Friendly Foreigners: International Warfare, Resident Aliens and the Early History of Denization in England, c.1250-c.1400

Abstract

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Institutions, Trade, and Growth: The Ancient Greek Case of Proxenia

“…Further, it is useful to contrast proxenia with other historical institutional arrangements, focusing on the medieval Europe of the Commercial Revolution. Consider English denization: royal grants that bestow on beneficiaries the same rights as the king's liegemen, including real property rights and protection against arbitrary abuses of power (Lambert and Ormrod 2015). Differently from proxenia though, denization was closer to naturalization and mostly concerned aliens who had permanently moved to England.…”

Citizenry and Nationality: the Participation of Immigrants in Urban Politics in Later Medieval England

“…Granted by the royal chancery since the 1380s, these documents bestowed upon the recipients in return for the payment of a fee a number of rights that were usually reserved for English-born people (denizens). 58 It is not clear if and how letters of denization supported the pursuit of public office in cities and towns: they usually allowed immigrants to own real property, to sue in real cases before English courts and to pay taxes at the lower, native rates. Only one case is known in which a recipient explicitly drew on his newly-acquired denizen status for the purpose of obtaining office.…”

Double Disadvantage or Golden Age? Immigration, Gender and Economic Opportunity in Later Medieval England

“…These grants, issued by the royal chancery in return for a fee from the 1380s onwards, bestowed privileges upon the alien recipient which were usually reserved for native-born people, including the right to inherit, own and dispose of land, houses and tenements. 49 Alien widows were frequent recipients of these denization documents, albeit alien widows of English men. One example is Beatrice, the Portuguese-born wife of the English knight Gilbert Lord Talbot.…”