In studies of community in the past there is a general absence of conscious, structured theory, invariably resulting in a lack of coherence and comparability. This thesis is, then, an application of the concept using an explicit theory of community. It is conducted through a case-study of two, contrasting regions of rural Staffordshire - the 'Lowlands' and the 'Moorlands' - with a focus on one parish within each region, between the mid-eighteenth-century and the later nineteenth century. It tests the hypothesis that the growth of capitalism in the local economies of these two regions led to changes in social relationships and structures within the two principal communities studied, and that these changes were in the direction from 'integrated' communities towards 'class-based' communities. The first part of the thesis shows how the basis for an integrated community in the eighteenth century was undermined by the personal forces of capital's advance, (that is by the actions of the landlords and farmers), though- to differing degrees in the two regions, with the Moorlands being altered rather less. The second part focuses on the nineteenth century, and reveals that the community in the Lowlands had moved some way, though not completely, towards becoming a class-based community; the community in the Moorlands, however, had moved even less in this direction, and in many ways remained more in the mode of an integrated (eighteenth century-like) community.

This thesis studies the history of a family whose later generations were to become quintessential members of the gentry and how they managed their lands and lives. It is based on the early-fourteenth century cartulary left by Sir Roger of Okeover. The cartulary was probably motivated by Roger's childhood experience of the disputes over the wardship of himself and his lands. The cartulary is supplemented by cognate sources including the cartulary of the Abbey of Burton upon Trent and original documents. These provide an exceptional record stretching back to the early twelfth century and beyond. Chapter 3 argues that the origins of the Okeovers and their occupation of the manor of Okeover, held from the Anglo-Saxon Abbey of Burton, probably predate the Conquest. The Okeovers held lands from several individuals and institutions. Most of the land probably had origins before the Conquest and was held on a basis that later came to be categorised as socage tenure. This differs from land held by military service, a tenurial practice probably introduced by the Normans. This distinction was particularly important in cases of wardship. Chapter 4 shows that the Okeover's vertical social relationships with local magnates, particularly the Ferrers of Tutbury Castle, varied with the strength of the head of the Ferrers family at the time. Chapter 5 argues that the obligation to pay services in cash and to generate a cash income increased the relative independence of the family. Chapter 6 shows that support of younger siblings was an important objective resulting in horizontal alliances with other local families. Chapter 7 examines the problems of financial over-extension the family faced. This history of the Okeovers makes no claim to have produced results that necessarily apply more generally. It does, however, suggest that it would be productive to undertake further research into early twelfth-century deeds distinguishing tenures by socage from those by military service.

This thesis seeks to construct a history for the diocese of Lichfield during the early medieval period. The region is comparatively lacking in evidence, textual or archaeological, when compared to regions further east and south, and so provides a useful case study on which to test the applicability of narratives developed elsewhere. This study analyses what evidence there is from the region, textual (ninth-century episcopal lists, the Lichfield Chronicle, saints’ Lives), archaeological (ecclesiastical settlements, including Lichfield cathedral, and rural settlement) and topographical (distributions of settlement types, field systems and soils), and asks whether it can be interpreted with reference to two specific narratives: first, the ‘minster narrative’, in which a framework of minsters, established during the seventh and eighth centuries, provided pastoral care to the local population; and a territorial narrative based upon the ‘cultural province’, whereby a region defined topographically, usually along watersheds, persistently affected human activity within it, focussing it inwards. The study finds neither narrative entirely satisfactory: early minsters were clustered in the southern and eastern parts of the diocese, suggesting that episcopal agency was more important in ministering to the population than royal or noble minsters, which were founded for other reasons; and several different scales of territory are found to have been influential on the lives of those living in the region. A contextual interpretation is proposed, whereby nodes of habitual practice are identified throughout the landscape, by which people created and negotiated their identities at several different scales; a concept of ecclesiastical lordship is also recommended, by which the diocesan bishop’s relationships with other minsters in the diocese might be more fruitfully understood.

