The proprietary church in the medieval West / Susan Wood.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Wood, Susan, 1925-2022.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Church property.

Church history--Middle Ages, 600-1500.

Church history.

Church history--Middle Ages.

Physical Description:

xii, 1020 pages : illustrations, maps ; 26 cm

Place of Publication:

Oxford ; New York : Oxford University Press, 2006.

Summary:

Although there have been many regional studies of the proprietary church or particular aspects of it, this is the first extensive study of it covering most of western Europe, from the end of the Roman Empire in the West to about 1200. The book aims at a broad survey in varying degrees of intensity and with a shifting geographical focus; and it asks questions that are as much social and religious as legal or administrative.

The book vindicates, for village and estate churches, Ulrich Stutz's basic concept of a church with its possessions, revenues, and priestly office as an object of what we can reasonably call property. But it largely rejects his and his followers' application of this to great churches, and sees the position of intermediate churches (such as small or middling, monasteries) as various, changeable, and ambivalent. Above all it turns away from Stutz's view of the property relationship as a distinct institution or system of 'Germanic church law', presenting it rather as a fluid set of assumptions and practices taking shape as customary law. Susan Wood considers also the changing background of ideas and the bearing on it of important polemical writings (with some questioning of their established interpretations). Finally the book discusses how property in churches was imperfectly superseded by the new canon-law patronage, in the increasingly bureaucratic post-Gregorian Church.

Contents:

Part I Beginnings

1 The Roman Empire and post-Roman kingdoms 9

i Churches acquire their own property 9

ii Roman founders' claims 11

iii The kingdoms of the sixth and seventh centuries 16

2 A new stage: Bavaria, Alemania, and Lombard Italy, mid-eighth to mid-ninth century 33

i Bavaria and Alemania 33

ii Lombard Italy 48

3 The converging of private and parish churches 66

i Gaul: private churches get parochial rights 67

ii Gaul: parish churches become objects of property 74

iii Other regions 79

iv Italy 86

4 The question of origins 92

5 Early monasteries: their founders and abbots 109

i The position of external founders 111

ii Family monasteries or abbots' monasteries? 118

iii The abbot's heir 127

6 Some non-Frankish patterns of family interest in monasteries 140

i Ireland 140

ii Galicia 147

iii England 152

iv Bavaria 161

v Italy 166

7 Transition to outside lordship of monasteries 176

i Were early founder families losing hold or letting go? 176

ii The conditions for lasting outside lordship 181

8 The emergence of bishops' lordship over monasteries 191

i Bishops' claims to authority, sixth to eighth century 191

ii The bases of bishops' lordship, seventh and eighth centuries 199

9 The emergence of lay rulers' lordship over monasteries 211

i The consequences of secularization in Francia 211

ii The explicit bases of royal lordship in Francia 221

iii Royal defence in Francia 230

iv Rulers in Lombard Italy and pre-Viking England 235

Part II Lordship Over Higher Churches, Ninth to Eleventh Century

10 Kings and princes 247

i Higher churches as benefices 247

ii Carolingian immunity-defence 251

iii Proprietary dealings with higher churches 260

iv Services owed by higher churches 269

v Germany after the Carolingians, and some contemporary states 280

vi Were bishoprics ever 'proprietary'? 292

11 Nobles other than founders' heirs 312

i Lay abbots 312

ii Advocates 328

12 Noble founders and their heirs 339

i Ninth-century Carolingian realms north of the Alps 339

ii Ottonian and Salian Germany 355

iii Late Carolingian and Capetian France and Burgundy-Provence 372

iv Italy, tenth and eleventh centuries 393

v England, tenth and eleventh centuries 408

13 Great churches as lords of monasteries 413

i The lordship of monasteries over monasteries 413

ii The lordship of bishoprics over monasteries 418

Part III Lower Churches as Property, Ninth to Twelfth Century

14 Lesser churches' resources in lands and other possessions 437

i Endowments 437

ii Lords' interest in their churches' possessions 444

15 Lesser churches' resources in tithes and offerings 459

i Allocation of tithes and offerings between churches 459

ii Offerings: seigneurial power or choice from below? 478

iii Lords' enjoyment of tithes and offerings: its beginnings, and development mainly in France 486

iv Lords' enjoyment of tithes and offerings in other countries 501

v Was there a standard 'lord's share'? 512

16 Proprietors' arrangements with their priests 519

i The priests' appointment and status 519

ii The priest as tenant of church, land, and revenue: Germany, Burgundy, France 530

iii The priest as tenant: Spain, Italy, England 541

iv The tenant priest's rent or service 555

v The priest with partial tenure, allowance, or wage 560

vi The priest's living in monks' churches 575

17 Lay proprietors 584

i Rulers, nobles, and knights 584

ii Families and partnerships with common property 601

iii Dealings in fractions 627

iv Lay lords' livelihoods and family arrangements 637

v Townsmen and merchants, mainly in England 645

vi 'Community' churches? 651

18 Priests as proprietors 659

19 Higher churches as proprietors 681

i Monasteries, collegiate churches, chapters 681

ii Bishops and bishoprics 689

20 Some proprietary elements in a bishop's authority 696

i Altaria 697

ii The bishop's customs 711

Part IV Ideas, Opinion, Change

21 The juridical condition of churches 729

i The church as person and as thing 729

ii Grants of churches to individuals: loans and gifts 739

iii Donations, sales, exchanges, mortgages 754

iv Litigation 776

22 Legislation and reforming opinion 789

i The eighth and ninth centuries 789

ii Hincmar of Rheims's defence of lay lordship 804

iii The tenth century, to Abbo of Fleury 812

iv Old themes in the eleventh century 824

23 Monastic reform: lordship and liberty 830

i Reform and lordship 830

ii Monastic liberty 839

24 Gregorian reform and the proprietary church 851

i The Investiture Dispute and its polemic 851

ii Donations of churches and the impact of Gregorian ideas 864

25 Towards a bureaucratic Church 883

i The emergence of the canon law of patronage 883

ii Change on the ground in the twelfth century 904

26 The longer term 922.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [934]-980) and index.

ISBN:

0198206976

OCLC:

62796035

Publisher Number:

9780198206972

Online:

Publisher description