In The Seigneurial Transformation, Alessio Fiore discusses the transformation of the fabric of power in the kingdom of Italy in the period between the late eleventh century and the early twelfth century. The study analyses the major socio-political change of this period, the crisis of royal and public structures, and the development of seigneurial powers, using as a starting point the structures of power over men and land, and the discourses about the exercise of local power. This period was marked by a rapid reshaping of the structures of local power; while the outbreak of civil wars in the 1080s did not imply a clear-cut rupture with the past, it led to a staggering acceleration of pre-existing dynamics, with a reconfiguration of the matrix of power, in turn expressed in a transformation both of the instruments of local political communications and of the practices of power.
Author(s): Alessio Fiore
Series: Oxford Studies in Medieval European History
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Year: 2020
Language: English
Pages: 320
Cover
The Seigneurial Transformation: Power Structures and Political Communication in the Countryside of Central and Northern Italy, 1080–1130
Copyright
Dedication
Acknowledgements
Table of Contents
Maps
A Note on Names
Introduction
PART 1: NEW FRAMEWORKS OF LOCAL POWER
1: Civil Wars: Collapse and Rebuilding of Political Structures
1.1 The structure of the kingdom around the mid-eleventh century
1.2 The civil wars and the breakdown of political order
1.3 From fragmentation to recomposition
1.4 On the apparent irrationality of dynastic strategies: political plans and family tensions
2: Imperial Power: Crisis and Transformation
2.1 Henry III: realizing the limits of imperial power
2.2 Henry IV: a creative destruction
2.3 Henry V: the plan for a permanent royal infrastructure
3: Territorial Lordship: Rise and Spread of a Model of Power
3.1 Power in the countryside before 1050: land and public rights
3.2 The new forms of local power
3.3 Archaeology of power: castles in the light of the written sources and material evidence
3.4 Seigneurial ‘central places’ and their role
4: Inside the Lordship: Reshaping Local Societies
4.1 Village elites and their militarization
4.2 Peasantries: a differential society
5: Collective Powers: Political Actions of Urban and Rural Autonomous Communities
5.1 Urban proto-communes
5.2 Autonomous rural communities
PART 2: A CULTURE OF POWER: The Dominatus Loci between Practices and Discourses
6: Royal Legitimation and its Crisis
6.1 Royal power as a source of legitimacy
6.2 The crisis and its consequences
7: Fidelity: A Pervasive Language
7.1 Fidelities in the ‘aristocratic’ world
7.2 Subjects’ fidelity
8: Pacts: The Foundations of a New Legitimacy
8.1 Pacts between lords
8.2 The idea of reciprocity in the relation between subjects and lords
9: Custom: Rituals of Memory
9.1 Chronologies and contexts
9.2 The jurors between lord and community
9.3 Time, memory, and custom
9.4 Custom and franchises: complementarity and overlaps
9.5 When custom turns bad: the malus usus
10: Violence: A Pragmatic Language
10.1 Violent practices in the documentary evidence
10.2 Urban communities and violence: differences and similarities
10.3 Violence among lords
10.4 Violence from the lords’ perspective
Conclusions: A Seigneurial Revolution (and More)
Abbreviation for Primary Sources and Journals
Bibliography
Primary sources
Published sources
Index
