State and Society in the Early Middle Ages: The Middle Rhine Valley, 400–1000 (Cambridge Studies in Medieval Life and Thought: Fourth Series, Series Number 47)

336 Pages·2000·1.93 MB·English

by  Matthew Innes

STATE AND SOCIETY
IN THE EARLY
MIDDLE AGES:
The Middle Rhine
Valley, 400–1000
Matthew Innes
CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS
This book is a pioneering study of politics in the early middle ages,
based on the middle Rhine valley.
Whereas it is believed widely that the source materials for early
medieval Europe are too sparse to allow sustained study of the
workings of social and political relationships on the ground, this
book focuses on a uniquely well-documented area to investigate the
basis of power. Topics covered include the foundation of monaster-
ies, their relationship with the laity, and their role as social centres;
the signiWcance of urbanism; the control of land, the development
of property rights and the organisation of estates; community,
kinship and lordship; justice and dispute settlement; the uses of the
written word; violence and the feud; and the development ofpolit-
ical structures from the Roman Empire to the high middle ages.
Although a local study, the book oVers persuasive and challeng-
ing generalisations about the nature of power in the early middle
ages. It places its Wndings in an explicitly comparative perspective,
identifying the peculiarities of the early medieval west and their
implications for the broader sweep of European history.
Matthew Innes is Lecturer in History, Birkbeck College,
University of London
This Page Intentionally Left Blank
Cambridge Studies in Medieval Life and Thought
STATE AND SOCIETY IN THE EARLY MIDDLE AGES
Cambridge Studies in Medieval Life and Thought
Fourth Series
General Editor:
d. e. luscombe
Leverhulme Personal Research Professor of Medieval History,University of SheYeld
Advisory Editors:
christine carpenter
Reader in Medieval English History,University of Cambridge,and Fellow of New Hall
rosamond mckitterick
Professor of Medieval History,University of Cambridge,
and Fellow of Newnham College
The series Cambridge Studies in Medieval Life and Thought was inaugurated
by G. G. Coulton in 1921; Professor D. E. Luscombe now acts as General Editor
of the Fourth Series, with Dr Christine Carpenter and Professor Rosamond
McKitterick as Advisory Editors. The series brings together outstanding work
by medieval scholars over a wide range of human endeavour extending from
political economy to the history of ideas.
For a list of titles in the series,see end of book.
STATE AND SOCIETY IN THE
EARLY MIDDLE AGES
400 1000
The Middle Rhine Valley, –
MATTHEW INNES
PUBLISHED BY CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS (VIRTUAL PUBLISHING)
FOR AND ON BEHALF OF THE PRESS SYNDICATE OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE
The Pitt Building, Trumpington Street, Cambridge CB2 IRP
40 West 20th Street, New York, NY 10011-4211, USA
477 Williamstown Road, Port Melbourne, VIC 3207, Australia

http://www.cambridge.org

© Matthew Innes 2000
This edition © Matthew Innes 2003

First published in printed format 2000

A catalogue record for the original printed book is available
from the British Library and from the Library of Congress
Original ISBN 0 521 59455 3 hardback

ISBN 0 511 00844 9 virtual (netLibrary Edition)
CONTENTS
List of Wgures page ix
List of abbreviations x
A note on nomenclature and citations xiii
Acknowledgements xiv
1 introduction
1
Region, sources and scope
4
Early medieval politics: problems of approach
2 monasticism, spiritual patronage and social 13
structure
13
Gifts to the church: patterns and potential
18
Spiritual patronage and gifts to the church
34
Funerary ritual, inheritance and gift exchange
40
Gifts of land and social power
47
The implications of monastic landholding
3 land, kinship and status 51
51
The elite: kinship, land and inheritance
51
Lorsch’s founders
61
The family of Otakar
65
The family of Hraban Maur
68
Land as property
77
The exploitation of land and the organisation of estates
82
Vertical integration: social status
85
Vertical integration: kinship and lordship
93
The relationship between land and power
4 local power: collective action, conflict 94
and consensus
94
Patterns of public action
95
Cities, monasteries and collective action
105
Rural settlements
vii
Contents
111
Scribes as guardians of legal tradition
118
Counts and public meetings
124
Local political leadership
129
Violence, ritual and dispute settlement
139
The texture of local power
5 locality and centre: mechanisms of extraction 141
141
Approaching early medieval government
143
Military service
153
The army tax
156
Royal levies
6 political power from the fifth to the eleventh 165
century
165
Introduction
165
Roman to Merovingian
172
The Merovingian middle Rhine
180
Forging the pax Karolina
188
Maintaining the pax Karolina
195
The politics of division
210
The zenith of Carolingian politics
Crisis, conXict and consolidation 222
241
The transformation of the early medieval polity
7 conclusion: state and society in the early 251
medieval west
251
Structural characteristics of early medieval politics
254
Public and private, state and society
259
Interpreting the early medieval west
List of primary sources 268
Bibliography of secondary works 274
Index 307
viii
FIGURES
1 The Carolingian Rhineland page xv
2 The Carolingian middle Rhine valley xvi
3 Lorsch’s patrons, March 766 20
4 Fulda’s patrons, January–February 813 24
5 Lorsch’s founders: kinship and property 52
6 Otakar: kinship and property 60
7 The family of Hraban Maur: kinship and property 64
8 Maintaining Worms’walls, c.900 163
9 The middle Rhine valley, c.500 171
10 Descendants of Lorsch’s founders 264
11 Descendants of Hornbach’s founders 265
12 Ancestors of Conrad I 266
13 The Carolingians 267
ix