Lordship and Community is a detailed study of life in the village of Hunstanton in Norfolk during the first half of the sixteenth century. Cord Oestmann draws on little-known but fascinating local records to give a vivid account of the daily life of the village, and to trace the influence of the resident landlords, the Lestrange family (and most particularly Thomas Lestrange, who lived from c.1490 to 1545), on the life of the village.

The everyday lives of ordinary villagers, their attitudes and responses to their physical and spiritual surroundings, are brought into close focus: the impact of matters ranging from ecclesiastical reform to basic matters such as birth and death are revealed at all levels of village society, in particular the relationship of the Lestrange family to the village and its inhabitants.

The interaction of lord and community is constantly evident in this account of Hunstanton. Cord Oestman studies its influence on landholding and the situation of the tenants, as well as on the landless population. He detects its impact on the social structure of the village (which he analyses with a close look at particular families), and finally he traces its influence on aspects of religious life in the community.

Cord Oestman's record of life in Hunstanton in the first half of the sixteenth century has implications beyond the narrowly regional boundaries of his subject; it is a rare view of society in the transitional period between the middle ages and the Renaissance, and valuable evidence as to how a small community under the eye of the resident land-owning family carried on its daily business in the tumultuous reign of Henry VIII.