This is the history of the peasant community of Cannock Chase (Staffs. ) between 1546, when Sir William Paget was granted the Chase, and 1597 when his grandson recovered the lands. It shows that whilst the varying fortunes of the Paget family were closely reflected in the history of the area, most noticeably during the years of attainder when the Crown's lessee destroyed the oak forest, their influence was balanced by the actions and aspirations of many other individuals and groups. The peasant land market is described and the significance of the high incidence of sub-tenanting is considered; evidence on the real cost of copyhold land is presented. The importance of the Chase in the peasant economy, particularly as a place of common pasture for a large communal flock, of which two unique censuses survive, is discussed. The influence and significance of the manor court in both its civil and its criminal jurisdictions is considered, and the peasants' response to a number of social and economic problems is revealed through a detailed study of the court's records. A series of enclosure riots, and other disturbances on the Chase are recounted. Finally, an attempt is made to describe the peasants' attitudes to the Church and to the harsh realities of birth and death.

The Black Country was, and remains, an area characterised by insular and conservative social attitudes. These charactersistics were already strongly evident by the 1860s and thereafter were intensified by the collapse of the area's prosperity consequent on the rapid decline of its two basic industries, coal mining and iron manufacture, and the transformation of its traditional metal using trades by the widespread application of machine methods. The divisive consequences of industrial decline, depressed living standards and social stagnation for working class organisation were compounded by the extreme local particularism of its sub-regions, deriving in the main from an intense localisation of industry. Within this context the progress of the working class movement in the area was uncertain and slow. The first large group of workers to organise were the ironworkers: in the spring of 1863. At this time the impetus to organisation given by a sharp upturn of trade in a strongly cyclical industry proved strong enough to overcome the obstacles inherent in the structure of the industry, and the Associated Ironworkers of Great Britain was formed. The union survived for only five years, but the conflicts which arose with the rival association of the northern ironworkers, the National Association of Ironworkers, during this short time left a legacy of suspicion and hostility between the two groups of ironworkers which long outlasted the two unions. the National Association of Ironworkers narrowly survived the depression of 1867-8 which brought the collapse of the Associated Ironworkers and was re-formed as the National Amalgamated Association of Ironworkers. When the first onset of the great coal and iron boom in 1869-70 brought no recovery of unionism in the Black Country the National Amalgamated Association took the initiative in organising the area and in 1872 its status as the national association for ironworkers was recognised by the Black Country men. Despite the spectacular success of the National Amalgamated Association in the Black Country during the early 1870s the tensions between the south Staffordshire ironworkers and those in the north of England persisted and were again clearly revealed when the dramatic collapse of the iron and coal boom effectively destroyed union organisation in the Black Country. The conciliation movement which had accompanied the rise of the National Amalgamated Association in the Black Country survived the collapse of unionism. The ad hoc South Staffordshire Iron Trade Board which had been established in 1872 broke up in 1875 but was quickly reformed and placed on a firmer institutional basis as the South Staffordshire Mill and Forge Wages Board. Over the next decade leadership of the local ironworkers was exercised by this board, and with its influence in favour of conciliation being strongly reinforced by the continuing shrinkage of the south Staffordshire iron trade the adjustment to decline was made without undue difficulty. The success of the wages board largely obscured the weakness of organisation on the men's side, but intensified pressure on wages consequent on a further marked down turn in trade in the mid 1880s brought into . sharp, focus the importance of complementing conciliation machinery with effective union organisation and the Black Country ironworkers took a leading part in re-forming the National Amalgamated Association of Ironworkers as the Associated Iron and Steel Workers of Great Britain during 1887. The return of union organisation to the south Staffordshire iron trade in turn prompted calls for re-organisation of the wages board and in the following year this was successfully carried through, the change being marked by re-naming the board the Midland Iron and Steel Wages Board. The question of the relationship between the union and the men's representatives on the wages board was resolved at an early stage, and over the next two decades union and board combined to preserve as much as possible of the declining south Staffordshire trade. During this time the position of the Associated Iron and Steel Workers as the strongest union in the iron and steel trade was increasingly challenged by the rise of the British Steel Smelters Association, committed to replacing the subcontract system by direct labour. This development had particularly important implications for the south Staffordshire iron industry, which was organised entirely on a sub-contract basis and while there was no direct challenge to the Associated Iron and Steel Workers in the Black Country the possible consequences of an inter-union clash for the fragile prosperity of the area's industry were dramatically demonstrated at"Hawarden Bridge in 1909- 11. Thereafter such resistance as remained among Black Country ironworkers to the idea of rationalising the industry's fragmented union structure crumbled rapidly and they offered no resistance to the process of union consolidation which culminated in the formation of the Iron and Steel Trades Confederation in 1917. The formation of district associations by Black Country miners followed directly from the establishment and initial success of the Associated Ironworkers of Great Britain, and the area was strongly represented at the Leeds conference of November 1863 at which the Miners' National Association was formed. When the National Association failed to support them during a long strike in 1864 the Black Country men rebelled against Alexander Macdonald's leadership and took a leading part in forming the breakaway, P ractical Miners' Association. This organisation collapsed within two years, but doubts about the value of alliances with miners of other areas persisted and were an important factor in shaping the attitudes of Black Country miners for the next half century. These doubts were temporarily overcome during the great boom of the early 1870s. The revival of organisation in the north-east sector of the coalfield was led by the Amalgamated Association of Miners, formed in 1869, and during 1873 the associations of the south-west sector reaffiliated to the National Association. With the collapse of union organisation at the end of the boom doubts revived. Only two Black Country associations affiliated to the ' Miners' National Union, formed in 1875 from what remained of the National and the Amalgamated, and by 1878 both had seceded. By this time a second important characteristic of Black Country miners' organisations, namely marked differences of "temper" between the associations in the northeast and south-west sectors of the coalfield, was becoming increasingly evident. This difference had first become apparent during the great boom when the associations of the south-west sector had acted as pace-setters in the drive for improved wages and shorter hours, but had been largely obscured at that time by the dramatic success of unionism and the wages movement. The collapse of prosperity in 1874 was followed by a long strike as the miners resisted the owners* attempt to impose a wage reduction, and when this ended with the establishment of a sliding scale of wages the difference in temper between the miners! associations of the southwest and north-east sectors were clearly revealed in attitudes to the scale. The difference intensified through the 1880s. Even the necessity of making common cause against the owners during the long strike of 1884 failed to bring any lasting reconciliation, and by 1890 the rise of a powerful national organisation, the Miners' Federation of Great Britain, and changes in the structure of local unionism had produced a situation where Black Country miners were divided into two hostile camps. The miners in the central districts of the coalfield accepted the authority of the South Staffordshire and East Worcestershire Coal Trade, Wages Board while two militant enclaves to north and south were affiliated to the Miners' Federation of Great Britain. / Hostility between the two camps made the 1890s a particularly difficult decade for mining trade unionism in the Black Country, but the growing influence of the Miners' Federation of Great Britain progressively undermined the authority of the wages board until in 1899 the miners of the central districts affiliated and the wages board was reconstituted as a board of conciliation. Resolution of the local position in relation to the Miners' Federation of Great Britain did not, however, eradicate the long standing difference of temper between rival local associations. These persisted to 1914 and beyond and were clearly revealed in differing densities ofiunion membership, differing attitudes to the question of employers' liability and in the different levels at which demands were pitched during the strike for the individual district minimum wage in 1912. The craftsmen of the Black Country were slower to organise than the ironworkers and the miners. The flintglass makers and flint-glass cutters had established strong unions during the 1840s and 1850s, but in the metal using trades no lasting association of workers was formed until 1870 when the nut and bolt workers established a union. This achieved some success during the 1870s, but thereafter its position was progressively undermined as technological change eroded the craft basis of the nut and bolt industry.

