Reframing the feudal revolution : political and social transformation between Marne and Moselle, c. 800-c. 1100 / Charles West.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

West, Charles, 1979- author.

Series:

Cambridge studies in medieval life and thought ; 4th ser., 90.

Cambridge studies in medieval life and thought ; 4th ser., 90

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Social change--Europe--History--To 1500.

Social change.

Political culture--Europe--History--To 1500.

Political culture.

Feudalism--Europe--History--To 1500.

Feudalism.

Carolingians--France--Marne River Valley--History.

Carolingians.

Carolingians--Moselle River Valley--History.

Marne River Valley (France)--Politics and government.

Marne River Valley (France).

Moselle River Valley--Politics and government.

Moselle River Valley.

Marne River Valley (France)--Social conditions.

Moselle River Valley--Social conditions.

Europe--History--476-1492.

Europe.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xiii, 307 pages) : digital, PDF file(s).

Place of Publication:

Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 2013.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

The profound changes that took place between 800 and 1100 in the transition from Carolingian to post-Carolingian Europe have long been the subject of vigorous historical controversy. Looking beyond the notion of a 'Feudal Revolution', this book reveals that a radical shift in the patterns of social organisation did occur in this period, but as a continuation of processes unleashed by Carolingian reform, rather than Carolingian political failure. Focusing on the Frankish lands between the rivers Marne and Moselle, Charles West explores the full range of available evidence, including letters, chronicles, estate documents, archaeological excavations and liturgical treatises, to track documentary and social change. He shows how Carolingian reforms worked to formalise interaction across the entire social spectrum, and that the new political and social formations apparent from the later eleventh century should be seen as long-term consequence of this process.

Contents:

Introduction

The historiographical background

The place of the Carolingians in the Feudal Revolution

Methodology

Geography and sources

Part I. The Parameters of Carolingian Society

1. Institutional integration

Counts and the locality

Bishops and episcopal organisation

Royal power

Conclusion: Structures of authority

2. Networks of inequality

Aristocratic solidarities and the limits of Carolingian institutions of rule

The logic of aristocratic dominance

Conclusion: The dominance of lordship?

3. Carolingian co-ordinations

Carolingian symbolic communication between Marne and Moselle : gifts, violence and meetings

Characterising Carolingian symbolic communication

From symbolic communication to economies of meaning

Conclusion

Part II. The long tenth-century, c. 880 to c. 1030

4. The ebbing of royal power

The distancing of royal authority

Post-royal politics

The causes for the retreat of royal power

5. New hierarchies

The transformation of the Carolingian county

Lords and landlords in the long tenth century

Ritual and society in the tenth century

Conclusion: "Symbolic impoverishment"

Part III. The exercise of authority through property rights, c. 1030-1130

6. The banality of power

The rise of banal power

The reification of political power

Material consequences

7. Fiefs, Homage and the "Investiture Quarrel"

Fiefs and dependent property

Homage

The "Investiture Quarrel"

Towards a "secular liturgy"?

8. Upper Lotharingia and Champagne around 1100

The new political landscape between Marne and Moselle

Upper Lotharingia and Champagne compared

Architectures of power

Conclusion: Between the "long twelfth century" and the settlement of disputes

Reframing the Feudal Revolution : the Carolingian legacy

Manuscripts index.

Notes:

Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 05 Oct 2015).

Includes bibliographical references and indexes.

ISBN:

1-107-24157-X

1-139-88953-2

1-316-63550-3

1-107-24778-0

1-107-25027-7

1-107-24861-2

1-107-25110-9

1-139-23702-0

1-107-24944-9

OCLC:

857364911