Andrew Clutterbuck

Research Topic

How did the profession of law afford the opportunity of acquiring landed wealth in England in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries?

Supervisor: John Watts

The practice of the common law taught at the early inns of court in London in the 14th and 15th centuries provided a route second to none for the acquisition of land, wealth and social advancement.  My research, focussing on a number of the most successful examples of the type, will look at questions such as how this came about, what the specific advantages were for the ambitious man of law, how the arrival of the landed lawyer in a vicinity was perceived and what effects it had. 

My first degree was Literae Humaniores at Lincoln College, Oxford in the early 1980s (Latin and Greek Language and Philosophy).  After a short military excursus, I practiced at the Commercial Chancery bar for some three decades or so.  More recently I completed, while still in practice, a MSt in Historical Studies at the Department of Continuing Education (dissertation on Michael de la Pole, first de la Pole earl of Suffolk).