The most up-to-date research in the period from the Anglo-Saxons to Angevins. The latest volume of the Haskins Society Journal presents recent research on the Anglo-Saxon, Anglo-Norman, and Angevin worlds broadly conceived, and includes topics ranging from the origins of Welsh law and the evidence for the development of the chivalric tournament in the Norman chroniclers to the use of saints to cement regional power, the reception of Dudo of St Quentin, the regional divides in the Norman Kingdom of Sicily, and more. The volume is particularly noteworthy for several studies that bring together historical and archaeological evidence in new and challenging ways. Contributors: DOMINIQUE BARTHELEMY, ROBIN CHAPMAN STACEY, ROBIN FLEMING, BERNARD BACHRACH, AUSTIN MASON, ALECIA ARCEO, PETER BURKHOLDER, PAUL OLDFIELD, KATHERINE LACK, SAMANTHA HERRICK, NICOLE MARAFIOTI, DAVID BACHRACH

A series which is a model of its kind. Edmund King, History The wide-ranging articles collected here represent the cutting edge of recent Anglo-Norman scholarship. Topics include English kingship, legends of the Battle of Bouvines, ideas of empire, the practicalities of child kingship, and female rulership in Brittany. The volume continues in its proud tradition of source analysis: there are studies of northern French urban franchises, and Norman charters and a logistical take on the making of the Domesday Book, while narrative sources are represented in the vernacular by a study of Herman of Valenciennes' Bible and in Latin by the historiography of Robert of Torigni and Ralph Niger. Further contributions focus on the twelfth-century ecclesiastical officers Abbot Peter the Venerable and Archbishop Thomas Becket, and the volume is completed with an analysis of the concept of economic resources with respect to Normandy. Contributors: Mathieu Arnoux, JamesBarnaby, Dominique Barthelemy, Thomas Bisson, Scott G. Bruce, Francis Gingras, Frederique Lachaud, Anne E. Lester, C.P. Lewis, Amy Livingstone, Fanny Madeline, Nicholas Vincent, Emily Ward

A series which is a model of its kind EDMUND KING, HISTORY This latest collection reflects the full range and vitality of the current work on the Anglo-Norman period. It opens with the R. Allen Brown Memorial Lecture for 2009, a wide-ranging reflection by the distinguished French historian Dominique Barthelemy on the Peace of God and the role of bishops in the long eleventh century. Economic history is prominent in papers on the urban transformation in England between 900 and 1100, on the roots of the royal forestin England, and on trade links between England and Lower Normandy. A close study of the Surrey manor of Mortlake brings in topography, another aspect of which appears in an article on the representation of outdoor space by Normanand Anglo-Norman chroniclers. Social history is treated in papers dealing with the upbringing of the children of the Angevin counts and with the developing ideas of knighthood and chivalry in the works of Dudo of Saint-Quentin and Benoit of Sainte-Maure. Finally, political ideas are examined through careful reading of texts in papers on writing the rebellion of Earl Waltheof in the twelfth century and on the use of royal titles and prayers for the king inAnglo-Norman charters. Contributors: Dominique Barthelemy, Kathryn Dutton, Leonie Hicks, Richard Holt, Joanna Huntington, Laurence Jean-Marie, Dolly Jorgensen, Max Lieberman, Stephen Marritt, Pamela Taylor

"The term 'feudal society' is a caricature. It was invented by nineteenth-century historians to capture a particular period in French history, that of the retreat of monarchy (and thus of state authority) and the supposed tyranny of fiefdoms. It had its uses. As caricatures go, it was no worse than many others. But it was both reductionist and unbalanced. Among other things, it reduced society to bonds of dependency that were ritualized and personalized, and it imagined a scenario of quasi-independent castles, each with its own knights, existing in a state of continuous warfare with one another. It largely ignored other links and networks, and it overlooked the fact that warfare between neighbors was intermittent and limited. Meanwhile, in the real world, apart from such conflict-though sometimes through it-social construction was going on." Dominique Barthelemy

In a collection of combative essays, updated for this new translation, Dominique Barthelemy presents a sharply revisionist account of the history of France around the year 1000. He challenges the view, developed in the enormously influential writings of Georges Duby and others, that France underwent a kind of revolution at the millennium that transformed it into the classic feudal, or seigneurial, society we know from a host of college textbooks.

Barthelemy advances his own original views, positing a much more complex and incremental evolution, and maintaining that the post-Carolingian world was more dynamic and creative than Duby and his successors have held. Barthelemy's view requires historians to radically rethink their notions of the history of serfs and nobles, of the so-called Peace of God movements, of the influence (indeed, even the existence) of millenarian fears, and of the nature of the legal system in early medieval Europe. Moreover, it challenges the utility of the term "feudalism" itself, and of our notion that Europe of the High Middle Ages was a "feudal society."

Originally published in French under the title La mutation de l'an mil a-t-elle eu lieu?, this book has generated loud debate on both sides of the Atlantic. In addition to having been revised throughout, the Cornell edition contains a new preface, concluding chapter, and bibliography."

"The term 'feudal society' is a caricature. It was invented by nineteenth-century historians to capture a particular period in French history, that of the retreat of monarchy (and thus of state authority) and the supposed tyranny of fiefdoms. It had its uses. As caricatures go, it was no worse than many others. But it was both reductionist and unbalanced. Among other things, it reduced society to bonds of dependency that were ritualized and personalized, and it imagined a scenario of quasi-independent castles, each with its own knights, existing in a state of continuous warfare with one another. It largely ignored other links and networks, and it overlooked the fact that warfare between neighbors was intermittent and limited. Meanwhile, in the real world, apart from such conflict-though sometimes through it-social construction was going on." Dominique Barthelemy

In a collection of combative essays, updated for this new translation, Dominique Barthelemy presents a sharply revisionist account of the history of France around the year 1000. He challenges the view, developed in the enormously influential writings of Georges Duby and others, that France underwent a kind of revolution at the millennium that transformed it into the classic feudal, or seigneurial, society we know from a host of college textbooks.

Barthelemy advances his own original views, positing a much more complex and incremental evolution, and maintaining that the post-Carolingian world was more dynamic and creative than Duby and his successors have held. Barthelemy's view requires historians to radically rethink their notions of the history of serfs and nobles, of the so-called Peace of God movements, of the influence (indeed, even the existence) of millenarian fears, and of the nature of the legal system in early medieval Europe. Moreover, it challenges the utility of the term "feudalism" itself, and of our notion that Europe of the High Middle Ages was a "feudal society."

Originally published in French under the title La mutation de l'an mil a-t-elle eu lieu?, this book has generated loud debate on both sides of the Atlantic. In addition to having been revised throughout, the Cornell edition contains a new preface, concluding chapter, and bibliography."