A detailed analysis of the workings of society at the heart of Charlemagne's empire during the 'Dark Ages'.

This is a study of the economic, social, legal and religious position of three minorities within the medieval Christian kingdom of Hungary. The book demonstrates that the status of such minorities depended not simply on Christian religious tenets, but on a larger framework--including the legal and social system, economic possibilities, and conflicts between kings and the clergy. It also investigates the situation "at the gate of Christendom"--the frontier with the nomad world--and the way this affected both Christian and non-Christian interaction and Christian ideology.

This book offers ideas about the processes of political and cultural change in the early Middle Ages. The main focus is on relations between the centre and periphery of the Carolingian empire, in particular on the development of Brittany as a territorial principality in the ninth and tenth centuries. A major theme is the interaction of Carolingian imperial policies, Frankish aristocratic feuding, and local Breton communities. Other issues discussed include economy and society in Brittany and Neustria, the impact of Carolingian imperialism on local Breton communities, changes in the political,...

The monastic life was of central importance in the Middle Ages. In one sense, monasteries were cut off from the world; in another, they forged vital links with it. This is a study of the regional growth of monasticism between 1069 and 1215, in what was the largest county in England. It studies those who entered monastic communities, and the impact of the growth of monasticism on the aristocracy (who founded and patronized monasteries) and the local community, on the landscape and economy of the county, and on regional identity.

This pioneering book studies the function and status of the written word in Carolingian society in France and Germany in the eighth and ninth centuries. It demonstrates that literacy was by no means confined to a clerical elite, but was dispersed in lay society and used for government and administration, as well as for ordinary legal transactions among the peoples of the Frankish kingdom. While employing a huge range of primary material, the author does not confine herself to a functional analysis of the written word in Carolingian northern Europe but goes on to assess the consequences and...

This volume of The New Cambridge Medieval History covers most of the period of Frankish and Carolingian dominance in western Europe. It was one of remarkable political and cultural coherence, combined with crucial, very diverse and formative developments in every sphere of life. Adopting an interdisciplinary approach, the authors examine the interaction between rulers and ruled, how power and authority actually worked, and the society and culture of Europe as a whole. The volume is divided into four parts. Part I encompasses the events and political developments in the whole of the British...

This book consists of a study of two important and related pieces of thirteenth-century English legislation--the Provisions of Westminster of 1259 and the Statute of Marlborough of 1267. In establishing the political and legal context of these statutes and examining the process of drafting them, the volume utilizes an exceptionally wide range of manuscript sources. Revealing how the legislation was used and interpreted up to 1307, it is the first major work on any of the statutes in this period of major legislative change.

This is the first full-length analysis of the machinery and men of government under Henry I, which looks in much greater detail than is possible for other contemporary states at the way government worked and at the careers of royal servants. The early twelfth century was a major period of growth in English government apart from the royal household. Royal justice was vigorously administered, setting precedents for the later development of common law. At the local level the powerful sheriffs were kept under control, though aristocratic influence over the office survived. Government provided new...

This volume of specially-commissioned essays takes as its theme the legacy of Rome in Carolingian culture in eighth- and ninth-century Europe. No such comprehensive survey of this kind exists in any language. The book is the more unusual by departing from the customary stress on the concept of renewal to emphasize the enormous creativity and inventiveness of the Franks. Carolingian culture provided the bedrock for the subsequent development of medieval European culture, and this is demonstrated amply by essays that are planned as a series of introductions to the study of each topic.

The book investigates the ways in which literacy was important in early medieval Europe, and examines the context of literacy, its uses, levels, and distribution, in a number of different early medieval societies, including Ireland, Anglo-Saxon England, Visigothic and Umayyad Spain, Papal Rome, and Byzantium, between c. 400 and c. 1000. The contributors set out to provide the factual basis for assessments of the significance of literacy in the early medieval world and analyze the significance of literacy, its implications, and its consequences for the various societies. In all cases, the...