The post war years have seen a steady flow of inmigration into the rural hinterlands of conurbations, eminating both from the surrounding rural areas and from the urban complexes themselves. By 1981 over one fifth of Britain's population was resident in a rural district, the majority falling within zones close to urban centres. This study, based on one year's participant observation in seven settlements within southern Staffordshire, part of the rural hinterland of the West Midlands Conurbation, and southern Hampshire, adjacent to the Southampton - Portsmouth axis, the South Hampshire Conurbation, assess this process. Using the technique of Cluster Analysis, three broad groupings of settlement are identified: the small agricultural settlement, the urbanised commuter village, and settlements in a process of transition between the two. The development of the case settlements, representatives of these three groupings, is assessed in relation to their historical and geographical context, with emphasis being placed on land tenure and local planning policy. An analysis is undertaken of the "hinterland population", the diverse populations now resident within the rural hinterlands. Nine broad groupings emerge from this population, identifiable with reference to socio-economic characteristics and ways of life, and these are examined in relation to their use, their environments, social networks and patterns of behaviour, and perceptions of their place of residence. These groups are represented in various proportions within each settlement type, in relation to the dominant housing class found there. As a result a variety of community forms are seen to be developing, with a polarisation of settlements along class lines. Running concurrently with this, two theoretical concepts are introduced based on the approach of Symbolic Interactionism. These are the Triadic Relationship, and Place Centredness, which provide a more humanistic framework for the analysis. The inclusion of these concepts enables an assessment to be made of the notions of "rurality" and "truly rural population".

