Legends have been written about it, films have been made, but what really happened during the Middle Ages? Learn about feudalism, popes, leaders, and wars in this informative book.

Gives a clear and concise account of the feudal system, from its origin and growth to its decay. Also covers the principles of feudal tenure, chivalry, the military life of the nobility, and the workings of the feudal government.

European law, including both civil law and common law, has gone through several major phases of expansion in the world. European legal history thus also is a history of legal transplants and cultural borrowings, which national legal histories as products of nineteenth-century historicism have until recently largely left unconsidered. The Handbook of European Legal History supplies its readers with an overview of the different phases of European legal history in the light of today's state-of-the-art research, by offering cutting-edge views on research questions currently emerging in international discussions. The Handbook takes a broad approach to its subject matter both nationally and systemically. Unlike traditional European legal histories, which tend to concentrate on "heartlands" of Europe (notably Italy and Germany), the Europe of the Handbook is more versatile and nuanced, taking into consideration the legal developments in Europe's geographical "fringes" such as Scandinavia and Eastern Europe. The Handbook covers all major time periods, from the ancient Greek law to the twenty-first century. Contributors include acknowledged leaders in the field as well as rising talents, representing a wide range of legal systems, methodologies, areas of expertise and research agendas.

This is the second collection of studies by Stephen D. White to be published by Variorum (the first being Feuding and Peace-Making in Eleventh-Century France). The essays in this volume look principally at France and England from Merovingian and Anglo-Saxon times up to the 12th century. They analyze Latin and Old French discourses that medieval nobles used to construct their relationships with kin, lords, men, and friends, and investigate the political dimensions of such relationships with particular reference to patronage/clientage, the use of land as an item of exchange, and feuding. In so doing, the essays call into question the conventional practice of studying kinship and feudalism as independent systems of legal institutions and propose new strategies for studying them.

Annotation. Feudal Society discusses the economic and social conditions in which feudalism developed providing a deep understanding of the processes at work in medieval Europe.

"Uses a feudal model to analyze contemporary American society, comparing its essential characteristics to those of medieval European societies"--Provided by publisher.

An exploration of current scholarly thinking about the wide and surprisingly complex range of historical problems associated with the study of Ancien Régime Europe

Feudal military practices, which are as varied as those of modern times, are surveyed here for the first time. The author treats in detail the bases on which feudal service was exacted, the mustering and composition of armies and their subsequent operations in the field, and the qualifications of their commanders. He discusses military feudalism as it originated and developed in the Frankish kingdom of the Carolingians and as it operated during the early Capetian period in the Ile de France and the feudal principalities of northern France. He then follows feudal developments, in roughly chronological order, in those states where feudalism was consciously imported—lower Italy and Sicily, England, and Crusader Syria. He finally treats lands in which the military structure revealed some feudal characteristics but where institutions were never more than superficially feudalized—Southern France, Christian Spain, central and northern Italy, and Germany—describing how such factors as native military institutions, the pattern of landholding, economic structure, and manpower problems worked to modify feudal military institutions and practices. This book will illuminate for specialist and lay reader alike a strangely neglected aspect of feudal life.

Presents facts on the structure of feudal society, showing how people lived and worked, and major events of the time such as religious persecution and the crusades.

The conflict between landlords and peasants over the appropriation of the surplus product of the peasant holding was a prime mover in the evolution of medieval society. In this collection of essays Rodney Hilton looks at the economic context within which these conflicts took place. He seeks to explain the considerable variations in the size, composition and management of landed estates and investigates the nature of medieval urbanisation, a consequence of the development of both local commodity production and long distance trade in luxury goods. By setting the broader economic context – the nature of the peasant and landlord economies and the commercialisation of peasant production – Hilton's essays enable a thorough understanding of the relationship between landlords and peasants in medieval society.