Data copyright © Sussex Archaeological Society unless otherwise stated
This work is licensed under the ADS Terms of Use and Access.
Jaime
Kaminski
Sussex Archaeological Society
Barbican House
169 High Street
Lewes
BN8 1YE
The career and personality of Simon de Montfort, Earl of Leicester (c. 1208- 1265), the leader of the baronial revolt against King Henry III, provides a striking exemplar of the malleability of historiographical opinion. Montfort has been treated as hero and villain and (misleadingly) as 'the founder of the House of Commons'. The attitudes of the writers discussed in this article should be interpreted in the light of their own times ? for instance, the English Civil War, the Jacobite risings, the French Revolution and nineteenth-century Liberalism. The emphasis in the article is on the importance to the historian of his historical background rather than on his exploitation of new sources.