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The Past and Present Society

The "Feudal Revolution"Author(s): Dominique Barthélemy and Stephen D. WhiteSource: Past and Present, No. 152 (Aug., 1996), pp. 196-223Published by: Oxford University Press on behalf of The Past and Present Society

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DEBATE

THE"FEUDALREVOLUTION"

In ourissuenumber 42 for February1994 zoepublished n articleby ProfessorT. N. Bissonon "The 'FeudalRevolution'".We arepleased o publishbelozvhe irst tzvo ontributionso a Debateon thearticle.Furthercontributionsnd a Replyby ProfessorBissonwill

follo7vn a subsequentssue.

I*

Thomas N. Bisson, a shrewd analystof the "politicization"of

power after 1200, seeks the origins of the accountabilityof thethirteenth century in two hundred years' experience of "badlordship":since 1000, the latter's agents had been multiplying

their exactions.His model appears,then, as a variantof a thesisoften argued recently:in one way or another,the feudalizationof the eleventh centurywasa necessaryprecondition or the birthof the modern state.l Bisson's variant,however, is novel in itsmoderation; he "mutation-revolution" f the year 1000 is hereprimarilypolitical. This moderationallows him to accept someof my criticism of "mutationism", irst expressed in 1992,2buthe tends, all the same, firmlyto rejectit.

The debate is in part about the importancewe should attachto a significant (but not radical) development of the writteninstrument n France between980 and 1030 or between 1020and1060, that is to say, in a countryandat a periodwhen it did notyet have the majorsocial role it acquiredin the thirteenthcen-

* I amgrateful o JeanBirrell ortranslatinghis Commentrom the French.1T. N. Bisson,"The'FeudalRevolution'",Past and Present,no. 142 (Feb.1994),

pp. 6-42. For the thesis,see, for example,J.-P. Poly and E. Bournazel,The Feudal

Transformation, 00-1200, trans.C. Higgitt (London,1991), p. 357; J. P. Genet,"Feodalisme t naissance e l'Etatmoderne: proposdes thesesde CharlesTilly",in M. Bourin ed.), Villes, bonnes illes, cites et capitales:etudesd'histoireurbaine XIIe-

XVIIe siecle) offertesa Bernard Chevalier(Tours,1989),pp.239-46.2 D. Barthelemy, Lamutation eodalea-t-elleeu lieu?Note critique",Annales

E. S. C., xlvii (1992),pp. 767-77;see also D. Barthelemy, Encoree debatsur l'anmil!",Rev?weistoriquede droit ranfais et etranger, xxiii (1975),pp. 349-60.



THE "FEUDALREVOLUTION" 197

tury.3But theprincipal isadvantagef the "mutationist"hesis,in my view, is that it retainsnotionswhichare too vagueor

inappropriate,uchasthe opposition etweenpublicandprivate,and"feudal ociety";t thus nvites heperemptoryhallengeoany idea of medievalsociety made by the hyper-Romanist"school"JeanDurliat,ElisabethMagnou-Nortier,ven, osomedegree,K. F. Werner).What s needednow is to describe hechangesoccurringn the periodbetweenCharlemagnendtheFirst Crusaden termswhichare subtlerand drawmore onanthropologyhando thoseof the mutationist school".The

"feudal evolution"sblockingocio-politicalistory fterhavingstimulatedt, just as the "two-tiermodel"obstructed ocio-religioushistorybeforePeterBrown.Here, too, we have "anunimaginative odelthatis not sufficientlyensitive".4Hencetheimportancef pursuinghe debatehere.

Let us try firstto be clearaboutwords.The modelwhich sdominantodayas regardshe socio-political istoryof Francearound heyear1000 s thatof a "feudal"evolution, ratherhan

mutation. Thereis a kindof understatementn the titlesof thebooksbyJean-PierreolyandEricBournazel,ndby GuyBois,whichI havecriticized;hough heyuse the word"mutation",thesehistorians escribea brutalrupture,oftena "social em-pest",andthis merits he name "revolution",o whichBissonreturnsnhis article.We mayalso nclude n thedebatehepagesdevoted o the "feudalrevolution" y GeorgesDubyin 1978,5andbymostrecent extbooks, nd heCatalanndLanguedocienmodelofPierreBonnassie1975-6and1980).6Againsthisthesis,andaboveallagainstts "totalizing ower",I argue,rather, ora seriesof politicalmutations,rom860on in France,andforagradualocialevolution,movingat the moremoderate acesug-gestedby FernandBraudel,who said:"whilesocietiesrarely

3 The conclusions f M. T. Clanchy re,by andlarge,alsoapplicableo France:M. T. Clanchy,From Memory o WrittenRecord:England,1066-1307,2nd edn

(Oxford,1993).4 P. Brown,Society ndtheHoly n LateAntiquityBerkeley,1981),p. 8.5 G. Duby, The ThreeOrders:FeudalSocietyImagined,rans.A. Goldhammer

(Chicago,1980),pp. 147-66.6 p. Bonnassie,LaCatalogneumilieu uXe a lafinduXIesiecle, vols. (Toulouse,

1975-6);P. Bonnassie,"Fromthe Rhoneto Galicia:OriginsandModalities f theFeudalOrder", n his FromSlaveryto Feudalismn South-Westernurope,rans.J. Birrell Cambridge,991),pp. 104-31.



198 PASTAND PRESENT NUMBER152

progresswith giant's strides, majortransformationsan beaccomplished iththepassingof time".7

Let us trynext to order he debate.Since1953,the workofGeorgesDubyontheMaconnaisnd,evenmore,since1975, heCatalanmodelof PierreBonnassie, ave mposed heimage, ortheyearsbetween860and980or 1030,of a societywhichwashardly rnotatall"seigneurial".issonwaswrong o say:"Noonedoubtshatpersonal ndpatrimonialordshipswereprolifer-ating n Carolingianimes".8nfact,manyrecenthistoriansavedoubtedt,andnotonlytheadvocatesfRomanistdministrativeorder! nthetenth-century

Maconnais,ccordingo Duby,therewereonlypatronage etworks, ndhardlya territorialordshipworthyof thename;9n Catalonia,ccordingo Bonnassie,t wasnotuntil1020-60 hat ordship,nthefullsenseof theword,wasborn.Bisson s right,however, believe,to emphasizehe sei-gneurializingrendandaviolencehatwas"frequent,ontinuousandby nomeansnew"by theninthcentury;l?uthere,too,hedrawsbackfromthe radicalviewswhichhaveprevailed ince1975.Lastly, amgratefulo himfortakingnoteof mycriticismof the enserfmentf theeleventhcentury,llandI observeonceagain hatthenotionof "revolution"s weakened sa result.

