Rancor and Reconciliation in Medieval England

Rancor and Reconciliation in Medieval England PDF Author: Paul R. Hyams
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 1501725742
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 376

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Book Description
Duels and bloodfeuds have long been regarded as essentially Continental phenomena, counter to the staid and orderly British ways of settling differences. In this surprising work of social and legal history, Paul R. Hyams reveals a post-Conquest England not all that different from the realms across the Channel. Drawing on a wide range of texts and the long history of argument about these texts, Hyams shatters the myth of English exceptionalism, the notion that while feud and vengeance prevailed in the lands of the Franks, England had advanced beyond such anarchic barbarism by the time of the Conquest and forged a centralized political and legal system. This book provides support for the notion that feud and vengeance flourished in England long beyond the Conquest, and that this fact obliges us to reconsider the genealogies of both common law and the English monarchy.Moving back and forth between a broad overview of 300 years of legal history and the details of specific disputes, Hyams attends to the demands of individuals who believed that they had been aggrieved and sought remedy. He shows how individuals perceived particular acts of violence and responded to them. These reactions, in turn, sparked central efforts to manage disputes and thereby establish law and order. Respectable litigation, however, never eclipsed the danger of direct action, often violent and physical.

Rancor and Reconciliation in Medieval England

Rancor and Reconciliation in Medieval England PDF Author: Paul R. Hyams
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 1501725742
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 376

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Book Description
Duels and bloodfeuds have long been regarded as essentially Continental phenomena, counter to the staid and orderly British ways of settling differences. In this surprising work of social and legal history, Paul R. Hyams reveals a post-Conquest England not all that different from the realms across the Channel. Drawing on a wide range of texts and the long history of argument about these texts, Hyams shatters the myth of English exceptionalism, the notion that while feud and vengeance prevailed in the lands of the Franks, England had advanced beyond such anarchic barbarism by the time of the Conquest and forged a centralized political and legal system. This book provides support for the notion that feud and vengeance flourished in England long beyond the Conquest, and that this fact obliges us to reconsider the genealogies of both common law and the English monarchy.Moving back and forth between a broad overview of 300 years of legal history and the details of specific disputes, Hyams attends to the demands of individuals who believed that they had been aggrieved and sought remedy. He shows how individuals perceived particular acts of violence and responded to them. These reactions, in turn, sparked central efforts to manage disputes and thereby establish law and order. Respectable litigation, however, never eclipsed the danger of direct action, often violent and physical.

Sanctuary and Crime in the Middle Ages, 400-1500

Sanctuary and Crime in the Middle Ages, 400-1500 PDF Author: Karl Shoemaker
Publisher: Fordham Univ Press
ISBN: 0823232689
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 269

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Book Description
Sanctuary law has not received very much scholarly attention. According to the prevailing explanation among earlier generations of legal historians, sanctuary was an impediment to effective criminal law and social control but was made necessary by rampant violence and weak political order in the medieval world. Contrary to the conclusions of the relatively scant literature on the topic, Sanctuary and Crime in the Middle Ages, 400-1500 argues that the practice of sanctuary was not simply an instrumental device intended as a response to weak and splintered medieval political authority. Nor can sanctuary laws be explained as simple ameliorative responses to harsh medieval punishments and the specter of uncontrolled blood-feuds. --

The Origin Legends of Early Medieval Britain and Ireland

The Origin Legends of Early Medieval Britain and Ireland PDF Author: Lindy Brady
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1009225618
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 283

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Book Description
This holistic study demonstrates the interconnected nature of early medieval origin legends and traces their growth over time.

Identity and Insurgency in the Late Middle Ages

Identity and Insurgency in the Late Middle Ages PDF Author: Linda Clark
Publisher: Boydell Press
ISBN: 9781843832706
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 230

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Book Description
The most crucial issues in current research are debated in the latest volume in the series. The essays collected here provide fresh insight into a range of important topics across the period. They discuss religion([both orthodox, as revealed by the lives of anchoresses living in Norwich, and heretical, as practised by lollards living in Coventry); politics (exploring the motivations of individuals seeking election to parliament, and how the way Cade's Rebellion was recorded by contemporaries affected its subsequent perception); law (whether it may be deduced from manorial court rolls that lawyers were employed by peasants, and an examination of the process of peace-making in feuds on the Scottish border); national, ethnic and political identity in the British Isles; social ranking and chivalry (in particular knighthood in Scotland); and verse (a consideration of the poem Lydgate addressed to Thomas Chaucer, and the occasion of its composition). Contributors: JACKSON W. ARMSTRONG, JACQUELYN FERNHOLTZ, TONY GOODMAN, DAVID GRUMMITT, CAROLE HILL, MAUREEN JURKOWSKI, JENNI NUTTALL, SIMON PAYLING, ANDREA RUDDICK, KATIE STEVENSON, MATTHEW TOMPKINS

King Alfred's Book of Laws

King Alfred's Book of Laws PDF Author: Todd Preston
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 0786491043
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 185

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Book Description
During the early Middle Ages, King Alfred (reigned 871-99) gained fame as the ruler who brought learning back to England after decades of Viking invasion. Although analysis of Alfred's canon typically focuses on his religious and philosophical texts, his relatively overlooked law code, or Domboc, reveals much about his rule, and how he was perceived in subsequent centuries. Joining major voices in the fields of early English law and literature, this exploration of King Alfred's influential text traces its evolution from its 9th century origins to reappearances in the 11th, 12th, and 16th centuries. Alfred's use of the vernacular and representation of secular practices, this work contends, made the Domboc an ideal text for establishing a particularly "English" national identity.

