The Decline of Serfdom with Mark Bailey
We know that many people were unfree serfs in the Middle Ages, but what does serfdom actually mean? This week on The Medieval Podcast, Danièle speaks with Mark Bailey about medieval serfs, their place in society, and the true catalyst for the decline and fall of serfdom in England.
Was Feudalism Wasteful?
A look at the economics of feudalism can reveal a major fault of this system – the failure to put surplus earnings to productive uses.
Are they serfs? A medieval dispute that lasted 47 years
In 1179, a dispute arose between the residents of a French village and a monastery. Were these villagers serfs and the monastery their lord? It would take nearly a half-century before the affair was finally decided.
Book Review: Occupying Space in Medieval and Early Modern Britain and Ireland
Our review of ‘Occupying Space in Medieval and Early Modern Britain and Ireland’
A peasant is a peasant, is a peasant? : Medieval Maritime Peasant Lives
A peasant is a peasant, is a peasant…or is s/he? Was the life of a peasant who lived in the coastal regions of England the same as that of the peasant who made his livelihood toiling on the land for his local lord?
The Anglo-Saxon War-Culture and The Lord of the Rings: Legacy and Reappraisal
The literature of war in English claims its origin from the Homeric epics, and the medieval accounts of chivalry and the crusades.
High-Tech Feudalism: Warrior Culture and Science Fiction TV
“Richard ΠΙ with aliens” is how Cornell (102) describes “Sins of the Father,” an episode of Star Trek: TheNext Generation (hereafter TNG) in which the Klingon warrior Worf, son of Mogh, seeks to restore his family’s honour by exposing and challenging those responsible for falsely accusing his dead father of treason to the Klingon Empire.
Crafting the witch: Gendering magic in medieval and early modern England
This project documents and analyzes the gendered transformation of magical figures occurring in Arthurian romance in England from the twelfth to the sixteenth centuries.
BOOK REVIEW: Plague Land by SD Sykes
My review of SD Sykes brilliant medieval thriller, Plague Land.
Manor Village and Individual in Medieval England
This thesis explores peasant life of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries in England from information found in the manorial court rolls-the village court records–of Ramsey Hepman grove and Bury.
Signs of Power. Manorial Demesnes in Medieval Iceland
An important aspect of medieval Icelandic social organization, namely the manor, has been neglected in previous research, and very little research has been undertaken comparing Icelandic manorial organization with other regions. This article focuses on one aspect of manorial organization, namely the manorial demesne or central farm of the manor.
Mapping the Medieval Countryside
My summary of a Institute of Historical Research session on the digitization of records in Late Medieval England.
Royal and Magnate Bastards in the Later Middle Ages: The View from Scotland
Theory and Practice in Scotland and Elsewhere Medieval Scotland’s law on bastardy is set out in the lawbook Regiam Majestatem (c.1320)…In England things were different, as Michael Hicks has demonstrated. Admittedly, English heraldic practice eventually followed the French, and the formula ‘X bastard of Y’ is occasionally found for magnates’ bastards.
Bastard Feudalism in England in the Fourteenth Century
As this summary indicates, the study of fifteenth-century bastard feudalism has shown the necessity of exploring both the private relationship – its nature, extent and function – and the public system of local rule within which it operated and of which it was an essential part.
Tenure to Contract: Lordship and Clientage in Thirteenth-Century England
English historians have increasingly stressed the underlying continuity between feudalism and ‘bastard feudalism.’ Indentured retaining is no longer seen as a corrupted and disruptive form of feudalism, but instead as its ‘logical successor.’
Advocating change: monasteries, territories and justice between East and West Francia, 11th-12th centuries
This article looks at the question of the formation of territorial principalities in western Europe through the issue of ecclesiastical advocacy.
Managing the Commons: The role of the elites in the uses of common lands in the Midlands of the kingdom of Valencia during the Middle Ages
In a recent paper, Danie Curtis has given a framework for classifying preindustrial societies in accordance with four variables, these are, the property, the power, the market of basic products and the modes of production.
The Tyranny of a Construct: Feudalism and Historians of Medieval Europe
Historians have for years harbored doubts about the term ‘feudalism’ and the phrase ‘feudal system,’ which has often been used as a synonym for it.
European Chivalry in the 1490s
This paper’s first goal is to give some idea of the atmosphere of the decade, of the pervasiveness of this chivalric element. Chivalry functioned as a medium for international understanding and communication, a common social, cultural, political, and even religious language.
Functions of the Cantred in Medieval Ireland
The cantred as territorial division was recognised everywhere in Ireland by the Anglo-Norman colonists in the first decades of the establishment of the colony. The subsequent use made of these units depended on a number of variables.
The Family Consciousness in Medieval Genoa: The Case of the Lomellini
The most famous figure of the family in this century was Napoleone Lomellini. He was a member of the ‘anziani’ and was known as ‘multum dives et magnus mercator a very rich and important merchant’
Friendship structures – modern and pre-modern
At the same time, friendship has been shown, by medievalists working on many different regions and societies, to have been a widespread social bond often, indeed predominantly, cultivated outside personal, emotional attachments, and often explicitly as a form of allegiance, carrying concomitant expectations and obligations of mutual support; as such, it was central to political organisation.
Conquest or Colonisation: The Scandinavians in Ryedale from the Ninth to Eleventh Centuries
The study of settlement history has developed within the fields of history, archaeology and geography. As a result much of the work carried out in settlement studies has borrowed the research and conclusions of scholars from other disciplines.
Shifting Experiences: The Changing Roles of Women in the Italian, Lowland, and German Regions of Western Europe from the Middle Ages to the Early Modern Period
Specifically, the thesis compares and analyzes the changing roles that women could employ economically, politically, socially, and religiously.
Technological Change in Medieval England: A Critique of the Neo-Malthusian Argument
The last two sections will address this issue by dividing the material into two periods preceding and following the great epidemic. The interpretation that will be provided is heavily indebted to Brenner.