Whatthenremainsof thatnotion n Bisson'sarticle?Essen-tially, he ideaof an eclipseof thekingsandthe counts,whoseauthority adpreviously heckedan endemicviolence.A crisisinthefidelityof theirvassals oincidedwiththeproliferationfreferenceso bad customs 980-1030).All in all, Bisson s inagreementithPolyandBournazel:hetransitionocastle-based

lordshipookplaceat justthistimeand,unlikeprevious tagesinthe disseminationf power n France,t represented struc-

7 F. Braudel,TheMediterraneanndtheMediterranean orldn theAgeofPhilipII,trans.S. Reynolds,2 vols. (London,1973), i, p. 719.

8 Bisson,"FeudalRevolution", . 11 (myemphasis).9G. Duby, La societe uxXIe et XIIesieclesdans a regionmdconnaise,nd edn

(Paris,971; irstedn,Paris,1953),pp.73-131:hardly landed"seigneurie",ecauseitwasonlya unitof exploitation. eealsothe definition f C. Violante,"Lasignoriaruraleel secoloX: proposte ipologiche>',ettimane i studiodelCentrotalianodistudiull'altomedioevo,xxviii,pt 1(1991),pp. 329-89,esp.p. 341.I have woarticlesin ressonthissubject:D. Barthelemy,Seigneurie",n J. LeGoffandJ.-C.Schmitt(eds.), Dictionnaire aisonnede l'Occidentmedieval(Paris, forthcoming);D.Barthelemy,Il mitosignoriledeglistorici rancesi",n G. DilcherandC. Violante(eds.),Lasignoriaurale eisecoliX-XII (Bologna,orthcoming).

0Bisson,"FeudalRevolution", . 12.Ibid.,p. 42;cf. Barthelemy, Mutationeodalea-t-elleeu lieu?",pp.771-2.



199HE "FEUDALREVOLUTION"

tural change.l2For him, the "revolution" put an end politicallyto Carolingianorder. The problem is that this scenario exactly

reproduces the ideas of the old school (historiansfrom 1840 to1940), while changingactorsand period!The role of villain passesfrom the counts to the lords, and the drama takes place notbetween 860 and 890 but a century and a half later.l3

To historiansof the last century, the feudal revolution hardlyaffected the basic seigneurial structures (the villa); it consistedrather of the rise of new men, the counts and the vassi, whosepower was based, from the beginning, on force and the fait

accompli in the face of the monarchy.The years 860-90 provideclearevidence of crisis:at a time of Norman raids, the countrysidesprouted ramparts and castles, while the capitulariesand theletters of Hincmar of Reims denounced the oppression ofthe "poor" by the "powerful"; there were crises of loyalty (843,858, 877) and the final collapse of the Carolingiandynasty wascomplete by 888. All that is missing, for this period, is a locallydense documentation, except for around Redongl4 and, eventhere, the documents are not so vivid or expressive as those of

the eleventh century.ls

12 Poly and Bournazel, eudalTransformation,. 38.13 By the eighteenth entury that is, beforeour paradigmswere established

royalor (up to 877) comitalofficewas opposed o the seigneurial xerciseof powerby the counts,hereditaryrom877. Historians f the old school 1840-1940) emainedratheruncertain egarding he realityof the Carolingiantate;but all the same, forthem, too, all publicorderdisappeared fter860-90.

14 See the fine book by WendyDavies, Small Worlds:The VillageCommunitynEarlyMedievalBrittany London,1988).

l5Eleventh-century cts record, after the judgements, he agreementswhich

softened, even annulled, heir effect. This was, then, an addition o a traditionalschema, ince those of the ninth centuryalways tuckto the j1ldicium. owever,myhypothesiss thatagreementsmightalready xist "off the record"; t leastwe cannotbe sure thatjudgementswere implemented.Gregory f Toursgives a good example,for the late sixth century, n the Sichar-Austregiseleud: "they acted illegally, oensure the restoration f peace" ("Et hoc contra egis actum, ut tantumpacificiredderentur"): regory f Tours, TheHistory f theFranks, rans.O. M. Dalton,2vols. (Oxford,1927), i, p. 323 (vii.47);for the original, ee HistoriaFrancorum,d.W. Arndt (MonumentaGermaniaeHistorica,Scriptores erumMerovingicarum,,pt 1, Hanover,1883),p. 324. Gregory's omment nticipateshe excusesof the monksof Marmoutier hen, in the 1060s, hey agreed o forgoexecution f a judgementn

their favour, or the sake of peace.For the ninth century,WendyDavies can quotea charter f 852 whichrecords settlement nd,as a result,evasionof the judgement:Cartulaire e Redon, no. 127;Davies, Small Worlds, . 151. This is not exactly hesameas its cancellation, ut,nevertheless,ucha scenario ncemoreclearly nticipatesthe eleventhcentury.Bissoncan hardlyaccuseme of avoiding he facts!We are allfacedwith sourceswhich select certain acts; he ninth-centuryelection s confinedto the judgement,whereas n the eleventhcentury, he writtenact sought o inform

( cont. on p. 200)




If recent historians have relocated the great rupture, it isbecausetheir regionalmonographshave lost sight of "general"

historyin the interestsof "regional"history.They haveseen thecountsof the tenth centuryas incarnatingorder,comparedwiththe lordsof the eleventhcentury.They have takenat face valuethe chartersand acts recordingdonationsand comitalpleas, upto the year 1000, in Carolingian orm however terse andconventional. The old school combined these with the fullerandmorevariedsourcesof the eleventhcenturyto painta pictureof the "feudal regime", whose harshnesswas revealed by thecouncilsof the Peace of

God, as they beganto alleviateit (from989 on). In contrast, since 1953, historianshave more clearlydistinguished he formsof documents,according o theirchrono-logy, and seen the councils of peace as an attempt to stem aviolencethatwas in full spate. The relationshipbetweenthe tenthand the eleventh centuriesis thereforereversed:once regardedas "worse", the tenth centurynow seems "better", and retro-spective idealizationhas sometimesgone a very long way. It ishighlylikely, in my view, thatthe gradualproliferationof castlesgaverise to periodsof disorderand, duringprincelyor baronialminorities, o politicalcrises.Butwas this instabilityandviolencenew in the eleventh century?Well before my own criticisms,GeorgesDuby doubtedwhetherthe socio-institutional hangeofthe period was in proportionto the changesin the documenta-tion.l6 Pierre Bonnassie himself, in 1975, pointed out at thebeginningof his thesisthatthe diversification f sourcesafter990allowed"a surerapproach o the societyof the eleventhcentury

thanto that of the precedingcentury"and promiseda possible"retrospectivemethod",whichhis book then failedto employ.l7The"feudalrevolution"of the year 1000is thusbasedon poorlyrelativizedources.It has been associatedwith a dynasticchange(987),though one whose importancewas less than that of 888,orwith a transformationf royalgovernment(1025-8, according

(n. 15 cont.)

abouthe difficulty f enforcement. urely t is soundhistoricalmethod o seektoknowwhattypeof factswereof interest,or not of interest, o thosewho drewupthe ocument.

