The Inheritance of Rome: Illuminating the Dark Ages, 400-1000

by Chris Wickham

  p. 505. English parallel: this is best developed in I. Álvarez Borge, Comunidades locales y transformaciones sociales en la Alta Edad Media (Logroño, 1999).

  Chapter 21

  The best single-volume analysis of the aristocracy in this period is R Le Jan, Famille et pouvoir dans le monde franc (VIIe-Xe siècle) (Paris, 1995), focused on Francia. In English, the translated collection of articles ed. T. Reuter, The Medieval Nobility (Amsterdam, 1978) remains essential, together with G. Duby, The Chivalrous Society (London, 1977), and C. B. Bouchard, ‘Those of my Blood’ (Philadelphia, 2001), also article collections. Before 900, start with S. Airlie, in NCMH vol. 2, pp. 431-50; after 900, H. Fichtenau, Living in the Tenth Century (Chicago, 1991), pp. 30-156, and G. Althoff, Family, Friends and Followers (Cambridge, 2004). For the society and culture of the period, see J. M. H. Smith, Europe after Rome (Oxford, 2005); and, stopping closer to 900, P. Depreux, Les Sociétés occidentales du milieu du VIe à la fin du IXe siecle (Rennes, 2002), and R. Le Jan, La Société du haut Moyen ge (Paris, 2003). For the very end of our period, see P. Bonnassie and P. Toubert (eds.), Hommes et sociétés dans l’Europe de l’An Mil (Toulouse, 2004), an important collection of survey articles.

  p. 508. Wichmann: Widukind, Res Gestae, in Widukindi Monachi Corbeiensis: Rerum Gestarum Saxonicarum Libri Tres, ed. P. Hirsch and H.-E. Lohmann, MGH (Hanover, 1935), 3.69; see the commentary in K. Leyser, Communications and Power in Medieval Europe: The Carolingian and Ottonian Centuries (London, 1994), pp. 191-2.

  p. 508. Gerald: Odo of Cluny, Vita Geraldi, trans. in G. Sitwell, St Odo of Cluny (London, 1958), pp. 89-180; citations here from 1.7-9, 11, 13-14, 16-20, 22-3, 30, 33. See S. Airlie, in Journal of Ecclesiastical history, 43 (1992), pp. 372-95.

  p. 510. Guilhelmids: J. Dhondt, Études sur la naissance des principautés territoriales en France (IXe-Xe siècle (Bruges, 1948), pp. 177-217; C. Bouchard, ‘Those of my Blood’, pp. 59-73, 181-91; C. Lauranson-Rosaz, in R. Le Jan (ed.), La Royauté et les élites dans l’Europe carolingienne (Lille, 1998), pp. 417-36; J. L. Nelson, Charles the Bald (Harlow, 1992), pp. 139-40, 211-12, 232-3, 255, all give partial accounts.

  p. 512. Counts of Walbeck: Thietmar, Chronicon, trans. D. A. Warner, Ottonian Germany (Manchester, 2001), 1.10, 2.21, 4.17, 39-42, 52, 6.15, 43-4, 48-50, 84-6, 90, 7.4-7. Commentary: Warner’s introduction, pp. 49-52, and K. Leyser, Rule and Conflict in an Early Medieval Society (London, 1979), pp. 32-45.

  p. 513. Canossa: out of a very extensive bibliography in Italian, see V. Fumagalli, Le origini di una grande dinastia feudale (Tübingen, 1971); G. Sergi, I confini del potere (Turin, 1995), pp. 230-41; R. Rinaldi, Tra le carte di famiglia (Bologna, 2003); Studi matildici, 4 vols. (Modena, 1964-97).

  p. 514. Uxelles: G. Duby, La Société aux XIe et XIIe siècles dans la région mâconnaise, 2nd edn. (Paris, 1971), pp. 127, 137-45, 336-9; C. B. Bouchard, Sword, Miter and Cloister (Ithaca, NY, 1987), pp. 160-68, 300-307.

  p. 515. Landed base: G. Tabacco, ‘L’allodialità del potere nel medioevo’, Studi medievali, 11 (1970), pp. 565-615.

  p. 515. Stellinga: see E. J. Goldberg, in Speculum, 70 (1995), pp. 467-501.

  p. 516. Carolingian aristocratic wealth: the best current introduction is J.-P. Devroey, Économie rurale et société dans l’Europe franque (VIe-IXe siècles) (Paris, 2003), pp. 267-96.

