Just how much immigrant newcomers should have a voice in the political life of their new communities is a question that has occupied people for centuries. Bart Lambert explores the twists and turns of that issue in later medieval England in this companion piece to his new article in HWJ 90.
Tensions about the rights of native and foreign-born workers in Britain, and attempts to deal with them, are not new but have been the subject of public debate for centuries. Even during the later Middle Ages, the influx of alien workers and its implications for the employment of English-born people was high on the agenda, provoking political crises and prompting the central government to issue new legislation.