16 Duby,ThreeOrders,p. 149.Duby'shesitation etween"revolution"nd"revela-tion"s already pparentn 1953:"Theprofoundransformationsf social tructurewhich,n the yearsaround1000,wouldgradually e revealed":Duby, Societe auxXIe t XIIe sieclesdans la regionmdconnaise, ndedn,p. 131.

17 Bonnassie,Catalognedu milieudu xe a lafin u XIe siecle, ii, pp.9-10.




to Jean-FranSoisLemarignier),l8which the recent research ofOlivier Guyotjeannin s beginning to question.l9The mottes and

secondaryfortificationsnow play the role once attributedto theprincipal fortifications n the revolution of 860-90.

These two revolutionsare not altogether dentical. The recentone, now in favour, shook peasantsociety to its foundations,but,unlike the older one, did not renew the highest level of thenobility. Furthermore, he castellan ords possessed an authorityof royal or comital type; they maintainedorder, after a fashion,within a district.The nobility and the noble power of the eleventh

century were thus post-Carolingian.Whatever their differences,however, these two revolutions both rely on documentation hatis equally defensible and equally inadequate.Above all, theyuse the same notions, shocking to anyone familiarwith anthropo-logy. In each case, there is an emphasison the scale of seigneurial,or "feudal", "violence", which tends always to be opposed tolegitimate rule. It is also assumed that the real curb on thatviolence could only be regalian,that is, by the action of the state.

"Feudal society" is seen, with an ethnocentrismwhich Poly andBournazeldenounce in passing (too hastily), as the antithesis ofthe state;20Bisson uses the word ''unpolitical''.2lConsequently,it is difficultto connect it with Carolingian rder;the latter musteither have been only apparent, or have been destroyed in aperiod of crisis. Further,the elementsof public orderafter 860-90(the old school) or 980-1030 (the new) are underrated. Bissonhere forgets a remarkhe himself once made to Pierre Bonnassie,22and underestimates he persistenceof some genuine comitalcourt

18 J. -F. Lemarignier, Legouvernementoyalauxpremiersemps apettiens987-1 08)(Paris, 1965). Diplomatic analysis suggests a diversification of the documentary tradi-tion, but not a pure and simple "seigneurialization" of the monarchy; it corroborates,in addition, my view of the updating of the formulas of immunity: Barthelemy,"Mutation feodale a-t-elle eu lieu?", p. 770.

19O. Guyotjeannin, "Les actes de Henri Ieret la chancellerie royale dans les annees1020-1060", in Comptes endus e l'Academie es inscriptionst belles-lettres1988),

pp. 81-97.20 Poly and Bournazel, FeudalTransformation,. 5. Admittedly, recent research,

consciously, "has hardly been concerned with" the "hydra of feudalism" which "liesin wait in the depths of historical ignorance", but this is to acknowledge that thehydra lives on. Perhaps Poly and Bournazel should have run it to earth in theirown works!

21 Bisson, "Feudal Revolution", p. 19.22 T. N. Bisson, "The Problem of Feudal Monarchy: Aragon, Cataloniaand France"

(1975), repr. in his MedievalFranceand her PyreneanNeighboursLondon, 1989),pp. 237-55, esp. pp. 243-7.



202 PASTAND PRESENT NUMBER 152

cases into the eleventh century in central France. The basicproblem, in fact, is that he makes "violence" the most salient

feature of the castellan lordship of the eleventh century,23afeature which can then be tellingly contrasted with the earlierorder. In this he concurs with Bonnassieand, in some passages,with Duby;24 ordship is fundamentallypredatory. But we mayask whether the "unleashingof violence" in societies where thestate was non-existent or weak has not been overestimatedbymodern historians.

In 884, the last capitulary ignalled hat everyonenow set about

his neighbourper vim; "apres moi, la violence" was the messageof Carolingian tate culture and the old school took it at itsword. "Moi, ou la violence", said the monasticismof the year1000, which had a violence of its own, in "pious plunder"and recent historianshave been taken in. Each time, faced witheither of these two documentationsof "feudal revolutions", thehistorianmust, on the one hand, recognize the role of force andcruelty, which is too often concealed,and, on the other, relativizethe selective polemic which reveals it. The extreme nature of thewords of GregoryVII quoted by Bisson ought in itself to put uson our guard.25There were remarkablemomentswhen the medi-eval church lost patience with the world to the point where itprefiguredRousseauor Engels and seemed to deny the legitimacyof lay power. But these were only words, or threats,which conveyneither its whole outlook, nor its whole policy. I do not believethat the true historic role of the Carolingian tate was to limit thesocial power of the great; rather,as ChrisWickhamhas argued,26

it durablystrengthenednoble power, creatinga typically"chival-ric" conjunction between the right to bear arms and judicialpower.27Did the eleventh- and twelfth-centurychurch do moreto curb social "violence"? t legitimizedand pardoned he knights,encouraging hem to offend again. Look at Fulk Nerra, the countof Anjou (987-1040) who alternated war crimes with piousreparations. t is historiansof after 1688 and 1789 ("true" revolu-

23"new ordships ypically ortifiedand violent":Bisson, "FeudalRevolution",p. 40.

24 Bonnassie,Catalognedu milieu du Xe a la fin u XIe siecle;Duby, Three Orders.25 Bisson,"FeudalRevolution", . 42.26 C Wickham,"Mutations t revolutions ux environsde l'an mil" Medievales,

no. 21 (Autumn1991),pp. 27-38, esp. p. 38; see also the usefulremarks n p. 35.27 D. Barthelemy, Qu'est-ceque la chevalerie, n Franceaux Xe et XIesiecles?",

Revue historique,ccxc (1994), pp. 15-74.




tions!) who use the denunciationof abuses of force to make thelatter the very principle of "feudal government". In reality,

regalianauthoritywas never the only curb on the "violence" and"oppression" of the nobility. Violence can also limit itself, andneither t nor oppressiondestroyed he socialfabric. Both sufferedfrom the weaknessof their meansand met with peasantresistance.Let us substitute confrontation for "violence", and a certainambivalence or "oppression".This still makes for a very sombrepicture of the ninth to eleventh centuries, but one more shadedthan total darkness.