  p. 516. Family monasteries: S. Wood, The Proprietary Church in the Medieval West (Oxford, 2006), pp. 339-412, 601-27; for Fontebona, P. Cammarosano, La famiglia dei Berardenghi (Spoleto, 1974), pp. 71-84.

  p. 517. Castles: G. Fournier, Le Château dans la France médiévale (Paris, 1978), pp. 35-79, 100-114; G. P. Fehring, The Archaeology of Medieval Germany (London, 1991), pp. 95-118; R. Francovich, ‘Changing Structures of Settlements’, in C. La Rocca (ed.), Italy in the Early Middle Ages (Oxford, 2002), pp. 150-67; A. A. Settia, Castelli e villaggi nell’Italia padana (Naples, 1984), pp. 41-246. For Pîtres, Cap., vol. 2, n. 273, appendix, c. 1; for Gerald, Odo, Vita Geraldi, 1.36, 38-9, 2.5, 3.1, 4.10.

  p. 518. ‘Seigneurie banale’: e.g. J. P. Poly and E. Bournazel, The Feudal Transformation, 900-1200 (New York, 1991), pp. 25-39; C. Wickham, The Mountains and the City (Oxford, 1988), pp. xx-xxiii, 105-8, 307-35; C. Violante and G. Dilcher (eds.), Strutture e trasformazioni della signoria rurale nei secoli X-XIII (Bologna, 1996).

  p. 519. Oswald and Ælfhelm: A. Wareham, in N. P. Brooks and C. R. E. Cubitt (eds.), St Oswald of Worcester (London, 1996), pp. 46-63; D. Whitelock (ed.), Anglo-Saxon Wills (Cambridge, 1930), n. 13.

  p. 519. Vassals: see S. Reynolds, Fiefs and Vassals (Oxford, 1994), pp. 17-34, 84-105, 124-33, for a convincing minimalist view.

  p. 520. Milites and ‘knighthood’: see, before 1000, J. L. Nelson, The Frankish World 750-900 (London, 1996), pp. 75-87; D. Barthélemy, La Mutation de l’an mil a-t-elle eu lieu? (Paris, 1997), pp. 174-296; Duby, Chivalrous Society, pp. 162-8.

  p. 520. Thegns: H. Loyn, in English Historical Review, 70 (1955), pp. 529-49; N. P. Brooks, Communities and Warfare, 700-1400 (London, 2000), pp. 138-61; for five hides, EHD, vol. 1, n. 51a.

  p. 520. Conrad II: Reynolds, Fiefs and Vassals, pp. 199-207.

  p. 520. Capitanei and valvassores: H. E. J. Cowdrey, Popes, Monks and Crusaders (London, 1984), study IV.

  p. 520. Nobilis: Le Jan, Famille et pouvoir, pp. 32-4, 59-76, 99-153, etc.; H.-W. Goetz, Vorstellungsgeschichte (Bochum, 2007), pp. 173-205; J. Martindale, in Past and Present, 75 (1977), pp. 5-45.

  p. 521. Alfred, etc.: G. Duby, The Three Orders (Chicago, 1980), pp. 13-119; for the military/non-military boundary, see e.g. H. Keller, Adelsherrschaft und städtische Gesellschaft in Oberitalien (9.-12. Jahrhundert) (Tübingen, 1979), pp. 342-79; Wickham, Mountains, pp. 285-92.

  p. 522. The ‘feudal revolution’ debate: see, in English (referring to French bibliography), T. N. Bisson, D. Barthélemy, S. D. White, T. Reuter and C. Wickham, in Past and Present, 142 (1994), pp. 6-42; 152 (1996), pp. 196-223; 155 (1997), pp. 177-225. R. E. Barton, Lordship in the County of Maine, c. 890-1160 (Woodbridge, 2004), an excellent local study, also now contains the most sustained critique of ‘feudal revolution’ theory in English (see esp. pp. 112-45); his arguments still leave space for considerable shifts in the parameters of politics and political legitimacy in the early eleventh century.

  p. 523. Milan and Lucca: Keller, Adelsherrschaft, pp. 251-302; C. Wickham, in A. Spicciani and C. Violante (eds.), Sant’ Anselmo vescovo di Lucca (1073-1086) (Rome, 1992), pp. 391-422.

  p. 523. ‘Fragmentation of powers’: M. Bloch, Feudal Society (London, 1961), p. 446 (translation slightly modified).

  p. 524. Anjou, etc.: a good guide is J. Dunbabin, France in the Making, 843-1180 (Oxford, 1985), pp. 184-90, 199-213.

