This book is a detailed study of a village community during the first half of the sixteenth century, concentrating particularly on the little-researched relationship between the villagers and their resident landlord. Using contemporary records it looks at all aspects of the lives of the people living in the village and attempts to recreate the framework in which they lived and operated and which shaped their physical and emotional existence. Respectively both the gentry and the ordinary people' of the early modern period have frequently been subjects of historical research: Oestmann uses many of the techniques and ideas developed by these studies to analyse the interaction of these groups -here the Lestrange family with the inhabitants of Hunstanton. He discusses what drove the relationship and how the presence of the Lestrange family affected the village community. CORD OESTMANN studied at the Centre of East Anglian Studies, Norwich (M.A.), and Gottingen University (Ph.D).