Eleventh-centurynoble power in France was essentiallypost-Carolingian.For Burgundy and Italy, the Turin school (repres-ented by Giovanni Tabacco and Giuseppe Sergi)28has given usan exemplary description of "seigneurialization":royal, thencomital, power was already "mixed" (publico-seigneurial) innature in the tenth century and the eleventh-centurybarony, inits turn, combineda patrimonial spect with a "tendencytowardsthe public". No stage in the dissemination of the ban, con-sequently, was more important han another; here was a gradualshift from the royal ban to the ban of the castellan ords. Is thisnot also true of France? The splendid texts of 980-1030 on"turbulent" vassals do not reveal problems or tensions withoutprecedent. And the dating-clauses of documents of the yearsaround 1100 officiallyrecognize castellans,after the king, countsand bishops. Elements of "force" and "custom" were alreadysignificant in royal and comital power in the ninth and tenthcenturies;nor was thepotestas of the eleventh-century"brigands"

always illegitimate. The castellan ordship was not pure militarypressure; deology also contributed, even if, in the last analysis,force was never far away. This lordship seems to me above all asuperstructure,a co-ordinatingpower of local knightly domina-tion; in this respect it was a copy, on a smallerscale, of the royaland comital lordships. It is not, however, immaterial hat powerof this sort fragmented, and was exercised on an increasinglysmall scale: power was concentratedat the base.

Neither a stagnantand compartmentalized conomy nor social

28 See G. Tabacco,"Ordinamentoubblico sviluppo ignorilenei secoli centralidel medioevo",Bullettino dell'Istituto storico italiano per il Medioevo, lxxix (1968),pp. 37-51;and most recently,G. Sergi,"Assettipolitici ntornoal Mille:ricerche uiregni di Borgogna d'Italia", n F. Leporiand F. Santi eds.), II mestieredi storicodel Medioevo(Spoleto,1994),pp. 5-38.



204PAST AND PRESENT NUMBER 152

immobilitycharacterizeenth- and eleventh-centuryFrance;wemay speak of post-Carolingiandynamics,before the changesofthe

1100s. But in the conceptualframeworkI propose, there isno need to assumea new underclass(the milites) or the suddenabolition of slavery or serfdom. In general, the relations ofdependence,in the social sense dear to the old school, seem tome no heavierin the eleventh century;I observeno "seigneur-ialization"of this type.

One last word on the "mutationsof the year 1100". No morethan for the year 1000 shouldFrancebe a model for the wholeof Europe, nor French historians give

others lessons. I willobserveonlyhowmuchGregorian eformandthe newlyacquiredstrength of the towns challenged, in a new way, the post-Carolingian nightlydomination.This is an argumentof the oldschool but why not? We would do well to defer to it a little,so much does the totalizing power of the highly debatable"revolutionof the year 1000" now monopolizeattention. Thetwelfthcenturysaw a little more juridicalabstraction,and taxesinmoney, in the castle-based ordshipsof the South and in theco-seigneuries f the North (the basic seigneurialunits, underthesuperstructural uthorityof the magnatesand lords);peoplecountedndfixed"rent".Therewasalsoa newprincelyadminis-tration;n Normandy, the officiales mali were worse than thebrigandords,saidOrdericVitalis,29 ecausetherewasno escap-inghem.Are these not the mutationsof the year 1100which led, quite

naturally,o the developmentof accountability?Wasthis not the

inversef the lordshipwhich prevailedin the eleventh century,intermittent,ndbrutalfroma sortof impotence,ratherthanits"last tage"? Let us remember not only the administrativeinnovationsf HenryBeauclerc,but CluniacactivityunderPeterthe enerablehimself(anopponentof "badlordship",as Bissonremarks).30his type of nicely hypocritical ordship,a prudent,aswell as fraternal,collectorof rents from its servi and ancille,coulde accountable oonerthancould the knightlyhouseholds.Bissonerhapsneglectsthis. Betweenhis initial

qualifications nd29 "Officialesmalipredonibus eioressunt": The EcclesiasticalHistory of OrdericVitalis,d. andtrans.M. Chibnall, vols. (Oxford,1969-80),vi, p. 330(xii.34);seealsobid., p. 340(xii.36).30 G. Duby, "Economiedomanialet economiemonetaire:e budgetde l'abbayedeluny ntre1080et 1155",AnnalesE.S.C., vii (1952),pp. 155-71;Bisson,"FeudalRevolution",. 30.



205HE"FEUDALREVOLUTION"

this final omission,his articleconfirmsme in my view that thetheme of the "feudal revolution" is weighing too heavily onresearch.

We must breakwith its "totalizingpower''.3l

UniversityfParisXII Dominiquearthelemy31 The phrase is Chris Wickham's: "Mutations et revolutions aux environs de l'anmil", p. 387.

II

It is thehistorian'swnchoice f contexthatdetermineshichpowerserecognizessactuallyrpotentiallyolitical.lIneleventh- and earlytwelfth-centurywesternFrenchcharters,monastic cribesrecordedhundredsof conflicts n whichlitigantsusedforce and violence to disturb,vex, weary, injure,damage,maltreat,rouble,rob andplundermonksand monasticdepend-ants.2When broadlysummarizedor

mined for anecdotes,these1Otto Brunner, "Land"ndLordship:tructuresfGovernancenMedieval ustria,trans.Howard Kaminsky and James Van Horn Melton (Philadelphia, 1992), p. 4.2 Commentson eleventh-century violence are basedlargelyon evidence from sourcecollections bbreviated as follows: A: Cartulaireel'abbayee Saint-Aubin'Angers,ed.Bertrandde Broussillon, 3 vols. (Paris, 1903); MB: Marmoutier:artulairelesois,ed.Charles Metais (Blois, 1889-91); MD: Cartulairee Marmoutierour e Dunois,ed.Emile Mabille (Chateaudun, 1874); MM: CartulairemanceaueMarmoutier,d.E.Laurain, 3 vols. (Laval, 1911-45); MP: CartulaireeMarmoutierour e Perche,ed.Philibert Barret (Mortagne, 1894); MS: Livredessergsde Marmoutier,d. A.