  p. 524. Thegan and Ebbo: Thegan, Life of Louis, trans. P. E. Dutton, Carolingian Civilization (Peterborough, Ont., 1993), pp. 141 - 55, c. 44; Thietmar, Chronicon, 3.5; Richer, Historiae, ed. and trans. R. Latouche, Richer: Histoire de France (888-995) (Paris, 1930-37), 1.15.

  p. 524. Gerald: Odo, Vita Geraldi, 1.4.

  p. 525. Values, generosity: Fichtenau, Living, pp. 50-64; Thietmar, Chronicon, 1.5.

  p. 525. Family structures and consciousness: see in general Le Jan, Famille et pouvoir (pp. 44-5 for Constantine), and the other books cited at the start of the notes to this chapter.

  p. 526. Babenberger: Regino of Prüm, Chronicon, ed. F. Kurze, MGH (Hanover, 1890), s.aa. 902, 903, 906; Widukind, Res Gestae, 1.22; Liutprand, Antapodosis, 2.6, in The Complete Works of Liudprand of Cremona, trans. P. Squatriti (Washington, 2007), pp. 77-9. Megingaud: Regino, Chronicon, s.aa. 892, 896; cf. M. Innes, State and Society in the Early Middle Ages (Cambridge, 2000), pp. 225-8.

  p. 526. Walbeck: Thietmar, Chronicon, 6.43-4.

  p. 527. Charlemagne: Cap., vol. 1, n. 20, c. 22, n. 33, c. 32, trans. P. D. King, Charlemagne (Kendal, 1987), pp. 205, 240-41.

  p. 527. Gorze: J. Nightingale, Monasteries and Patrons in the Gorze Reform (Oxford, 2001), pp. 15-16, 59-105; patronage: Wood, Proprietary Church, pp. 812-50.
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  p. 528. Cluny: B. Rosenwein, Rhinoceros Bound (Philadelphia, 1982); eadem, To Be the Neighbor of St Peter (Ithaca, NY, 1989); G. Tellenbach, The Church in Western Europe from the Tenth to the Early Twelfth Century (Cambridge, 1993), pp. 111-21; J. Wollasch, in NCMH, vol. 3, pp. 174-80; G. Constable, in Settimane di studio, 38 (1991), pp. 391-448.

  Chapter 22

  No single book covers the themes of this chapter. G. Duby’s two classic surveys, The Early Growth of the European Economy (London, 1974) and Rural Economy and Country Life in the Medieval West (London, 1968) are the closest to a general overview in English. For the ninth centry, A. Verhulst, The Carolingian Economy (Cambridge, 2002) is basic. There are also some guides in the socio-economic chapters of NCMH, vols. 2 and 3. In French, J.-P. Devroey’s two recent books, Économie rurale et société dans l’Europe franque (VIe-IXe siècles) (Paris, 2003) with Puissants et misérables (Brussels, 2006), and R. Fossier, Enfance de l’Europe, Xe-XIIe siècles (Paris, 1982), together offer an important regionally nuanced account, though they differ very substantially (where they differ, I am with Devroey); Fossier reprised some of his arguments in English in NCMH, vol. 3, pp. 27-63. M. McCormick, Origins of the European Economy (Cambridge, 2001) is a rich analysis of exchange and communications, with many wider implications.

  p. 529. Quote: Annals of Saint-Bertin, trans. J. L. Nelson (Manchester, 1991), s.a. 859; see J. L. Nelson, Charles the Bald (Harlow, 1992), p. 194, and S. Epperlein, Herrschaft und Volk im Karolingischen Imperium (Berlin, 1969), pp. 42-50.

  p. 530. Encellulement: Fossier, Enfance, p. 288 and following. A good overview of the peasantry is R. Le Jan, La Société du haut Moyen ge (Paris, 2003), pp. 186-206.

  p. 531. Denmark: e.g. B. P. McGuire, ‘Property and Politics at Esrum Abbey’, Medieval Scandinavia, 6 (1973), pp. 122-50.

  p. 532. Peasant gift-giving and its pacing: see e.g. C. Wickham, The Mountains and the City (Oxford, 1988), pp. 54-5, 190-97, 210-15, 266-8. For motivations, B. Rosenwein, To Be the Neighbor of St Peter (Ithaca, NY, 1989), passim.

