ABSTRACT
In the British Isles, the century and a half from 1300 is not easily characterised in terms of a single set of processes. After an era of conquest and expansion, the later Middle Ages was a period whose defining features were divergence and difference between the peoples of the archipelago, marking a turning away from common themes to an environment which stressed the variations between different lands and regions. However, this shift does not mean that a frame of reference encompassing the whole of the British Isles has no further significance. There is a direct relationship between the periods before and after 1300. During the twelfth and thirteenth centuries the major differences between and within the realms and lordships of the isles were influenced and altered by the impact of common developments. The foundation of urban centres and rural settlement by English-speaking populations, the promotion of ecclesiastical reform, the extension of the values and personnel of Anglo-French aristocratic society and the expansion of the authority of royal, primarily English royal, government reshaped all the political societies of the British Isles between 1066 and 1300.
