Late medieval English society placed great weight on the practices of primogeniture, patrilineal descent and patriarchal government. The language of political and social life was saturated with the language of fatherhood, whilst laws on inheritance privileged the father–son relationship. In purely legal terms, the identity of one's father was imperative, whilst becoming a father was vital to ensure the continuity of patrilineal systems. Having legitimate offspring, particularly sons, was essential to ensure a family's continuance. Intertwined with these economic and political realities were the ideological constructions of fatherhood along with the domestic situating of actual and literary fathers. One would assume that fatherhood, clearly so deeply enmeshed into the daily fabric of medieval life and imagination, would have received a great deal of critical attention, but it has not. In this Conclusion, as well as drawing together some final thoughts on late medieval fatherhood, I propose ways in which the study of fatherhood can direct us onward beyond the family or gentry and mercantile society to thinking about the foundations of late medieval English society itself.

Throughout this book, we have seen that the father was the dominant figure not only of medieval domestic life, but also of the medieval imagination. Fatherhood underscored and promoted patriarchal norms. The establishing of fatherhood privileged adult males by making one of the key functions of fatherhood a means by which men were initiated into manhood, whilst the maintenance of fatherhood acted as proof for the validity of male dominance and the near-limitlessness of paternal authority.