SalmonParis, 1845); MV: CartulaireeMarmoutierour e VendoAmois,d. CharlesAuguste e Tremault (Vendome, 1893); N: Cartulairee l'abbaye eNoyers, d. C.ChevalierMemoires de la Societe archeologiquede Touraine, xxii, Tours, 1872); T:Cartulairee l'abbayeardinaleela Trinite e VendoAme, ed. Charles Metais, 5 vols.(Paris,893-1904); V: Cartulairee 'abbayeeSaint-VincentuMans, d. R. CharlesandMenjot d'Elbenne, 2 vols. (Mamers, 1886-1913). Space permits only a fewreferenceso these sources.Many charters include one or more of the following terms: vis: A 160 (1056-60);V10 (1080-1100); violentiand derivatives: MD 116 (1050-60); MV 87 (after 1062);T60 (1124-30); V 310 (1080-1100); A 218 (1060-7); inquietare: 640 (1106); MB26after 1044); MD 26 (1070-2); vexare:A 640 (1106); fatigare:A 626 (1107-10);

injuriand derivatives: A 220 (1080-2); MV 91 (1050-63); N 194 (c.1090); T 429(before115); dam(p)num: 887 (c.1080); MB 86 (1062); MV 57 (1064); T 429(before115); V 369 (1080-96); mala:A 826 (1082-1106); V 369 (1080-96); MV 30(c.1050); D 57 (1084-1100); T 174 (1060-4); molestiae: 235 (1087-1109); MB 74(1092-1101); V 11 (1072); T 439 (1122); V 564 (1090-6); rapina r derivatives: A901067-82); MV 57 (1064); T 251 (1075); V 753 (c.1060); preda r derivatives: A284n.d.); MB 28 (c.1050); MV 42 (1064); V 308 (1080-1100).



206 NUMBER152ASTAND PRESENT

case materials provide support for familiar assertions abouteleventh-century "anarchy') and "violence"3 and also for

T. N. Bisson's innovative argument about how, around 1000,"the violence of castellans and knights" suddenly became thebasis of a new form of lordship, which was "unpolitical" and"arbitrary", and which differed dramatically both from the"publicorder"of precedingcenturiesand from the true "govern-ment" that appearedafter 1200.4 Like the texts Bisson cites invividly documenting the thuggery of eleventh- and twelfth-century ordsand their men,5the chartersalreadynoted document

many acts that both modern historiansand medieval scribes treatas "violent" and that were performed mainly by knights andcastellans.

Yet, as Otto Brunner argued, "complex political and legalproblems lie behind . . . apparentlyclear and simple statementsabout 'brigands'" and behind "stereotyped [medieval] com-plaints about 'thieves and plunderers,' arsonand looting,' whichmodern historians then faithfully repeat".6 Calling an act or

person "violent" may conceal as much as it reveals, and is alsoan act worth analysing n its own right as a means of positioningboth writer and audience n relationto alleged "violence" andto unmentioned persons or acts implicitly judged unviolent.Calling a particular regime, society or period "violent" is acomplex rhetorical and historiographicalmanceuvre because itinvolves comparisonswith regimes, societies or periods mplicitlyjudged less violent or even non-violent, and constitutesa sort ofaccusation to which responses may sound like apologies. As

William Ian Miller observes, "Violence may simply be what we

3See, e.g., A. Luchaire,Les premiersCapetiens 987-1137)(Histoirede Franceillustreedepuis es origines usqu'a a Revolution, i, pt 2, Paris, 1911), pp. 12-13;YvonneBongert,Recherchesur les cours aiques u e au XIIIe siecle Paris, 1948),p. 41; JacquesBoussard,"La vie en Anjouaux XIeet XIIesiecles",Le MoyenAge,lvi (1950),pp. 35, 36, 37;Jean-FranSoisemarignier, a Francemedievale:nstitutionset societe Paris, 1970), pp. 144-6; Guy Bois, The Transformationf the YearOneThousand: he Villageof LournandromAntiquity o Feudalism,rans.Jean Birrell

(Manchester, 992),pp. 150, 152. Duby andBarthelemy rgue hateleventh-centurysociety was not anarchic:GeorgesDuby, La societeaux XIe et XIIe sieclesdans aregionmaconnaiseParis, 1953; repr. Paris, 1971), p. 171; DominiqueBarthelemy,L'ordreeigneurial, Ie et XIIe siecle Paris,1990),p. 7.

4 T. N. Bisson,"The 'FeudalRevolution' , PastandPresent, o. 142 (Feb. 1994),pp. 6-42, at pp. 18, 19, 35, 6-12, 39.

5 Ibid.,pp. 14-1S,33, 34, 36-7.6 Brunner,"Land" ndLordship, p. 7, 4; see also ibid.,p. 71.




accusethe Otherof when we are contestinginterests".7Even ifwe accept "violence" (very reluctantly, n my case) as a usable,

quantifiablecategory for historicaland cross-culturalanalysis,substantivequestionsremainabout what roles variousforms ofit played in eleventh-centuryFrance; whether, around 1000,thoseroleschangedasrapidlyasBissonsaysthey didandthroughthe revolutionaryprocesses he postulates;and whether, in thehistoryof powerandviolence, the eleventhandtwelfthcenturiesconstitutea distinctiveperiod,whichbeganwitha revolutionandended when real "government"appeared.Do we see around1000the suddenappearance f a new

"unpoliticalmodeof affect-ive patrimonialpower", which was "rooted in will instead ofconsensus"and animatedby a new "self-justifyingethic of viol-ence"? Before 1000 and in later medieval France, do we findmodesof power that are truly "political",rooted in consensusandexercisedthrough"official,accountableand lawful ways ofaction",not throughviolence?8

After 1000, accordingto Bisson:theviolenceof castellansndknightswasamethodof lordship.

