You are to write on one only of the four questions below. The idea is to answer the question posed (You may have to manufacture your own supplementary question(s) in your introduction.) as well as you are able. This is not at this stage a research assignment in the usual sense; you are not initially required to go off into the libraries and hunt for sources. But you should seek relevant materials from any of your readings (including the sourcebook) or class notes. You should also be ready to point out missing information that you (we) would need to know before we could fully answer the set question. And you must argue your answer from any evidence you can muster.

The Paper's 1st Draft is due Thursday, April 9. We shall then read and comment on your effort. We shall also ascribe to it a preliminary grade (not marked onto youir script) and take a copy before handing the original back to you. This will be the time to add some library research and to strengthen arguments and bibliography. You have until Thursday, April 30 to edit, rewrite and improve, before resubmission for a final grade. Between these two dates I shall suggest library bibliography outside our assigned materials and we shall be available to help with the development of your paper, including hints on how to write history papers. We will also hold one extra class session for discussion of each topic (probably at an evening time) and how best to deal with it. The final length should be about 15 pp. and it will constitute 40% of the Final Grade, worth working at. Good luck!

1. Discuss the different ways in which England could be said to be part of an "empire" at any time between 1066 and 1272.

2. Explain what monasteries were and how they were important to people in either the century before the Norman Conquest or the twelfth century.

3. "Magna Carta was not really the product of `Bad King John' but a critical commentary on the whole of Angevin Kingship." Do you accept this comment or would you dismiss it as a "whitewash" of an evil and incompetent king.

4. What can the map of England, its landscape and/or the material things found on it teach the historian? (You may choose to focus either on a single theme, such as towns, or you may collect your examples generally from the whole period or any part of it.)

Each early volume of English Historical Documents [= EHD] (I, ed D. Whitelock; II, ed. D.C. Douglas & G. Greenaway; III, ed. H. Rothwell) translates sources that will help with each of the above.

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