Cultures of Power: Lordship, Status, and Process in Twelfth-Century Europe: Lordship, Status and Process in Twelfth Century Europe (The Middle Ages Series)

The authors of __Cultures of Power__ proffer diverse perspectives on the prehistory of government in Northern France, Spain, Germany, the Low Countries, and England. Political, social, ecclesiastical, and cultural history are brought to bear on topics such as aristocracies, women, rituals, commemoration, and manifestations of power through literary, legal, and scriptural means. Contents Preface Abbreviations Introduction Part I. Elites Old and New I. Nobles and Knights in Twelfth-Century France 2. Instruments of Power: The Profile and Profession of Ministeriales Within German Aristocratic Society, 1050-1225 3. Castles, Barons, and Vavassors in the Vendomois and Neighboring Regions in the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries 4. Women and Power Part II. Strategy, Means, Process 5. Proposing the Ordeal and Avoiding It: Strategy and Power in Western French Litigation, 1050-1110 6. England, France, and the Problem of Sacrality in Twelfth -Century Ritual 7. Law and Power in Twelfth-Century Flanders 8. Papal Judges Delegate and the Making of the "New Law" in the Twelfth Century Part III. Cultures of Power 9. Sacred Sanctions for Lordship 10. León: The Iconography of the Capital 11. Jongleur as Propagandist: The Ecclesiastical Politics of Marcabru's Poetry 12. Courtliness and Social Change 13. Principes gentium dominantur eorum: Princely Power Between Legitimacy and Illegitimacy in Twelfth-Century Exegesis Conclusion Contributors Index The authors of Cultures of Power proffer diverse perspectives on the prehistory of government in Northern France, Spain, Germany, the Low Countries, and England. Political, social, ecclesiastical, and cultural history are brought to bear on topics such as aristocracies, women, rituals, commemoration, and manifestations of power through literary, legal, and scriptural means. Marc Bloch could not have imagined the long shadow his discursive essays entitled Feudal Society (1939-40) would cast over the historiography of medieval France.