npracticeandexpressiont waspersonal, Sective,butinhumane;militant, ggress-ive, butunconstructive.t hadneitherpoliticalnoradministrativeharac-ter, for it wasbasedon the capriciousmanipulationf powerlesspeople.Nothingwhatever urvives o showthatthecastellan liteof theeleventhcentury houghtof their ordshipsn normative r prescriptiveerms;wehaveno surveysof domains romthem, no evidenceof accountability.Wemustsuppose hattheirservantsharedheirpredatoryutlook,whilethe cavalcadenforced he abrasivemmediacy f personaldomination.9Likepreviousanalystsof the "feudal"revolutionor mutationofthe ear 1000, Bissonattachesgreatsignificance

o "the problemofviolence'',l? but he does so for reasonsvery differentfromtheirs.WhereasPierre Bonnassie, for example, argues that by"violently"imposing "radically new burdens" on peasants7 William anMiller,"Gettinga Fix on Violence", n his Humiliationand OtherEssaysn Honor, Social Discomfort,and Violence(Ithaca,1993),p. 77;also,"what stssuein manykindsof interactions the verydefinition f the activityas violentorot": bid., p. 55.Tracing"lamonteedesviolences",Bonnassiecknowledgeshateleventh-centuryatalandocumentscannotsupportstatisticalarguments:PierreBonnassie,a Catalognedu milieudu xe a la fin u XIe siecle: croissance t mutations

d'uneociete, 2 vols. (Toulouse,1975-6),ii, p. 1 n. 1. On quantifying iolence,seeSusanwyerAmussen,"Punishment,Discipline,andPower:The SocialMeaningsof iolence n EarlyModernEngland",YlBrit. Studies, xxxiv (1995), pp. 1-6 andtheorkscited bid., p. 1 n. 1.8 Bisson,"FeudalRevolution", p. 19,31, 40.9Ibid., p. 18.10bid., p. 9.




around 1000, "the rulingclass"created a "new servitude'',llBisson doubts whether "a uni-directionalshift from freedom/

slavery to servility" took place and contends that "the typicalstruggle of the eleventh and twelfth centuries was not thatbetween lords and peasantsbut that opposingtwo levels of theseigneurialelites", one composed of "bewilderedprinces andkings" and the other of "knights, retainers and servants".Treatingthe latteras the agentsof feudalrevolutionand distan-cing the former from the practiceof violence, he views as theinstrumentof a revolutionary ransformation"the characteristicviolence of lay

seigneurialpower", which was "nurtured n theeconomyand sociabilityof castles"and which, before 1000, hadbeensubject o "regalian ontrol". 2Unlikethefeudalrevolutionsof GeorgesDuby, Pierre Bonnassie,Jean-PierrePoly and EricBournazelor Guy Bois, Bisson's leads, not to new relationsofproductionand exploitation, but to a new political regime inwhichviolencesuddenlybecamea formof lordship.AbandoningbothMarxistandanthropologicaldiomsfor the analysisof polit-ics, Bissonputsa Weberianglosson thenewregimeby identifylngit as an example of "patrimonialdomination",which Weberdefinedas "a specialcase of patriarchaldomination domesticauthority decentralized through assignment of land andsometimes of equipment to sons of the house or otherdependents".3

Bisson's focus on fiefs, fidelity, political accountabilityandstrugglesbetweenupperandlowerlevelsof thenobility s congru-ent with Weber'sdefinition;Bisson'sdistinctionbetween"milit-

ant lordship"and governmentis parallelto Weber'sdistinctionbetween"the master",who wields "powerwithoutrestraint,at

1lPierreBonnassie, TheSurvival ndExtinction f theSlaveSystemn theEarlyMedievalWest(Fourth o EleventhCenturies)",n hisFrom Slavery to Feudalism nSouth-Western urope,trans.JeanBirrellCambridge,991),pp.57-8(myemphasis).SeealsoBois, Transformationf the YearOne Thousand,p. 136;GeorgesDuby, TheThreeOrders:Feudal Society Imagined,trans.ArthurGoldhammerChicago,1980),esp.pp. 151-5;Jean-PierrePoly and Eric Bournazel,The Feudal Transformation,900-1200, trans. CarolineHiggitt (London, 1991); Jean-PierrePoly and EricBournazel,Que aut-ilpreferer u'mutationnisme'?u le probleme uchangementsocial",Revuehistoriquede droit ranfais et etranger,4thser.,Lxxii1994),pp.407-8.ChrisWickhamrguesormajorpolitical hangearound1000zuithout revolutionarychangen themodeof productionseen. 71 below).

12 Bisson,"FeudalRevolution", p.42, 40-1 (alsopp.29-30,33, 37), 17.13 Ibid., pp. 19,21-2, 41 andn. 119;MaxWeber,Economyand Society:An Outline

of nterpretiveSociology,ed.Guenther othandClausWittich,rans.Ephraim ischoffetal., 2 vols. (Berkeley,1978), i, p. 1011.




hisowndiscretion nd,aboveall,unencumberedy rules",andthe "bureaucraticfficial",whosepower"goes n principle nlyas far ashis special competence' ermits,and this in turnisestablished y a rule".Nevertheless,nsteadof allowingorthe

possibility, nvisioned y Weber, hatthepowerof lordscanbe"limitedby tradition r by competingpowers",Bisson nsiststhat the "characteristiciolenceof lay seigneurial ower"istotallyarbitraryndwilfu1.l4To assess hisargumentt is importanto identify pecific ctsof violence, ocate hemin speciScpoliticalprocesses ndstrat-egies,and determinehow the use of violencewas

limited.Inaddition, ecause tereotypedeferenceso lay violentia, rapinaand helikeoccur requentlynmedievaleligiousexts, t isalsoimportanto see how "violence",alongwith associatedmeta-phors,iguredn therhetoricaltrategies f themonksorpriestswho ccusedheir ayenemies fusing t;totreat uchaccusationsthemselvesswaysof carrying n a disputeby constructingndvilifyingnenemy;andto comparehesereligiousmagesof layviolence ithrepresentations,n religiousources, f legitimated

formsof ritualviolenceand supernaturaliolence.l5Even if"everyone new what violentia meant",its eleventh-centurymeaningsrenowfarfrom ransparent,ndareparticularlyardto nterpret ecauseof the needto relyon polemicallyhargedreligiousources.Whether rnotthese extsexaggeraterfabric-ateayviolence,heycertainlyncorporatet intoadiscourseerydifferentrom heones nwhichanyonepositioned ifferentlynrelationo theallegedviolence e.g., knightsorpeasants)wouldhavenderstoodt.l6l4Bisson, "Feudal Revolution", pp. 23-8, 40, 18-19; cf. Weber, Economy ndSociety,d. Roth and Wittich, ii, pp. 1006-7. According to Duby, the "violence andgreed" f knights was lirnited by "moral obligations and the persuasion of theirpeers":Georges Duby, "The Evolution of Judicial Institutions: Burgundy in theTenthnd Eleventh Centuries", in his TheChivalrousociety,rans. Cynthia Postan(Berkeley,980), p. 58.lSOn references to violence in religious sources, see Elisabeth Magnou-Nortier,"The nemies of the Peace: Reflections on a Vocabulary, 500-1100", in ThomasHeadnd Richard Landes (eds.), ThePeaceof God:SocialViolence ndReligiousResponsen Francearoundhe Year1000 (Ithaca, 1992), pp. 58-79; Lester Little,

Benedictinealedictions: iturgicalCursingn Romanesquerance(Ithaca, 1993),pp.5, 107; Patrick J. Geary, PhantomsfRemembrance:emoryndObliviont thendf the FirstMillenniumPrinceton, 1994), pp. 116-19; Brunner, "Land"andLordship,. 4. On ritual violence and supernaturalviolence, see n. 23 below.16 Bisson, "Feudal Revolution", pp. 15, 30. On the representationof violence in avernacularource, see Peter Haidu, TheSubject f Violence: heSongofRoland ndheirthof theState(Bloomington, 1993).