Pour respecter les droits d'auteur, la version électronique de ce mémoire a été dépouillée de certains documents visuels. La version intégrale du mémoire a été déposée à la Division de la gestion des documents et des archives. / Le Staffordshire Hoard est un trésor anglo-saxon qui date des 6e et 7e siècles qui fut découvert en juillet 2009 par un détectoriste dans un champ du comté du Staffordshire en Angleterre. Ce trésor est composé d’environ 4600 fragments d’artéfacts représentant pour la plupart des garnitures d’épées en or et en argent. Bien que nous retrouvions aussi dans le Hoard certains objets ecclésiastiques, comme une grande croix en or ainsi qu’une bande inscrite en latin, aucune pièce de monnaie ne fut retrouvée, ni aucune lame d’épée. Le Staffordshire Hoard pose beaucoup de questions, notamment par sa composition inédite et aussi en raison du mauvais état dans lequel les objets furent retrouvés. Depuis sa découverte en 2009, les chercheurs se sont majoritairement posé les mêmes questions, à savoir de quel type de Hoard il s’agit, à qui il appartient et pourquoi il fut enterré. Avec ce mémoire, nous allons plutôt emprunter un autre chemin. En effet, nous étudierons plutôt les aspects matériels et techniques de la construction des artéfacts en or décorés avec la technique du cloisonné, et particulièrement le seax set. Ceci nous permettra dans un premier temps de comprendre comment ce type d’objet fut fabriqué par une société en particulier à l’époque du haut Moyen-Âge. Dans un second temps, l’étude de ces sujets aidera à répondre à une question qui fut souvent mise de côté par les différents chercheurs s’étant intéressés au Staffordshire Hoard, à savoir pourquoi aucune lame d’épée ne fut retrouvée dans cet assemblage. / The Staffordshire Hoard is an Anglo-Saxon treasure dating from the 6th and 7th centuries that was discovered in July 2009 by a detectorist in a field in the county of Staffordshire, England. This treasure is composed of approximately 4600 fragments of artefacts representing mostly gold and silver sword fittings. Although some ecclesiastical items were also found in the Hoard, such as a gold Great Cross and a Latin inscribed strip, neither coins nor sword blades were found. The Staffordshire Hoard raises many questions, due to its unusual composition and the poor condition in which the objects were found. Since its discovery in 2009, researchers have mostly asked the same questions, namely what type of hoard it is, to whom it belongs and why it was buried. With this dissertation, we will take a different path. Instead, we will study the material and technical aspects of the construction of gold artefacts decorated with the cloisonné technique, specifically the seax set. This will allow us in first place to understand how this type of object was made by a particular society in the early Middle Ages. Secondly, the study of these objects will help us to answer a question that has often been put aside by various researchers interested in the Staffordshire Hoard, namely why no sword blades were found in this assemblage.

The evidence presented in this thesis advocates an increased level of scholarly interest in English working-class Mormon converts. To illustrate who these people were, and what their roles were as part of Mormon story, this regional study introduces and makes available over twelve hundred Staffordshire Mormons, and asks questions of the collected statistical information. The conservative Staffordshire Mormons clearly assisted the establishment, and continuation, off a Zion in the American West. Much of the data confirms previous scholarship; however, those with “differing visions” of Mormonism (for example, the RLDS Church) attracted Staffordshire converts in larger numbers than previously suggested. The findings suggest a careful re-examination of the early British RLDS membership may reveal similar findings. If so, a reappraisal of RLDS-LDS history not only would be desirable, but also necessary.