  p. 533. Cusago: I placiti del ‘Regnum Italiae’, ed. C. Manaresi (Rome, 1955-60), vol. 1, nn. 110, 112; see further some of the cases discussed by J. L. Nelson, in W. Davies and P. Fouracre (eds.), The Settlement of Disputes in Early Medieval Europe (Cambridge, 1986), pp. 45-64.

  p. 533. Legislation: Cap., vol. 1, n. 44, c. 15, n. 73, cc. 2-3 (quote), etc. (trans. P. King, Charlemagne (Kendal, 1987), pp. 250, 264) - see E. Müller-Mertens, Karl der Grosse, Ludwig der Fromme und die Freien (Berlin, 1963), pp. 100-101 for a list.

  p. 534. Peasant resistance: see in general C. Wickham, Framing the Early Middle Ages (Oxford, 2005), pp. 570-88 (p. 583 for Trita).

  p. 534. Manors: Duby, Verhulst and Devroey, cited above, all discuss manors and give (a very extensive) bibliography. For intensification, see also Wickham, Framing, pp. 287-301. Le Mans: Cap., vol. 1, n. 31.

  p. 535. Manors and exchange: see further P. Toubert, L’Europe dans sa premie‘re croissance (Paris, 2004), pp. 27-115, 145-217; J.-P. Devroey, Études sur le grand domaine carolingien (Aldershot, 1993), esp. study XIV.

  p. 535. Saint-Germain: Das Polyptichon von St-Germain-des-Prés, ed. D. Hägermann (Cologne, 1993) is the most recent edition.

  p. 536. Adalard: L. Levillain, ‘Les Statuts d’Adalhard’, Le Moyen âge, 4 (1900), pp. 333-86; St. Gallen: W. Horn and E. Born, The Plan of St Gall (Berkeley, 1979).

  p. 537. Brevium Exempla and Capitulare de Villis: Cap., vol. 1, nn. 128, 32 (quotes from cc. 1, 54; trans. H. R. Loyn and J. Percival, The Reign of Charlemagne (London, 1975), pp. 98-105, 64-73, slightly modified).

  p. 537. Manorial decline in Italy: Toubert, L’Europe, pp. 170-78; B. Andreolli and M. Montanari, L’azienda curtense in Italia (Bologna, 1983), pp. 201-13. Non-decline elsewhere: see e.g. Duby, Rural Economy, pp. 197-212.

  p. 538. Free and unfree: see e.g. Duby, Rural Economy, pp. 186-96; W. Davies, in M. L. Bush (ed.), Serfdom and Slavery (Harlow, 1996), pp. 225-46; for Italy, F. Panero, Servi e rustici (Vercelli, 1990), pp. 37-55. For the complexities of serfdom in France after 1000, see P. Fouracre, in Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 6th ser., 15 (2005), pp. 29-49.

  p. 539. Incastellamento: P. Toubert, Les Structures du Latium médiéval (Rome, 1973), pp. 315-68, 450-93; for the north, A. A. Settia, Castelli e villaggi nell’Italia padana (Naples, 1984); one important conference among several on this enormously debated subject is published as Archeologia medievale, 16 (1989).

  p. 540. Church and castle: J. Chapelot and R. Fossier, The Village and House in the Middle Ages (London, 1985), pp. 129-50.

  p. 541. Rhineland, Italy: C. Wickham, in NCMH, vol. 2, pp. 510-37; M. Innes, State and Society in the Early Middle Ages (Cambridge, 2000), chh. 4, 5. Rankweil: K. Bullimore, ‘Folcwin of Rankweil’, EME, 13 (2005), pp. 43-77. Karol: L. Feller et al., La Fortune de Karol (Rome, 2005).

  p. 542. Arleus: Rosenwein, To Be the Neighbor, pp. 69-74, 226-8; S. E. Halton, ‘The Church and Communities: Cluny and its Local Patrons’, University of Birmingham Ph.D. thesis, 2005, pp. 238-61.

  p. 542. Salisano: C. Wickham, Il problema dell’incastellamento nell’Italia centrale (Florence, 1985), pp. 62-4, developed and corrected in A. Sennis, ‘Cenni storici’, Archeologia medievale, 19 (1992), pp. 456-61.

  p. 543. Population rise: M. Zerner-Chardavoine, ‘Enfants et jeunes au IXe siècle’, Provence historique, 31 (1981), pp. 355-81, for Marseille; more generally, Devroey, Économie rurale, pp. 65-75; Fossier, Enfance, pp. 88-107.