210 NUMBER 152ASTAND PRESENT

To illustrate"the whole programmeof uiolentia", Bissondis-cussesan oaththata councilheldat Beauvais mposedon knightsin 1023. This

"anti-inventoryof seigneurialrights"includes:violating hurches r the sanctuariesbout hem. . .; attacking narmedpriests,monksor pilgrims,or seizingtheirhorsesandproperty;plun-deringdomesticanimals; eizing,robbingor ransoming illagers . . ormerchants; urninghouses;seizingcropsat harvest;destroyingmillsorconfiscatingrain romthem;beatingvillagers' nimals; ttacking noblewomenwithout heirhusbands" r widowsor nuns.l7

Becauseinventoriesconstructed rom recordsof what historiansnow know as "peace movements" merely specify violent actsthat

clerical eaderstriedto forbidor limit, but saynothingabouthow violencewas actuallypractisedor understoodby those whoused it, they are worth comparingwith very similarinventoriesthatcanbe constructed rommonasticcharterswrittenin thenewnarrativestyle recently discussedby Dominique Barthelemy.l8Alongwith the stereotyped magesof violencenotedabove, thesetextssometimesdescribe itigantsof differentstatuses,usingforcein differentways, as an element in differentlegal strategies,indisputes with differentkinds of people over differentkinds ofproperty.Violence, like aggression,turns out to be a complexandhighlyartificialconstruct.l9

From charters,one can constructan inventory of eleventh-centuryviolence very similarto Bisson's. It includes:the plun-deringandburningof anentirevillage;burningbarnsandhouses;seizureof horses, cows or pigs; killing horses;damaginga mill;destroyingfishing-nets; cutting down trees; uprooting vines;homicide;attemptedhomicide;abusinghospitality;improperly

pasturinganimals;beating peasantsand seizing their goods ormoney; ssuingthreats;diggingup corpsesandtakingthemawayforburialelsewhere;evictinga tenant;ejectinga plough;seizinga beehive; collecting tithes or customs;usurpinga mill; takingovera church;and invadingland.20Besidesshowing, as records

17 Bisson,"FeudalRevolution", . 18.18 Like Duby, Barthelemy rgues hat documentswritten n this style "reveal"

practiceshatarenot necessarily ew but thatdocumentswritten n an olderstyleconceal: ominiqueBarthelemy, a societedans le comte'de Vendomede l'an mil au

XIVe iecle(Paris,1993),pp. 11,28-9, 61-4;cf. Duby, ThreeOrders,pp. 147-50.19See SigneHowellandRoy Willis,"Introduction",n S. HowellandR. Willis(eds.), ocietiesat Peace: Anthropological erspectives London,1989),pp. 1-28.

20 Forsingleexamples f eachformof violence, ee:A 325(1102);MS127(1097);A 39(c.1030);MD 143(1084);V403(endof theeleventh entury);A 939(c.1030),223 1087-1106);MV 37 (c.1080);A 270 (1082-1106);V 694 (1068-1102);A 270(1082-1106);MV91 (1050-63);A 90 (1067-82),178(1056-60);MV30 (c.1050);A

(cont. on p. 211)




of peace movements do, that violentia took many differentforms,monastic chartersalso locate violent acts in disputes that can be

understoodas feuds.2l Because the violence mentioned in thesecases was usually the work of castellans, knights, foresters orbailiffs, most of it can be termed "seigneurial".But the fact thatgreat nobles, peasants,monks and canons also practisedviolencesupports Marc Bloch's conclusion that "the same customs [offeuding] prevailedat every level of society".22As a feuding tactic,violence might be practisedby anyone. And if the study of elev-enth-centuryviolence is extended to the forms of ritual violence

that were used againsthumanadversaries y monks and againstsaints by both monks and peasants-and also to the imaginaryviolences that God and his saintsallegedlypractisedwhen feudingon behalf of their monastic riends,23t becomes difficulteither todistinguish "seigneurialviolence" sharply from other forms of

(n. 20 cont.)

930 (1103); MV 94 (1071); A 887 (c.1080), 218 (1060-7); MB 34 (c.1060); V 621(1060-1102); A 680 (1112), 292 (c.1070); V 524 (1110-25); MV 11 (1072); N 91(c.1081); A 90 (1067-82); V 312 (1071); A 223 (1087-1106); V 553 (end of the

eleventh century); T 450 (1126); MV, Appendix, 22 (1075-85); MV 116 (1040-60);V 132 (c.1103); N 112 (c.1084); A 185 (1060-81); V 105 (1100-20); N 146 (c.1087);MV 108 (eleventh century); MD 55 (1084-1100); T 259 (1077). For other inventories,

see Stephen D. White, "Inheritances and Legal Arguments in Western France,loSo-llSo, Traditio, liii (1987), p. 75 n. 91; Stephen D. White, Custom,KinshipandGifts o Saints:TheLaudatio arentumn Westernrance, 050-1150Chapel Hill,1988), pp. 51-2.

21 For a flexible definition of feud, see Brunner, "Land)andLordship,hs. 1-2; seealso William Ian Miller, BloodtakingndPeacemaking:eud,Lazv, ndSociety n SagaIcelandChicago, 1990); Paul R. Hyams, "Feud in Medieval England", Haskins oc.i1, iii (1991), pp. 1-22.

