Fiefs and Vassals

The Medieval Evidence Reinterpreted
Erscheinungsjahr 1996
ISBN: 978-0-19-820648-4
Verlag: OUP Oxford

Buch, Englisch, 556 Seiten, Format (B × H): 152 mm x 229 mm, Gewicht: 898 g

Fiefs and Vassals sets out to change our view of the medieval world. It offers a fundamental challenge to orthodox conceptions of feudalism. Susan Reynolds argues that the concepts of the fief and of vassalage, as understood by historians of medieval Europe, were constructed by post-medieval scholars from the works of medieval academic lawyers and that they provide a bad guide to the realities of medieval society. The rules of the late medieval law-books did not derive from earlier relations between lords and their warriors; in so far as they derived from anything before the twelfth century it was from practices developed by great churches to safeguard their property. Both in detail and in general, however, they were not a direct reflection of social values at any time.

This is a radical new examination of social relations within the noble class and between lords and their vassals, the distillation of wide-ranging research by a leading medieval historian. It will revolutionize the way we think of the Middle Ages.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Reynolds, Susan

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Weltgeschichte & Geschichte einzelner Länder und Gebietsräume Geschichte einzelner Länder Europäische Länder
• Sozialwissenschaften Politikwissenschaft Politische Systeme Staats- und Regierungsformen, Staatslehre
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Weltgeschichte & Geschichte einzelner Länder und Gebietsräume Europäische Geschichte

Über Autor(innen)

Susan Reynolds is Emeritus Fellow of Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford. She is the author of An Introduction to the History of English Medieval Towns (OUP, 1977; CPB 1982), and Kingdoms and Communities in Western Europe 900-1300 (OUP, 1984; CPB 1986). She lives in London SW.