  p. 544. Agricultural expansion: Verhulst, Carolingian Economy, pp. 61-4, Duby, Rural Economy, pp. 88-122, Devroey, Économie rurale, pp. 108-29, Fossier, Enfance, pp. 152-87, 654-6. Duby and Fossier are more downbeat about the Carolingian economy than later writers; more recent historiography substantially revises upwards, among others, Carolingian grain yields, the availability of iron, and the density of mills.

  p. 545. Charavines: M. Colardelle and E. Verdel, Les Habitats du lac de Paladru (Ise‘re) et leur environnement (Paris, 1993).

  p. 546. Exchange: see above all O. Bruand, Voyageurs et marchandises aux temps carolingi ens (Brussels, 2002). For towns, P. Johanek, in NCMH, vol. 3, pp. 64-94, A. Verhulst, The Rise of Cities in North-west Europe (Cambridge, 1999), pp. 44-100, and H. Sarfatij, ‘Tiel in Succession to Dorestad’, in idem et al. (eds.), In Discussion with the Past (Zwolle, 1999), pp. 267-78.

  p. 547. Raffelstetten: Cap., vol. 2, n. 253 (note McCormick, Origins, p. 556 n. for caution about the Rus).

  p. 547. Venice: McCormick, Origins, pp. 254-60, 523-31, 761-77; the will of 829 is partially trans. in R. S. Lopez and I. W. Raymond, Medieval Trade in the Mediterranean World (New York, 1955), pp. 39-41.

  p. 547. Amalfi, etc.: B. Kreutz, Before the Normans (Philadelphia, 1991), esp. pp. 75-93; P. Skinner, Family Power in Southern Italy (Cambridge, 1995), pp. 247-81.

  p. 548. North Sea: see e.g. H. Clarke and B. Ambrosiani, Towns in the Viking Age, 2nd edn. (Leicester, 1995).

  p. 550. Cremona: see G. Tabacco, The Struggle for Power in Medieval Italy (Cambridge, 1989), pp. 323-31 for a brief survey.

  Chapter 23

  p. 552. Humour: see G. Halsall (ed.), Humour, History and Politics in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages (Cambridge, 2002).

  p. 553. Fifth-century break: I explored the consequences of this in Framing the Early Middle Ages (Oxford, 2005), esp. pp. 825-31.

  p. 560. Politics of land: see in general M. Bloch, Feudal Society (London, 1961).

  p. 561. Chur: R. Kaiser, Churrätien im frühen Mittelalter (Basel, 1998).

  p. 562. Muslim sense of the public sphere: see e.g. P. Crone, Medieval Islamic Political Thought (Edinburgh, 2004), pp. 286-314, 393-8. My use of the term ‘public sphere’ is borrowed from Jürgen Habermas, at least as translated into English, but he used it in a very different way.

  p. 562. Carolingian res publica, etc.: see e.g. M. de Jong, in Settimane di studio, 44 (1997), pp. 893-902, and M. Innes, State and Society in the Early Middle Ages (Cambridge, 2000), p
p. 254-63, although Innes, in particular, draws diverging conclusions from me.

  Index of Names and Places

  All place-names are ascribed to modern, not medieval, countries. al in Arab names is ignored for the purpose of alphabetizing. Place-names beginning St, Saint, San, Santa, Santi are all listed under Saint, alphabetized by saint’s name.

  Aachen, Germany

  ‘Abbas, uncle of Muhammad

  ‘Abbasids, ‘Abbasid caliphate

  Abbo, abbot of Fleury

  Abbo, patricius of Provence

  ‘Abd al-Aziz, governor of Egypt

  ‘Abd al-Hamid

  ‘Abd Allah ibn al-Zubayr, caliph

  ‘Abd Allah ibn Tahir

  ‘Abd al-Malik ibn Habib

  ‘Abd al-Malik, caliph

  ‘Abd al-Rahman I, amir of al-Andalus

  ‘Abd al-Rahman II, amir of al-Andalus

  ‘Abd al-Rahman III, amir and caliph of al-Andalus

  ‘Abd al-Rahman ibn Marwan al-Jilliqi

  ‘Abd al-Rahman ibn Mu‘awiya

  Abinnaios, Roman military official

  Abodrites

  Abu ‘Abd Allah, Fatimid general

  Abu al-‘Abbas, see al-Saffah

  Abu Ayyub, vizir

  Abu Bakr, caliph

  Abu Hanifa, jurist

  Abu Hurayra

  Abu Muslim, general

  Abydos, Turkey

  Adalard, abbot of Corbie,