Disputing Strategies in Medieval Scandinavia

Disputing Strategies in Medieval Scandinavia PDF Author:
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 900422159X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 387

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Book Description
In Scandinavia the study of disputes is still a relatively new topic: The papers offered here discuss how conflicts were handled in Scandinavian societies in the Middle Ages before the emergence of strong centralized states. What strategies did people use to contest power, property, rights, honour, and other kinds of material or symbolic assets? Seven essays by Scandinavian scholars are supplemented by contributions from Stephen White, John Hudson and Gerd Althoff, to provide a new baseline for discussing both the strategies pursued in the political game and those used to settle local disputes. Using practice and process as key analytical concepts, these authors explore formal law and litigation in conjunction with non-formal legal proceedings such as out-of-court mediation, rituals, emotional posturing, and feuding. Their insights place the Northern medieval world in a European context of dispute studies. With introductory sections on social structure, sources materials, and the historiography of Scandinavian dispute studies. Contributors are Gerd Althoff, Catharina Andersson, Kim Esmark, Lars Ivar Hansen, Lars Hermanson, John Hudson, Auður G. Magnúsdóttir, Hans Jacob Orning, Helle Vogt and Stephen D. White.

The Secular Clergy in England, 1066-1216

The Secular Clergy in England, 1066-1216 PDF Author: Hugh M. Thomas
Publisher: OUP Oxford
ISBN: 0191007013
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 480

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Book Description
The secular clergy - priests and other clerics outside of monastic orders - were among the most influential and powerful groups in European society during the central Middle Ages. The secular clergy got their title from the Latin word for world, saeculum, and secular clerics kept the Church running in the world beyond the cloister wall, with responsibility for the bulk of pastoral care and ecclesiastical administration. This gave them enormous religious influence, although they were considered too worldly by many contemporary moralists - trying, for instance, to oppose the elimination of clerical marriage and concubinage. Although their worldliness created many tensions, it also gave the secular clergy much worldly influence. Contemporaries treated elite secular clerics as equivalent to knights, and some were as wealthy as minor barons. Secular clerics had a huge role in the rise of royal bureaucracy, one of the key historical developments of the period. They were instrumental to the intellectual and cultural flowering of the twelfth century, the rise of the schools, the creation of the book trade, and the invention of universities. They performed music, produced literature in a variety of genres and languages, and patronized art and architecture. Indeed, this volume argues that they contributed more than any other group to the Twelfth-Century Renaissance. Yet the secular clergy as a group have received almost no attention from scholars, unlike monks, nuns, or secular nobles. In The Secular Clergy in England, 1066-1216, Hugh Thomas aims to correct this deficiency through a major study of the secular clergy below the level of bishop in England from 1066 to 1216.

The Benefits of Peace: Private Peacemaking in Late Medieval Italy

The Benefits of Peace: Private Peacemaking in Late Medieval Italy PDF Author: Glenn Kumhera
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004341110
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 324

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Book Description
In The Benefits of Peace Glenn Kumhera offers the first comprehensive examination of private peacemaking in late medieval Italy, from its critical role in criminal justice to what it reveals about honor, vengeance, gender, preaching and reconciliation.

Capital and Corporal Punishment in Anglo-Saxon England

Capital and Corporal Punishment in Anglo-Saxon England PDF Author: Jay Paul Gates
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer Ltd
ISBN: 1843839180
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 225

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Book Description
Anglo-Saxon authorities often punished lawbreakers with harsh corporal penalties, such as execution, mutilation and imprisonment. Despite their severity, however, these penalties were not arbitrary exercises of power. Rather, they were informed by nuanced philosophies of punishment which sought to resolve conflict, keep the peace and enforce Christian morality. The ten essays in this volume engage legal, literary, historical, and archaeological evidence to investigate the role of punishment in Anglo-Saxon society. Three dominant themes emerge in the collection. First is the shift from a culture of retributive feud to a system of top-down punishment, in which penalties were imposed by an authority figure responsible for keeping the peace. Second is the use of spectacular punishment to enhance royal standing, as Anglo-Saxon kings sought to centralize and legitimize their power. Third is the intersection of secular punishment and penitential practice, as Christian authorities tempered penalties for material crime with concern for the souls of the condemned. Together, these studies demonstrate that in Anglo-Saxon England, capital and corporal punishments were considered necessary, legitimate, and righteous methods of social control. Jay Paul Gates is Assistant Professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in The City University of New York; Nicole Marafioti is Assistant Professor of History and co-director of the Medieval and Renaissance Studies Program at Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas. Contributors: Valerie Allen, Jo Buckberry, Daniela Fruscione, Jay Paul Gates, Stefan Jurasinski, Nicole Marafioti, Daniel O'Gorman, Lisi Oliver, Andrew Rabin, Daniel Thomas.

The English Aristocracy, 1070-1272

The English Aristocracy, 1070-1272 PDF Author: David Crouch
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300172125
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 343

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Book Description
William the Conqueror's victory in 1066 was the beginning of a period of major transformation for medieval English aristocrats. In this groundbreaking book, David Crouch examines for the first time the fate of the English aristocracy between the reigns of the Conqueror and Edward I. Offering an original explanation of medieval society -- one that no longer employs traditional "feudal" or "bastard feudal" models -- Crouch argues that society remade itself around the emerging principle of nobility in the generations on either side of 1200, marking the beginning of the ancien regime. The book describes the transformation in aristocrats' expectations, conduct, piety, and status; in expressions of social domination; and in the relationship with the monarchy. Synchronizing English social history with non-English scholarship, Crouch places England's experience of change within a broader European transformation and highlights England's important role in the process. With his accustomed skill, Crouch redefines a fascinating era and the noble class that emerged from it.