, practising rituals and asking for arranged `introduction' marriages. Family `rules' which have been followed through many generations are followed in respect to festivals, life-cycle rituals of childhood, warding off the evil eye and what foods to eat. Childhood is a time of purity when children are thought to be close to the gods, requires special consideration, especially when it comes to food, and milk may be thought to be the safest option. Children live in a network of interdependency with other kin and through rituals participate in a world that respects the hierarchy of the household and wider Gujarati `community'. Western influences of toys, peers and the educational system are acknowledged at various points. In conclusion, a sense of being Gujarati is still held by individuals today in Britain. Continuity of moral codes is achieved through ritual practice, which is transformed over time, links with the ancestors and gives a sense of belonging to 'one of us'.

This thesis examines the development of citizenship as a political concept in twentieth-century Britain, by considering how different political and intellectual circumstances shaped changes in ideas about citizenship. By examining how and why the conception of citizenship formulated in the early twentieth century by the idealist philosopher Henry Jones (1852-1922), differed from that articulated by the sociologist and theorist of the post-war welfare state T. H. Marshall (1893-1981) in the years after the Second World War, the work identifies a process by which changing structures of thought shifted the meaning of citizenship over the years. The thesis consists of three major sections. In the first section, the contrasting personal histories of Jones and Marshall are presented. The effects of different social realities and personal contexts on the production of political ideas are considered. The next section then examines the different idea environments within which Jones and Marshall developed their thought. The differences between the idealist intellectual framework represented by Jones, and the systematic sociological approach represented by Marshall, are mapped out. Finally, the conceptual structures of the two different conceptions of citizenship that emerged in Britain in the course of the twentieth century are examined; and the way in which changing ideas about citizenship were played out in practical debates over social policy is outlined in an analysis of the debates over the Royal Commission on the Poor Laws of 1905-9 and the 1948 National Assistance Act. By unravelling the intellectual and ideological processes that have occurred in the development and articulation of particular conceptions of citizenship, the work makes an original contribution to historical understandings of the distinction between 'idealist' and 'positivist' idea structures in twentieth-century Britain, and of the role played by such structures in shaping the development of the welfare state as a policy option.