22 Marc Bloch, FeudalSociety, rans. L. A. Manyon (Chicago, 1961), p. 127; seealso Brunner, "Land andLordship,p. 44-63. On great nobles, see Penelope Johnson,Prayer,Patronage, nd Potser:TheAbbeyof La Trinite,Vendome,032-1187 NewYork, 1981), p. 77; Barbara H. Rosenwein, Thomas Head and Sharon Farmer,"Monks and their Enemies: A Comparative Approach", Speculum,xi (1991),pp. 787-8; on peasants, see Stephen D. White, "Proposing the Ordeal and AvoidingIt: Strategy and Power in Western French Litigation, 1050 to 1110", in T. N. Bisson

(ed.), Potuer nd Society n the TwelfthCenturyPhiladelphia, 1995), pp. 119-20; onmonks, see A 218 (1060-7); on canons, see T 460 (1124-30); on bishops, seeRosenwein, Head and Farmer, "Monks and their Enemies", p. 780; on nuns, seeBelle S. Tuten, "A Feud over Corpses: Le Ronceray d'Angers versus Saint-Nicolas

d'Angers, ca. 1080-1140",Medieval erspectives,

(1995), pp. 178-88.23 On ritual violence, see, e.g., Patrick J. Geary, "Humiliation of Saints", in his

Livingwith the Dead n the MiddleAges Ithaca, 1994), pp. 112-13, 116-24; PatrickJ. Geary, "Coercion of Saints in Medieval Religious Practice", ibid.,pp. 157-8. Onmiracles of chastisement, see, e.g., Thomas Head, Hagiographynd heCultof Saints:TheDiocese f Orleans, 00-1200 Cambridge, 1990), pp. 144-6, 172-4, 177-81. Onthe "feud-like tone of discourse" in many such stories, see Hyams, "Feud in MedievalEngland", p. 7.



212 NUMBER 152AST AND PRESENT

violenceor to follow Bissonin singlingout castlesas the placeswhere an eleventh-centurycultureof violence was reproduced.

Moreover, eigneurial iolencedidnot involveonly"thecapriciousmanipulationof powerlesspeople" by the powerful;it was alsopractisedagainstequalsand superiorsand, in the most complexcases,wasused againstpeasants n disputesbetweentheirlords.24Even "seigneurial violence" is thus a broad and artificialcategory.

As practisedby members of several different social groups,violence was an element in disputing processes which couldassume

manydifferentforms,dependingon suchvariablesas thestatus of the parties, their past relationshipswith one another,the kind of propertyin disputeand the presenceor absenceofthird partieswilling and able to intervene.Violence served notonly as a methodof expropriation,dominationand intimidation,but also as a way of symbolicallyassertingrights, pressuringenemies to settle by distrainingproperty,recoveringrights andexpressingrighteousangerand justifiableenmity.25What lookslike a single formof violencecouldthusservemultiplefunctionsand, withoutceasingto seem violent, takeon differentmeaningsin differentcontexts. Althoughcharters, ike clamores and otherreligioustexts, treat many violent acts as unjustand sometimesattribute hem to an enemy'scupidity,wickednessor relianceonevil counsel,26certaintexts make it clear that violence was anelement in a legal strategyand, as such, was often limited so asto serve specificstrategicpurposes.When rightsin landedprop-erty were at issue, violence could be an instrumentof asserting

them,a meansof takingexactlywhatlitigantsclaimedfromtheir

24 Bisson,"FeudalRevolution", p. 17, 18;see StephenD. White,"FeudingandPeace-Makingn the Tourainearoundthe Year 1100", Traditio, xli (1986),pp.195-263,esp.pp.261-3.

25 On self-helpanddistraint, ee Brunner,"Land"and Lordship,esp. pp.67-81;JohnHudson,Land, Lazv, and Lordship n Anglo-NormanEngland (Oxford,1994),pp.22-51.Fortheangerof laylitigants, eeA 112(1100); ormonastic nger, eeA135 1067-70);orenmity,seeT 204(before1070); orhatred, eeV 686(1100-20);forGod'sanger,seeLittle,BenedictineMaledictions,p. 65. Ontheemotional imen-sions f disputeandthenormative imensionsf emotion, eeBrunner,"Land"andLordship, . 31;Hyams,"FeudnMedievalEngland";WilliamanMiller,"Emotions,Honor, ndthe AffectiveLife of the Heroic", n his Humiliationand OtherEssays,p.108;Catherine . Lutz, UnnaturalEmotions:EverydaySentimentson a MicronesianAtolland their Challenge o WesternTheory(Chicago,1988),ch. 6.

26 MD 5 (1041-8);MV84(n.d.);A270(1082-1106), 23(1087-1106).Onclamores,seeLittle,BenedictineMaledictions,pp. 25, 39.




enemies or a little more.27Even when the violence escalated tothe point where litigants damageda mill or a vineyard, cut down

trees, attackedpeople, or killed animalsor people, its relationshipto a claim is clear.28Violent but limited methods of assertingrights and exercising power are also characteristic eatures ofdisputes over customs. The destruction of fishing-nets and theseizure of fish caught with them was, not surprisingly,part of adispute about fishing-rights. When a vicarius plundered anabbey's land, he did so for the count's custom. When a castellandisputed with the same monasteryabout customs, he did so first

by sending his own horses and those of his knights and peasantsinto one of the monks' meadows and later by substituting forthem a largernumberof bulls, cows, pigs and other beasts. Whenan important andholder ent his men to plunderan abbey's men,he did so because the latter were not taking their grain to hismill.29Like the burning and plundering that figured in certainguerres between lay groups,30 he violence that lay people used toclaim so-called "evil customs" involved "the capriciousmanip-ulation of powerless people". But it was also part of the processthrough which power over peasantscould be negotiatedbetweena lay lord and a monastic lord. Seigneurialviolence thus seems"unpolitical" only in the restricted sense used by Weber, who,at one point, treats "socialaction" as being " 'politicallyoriented'if it aims at exerting influence on the government of a politicalorganization; speciallyat the appropriation, xpropriation, edis-tribution or allocation of the powers of government''.3l InBrunner'sterms, the violence of feud is anything but arbitrary:

it has political and even juridicalmeaning.32The roles of violence in eleventh-century litigation become

even clearer when we note that many litigants who practised italso formulatedarguments, some of which are just well enoughrecorded to reveal traces of a distinctive culture or discourseenabling litigants to represent their cases in "normativeor pre-

27 A 185 (1060-81), 217 (1056-60), 218 (1060-7), 369 (n.d.); MV 108 (eleventhcentury).

28 A 216 (1060-7),223 (1087-1106), 70 (1082-1106), 39 (c.1030);MB 34 (c.1060);MV 91 (1050-63).

29 MV 37 (c.1080);A 284 (n.d.), 178 (1056-60);MV 30 (c.1050).30 See White, "Feuding nd Peacemakingn the Touraine";Brunner,"Land" and

Lordship,ch. 1.31 Bisson,"FeudalRevolution", p. 19, 31; Weber,Economyand Society, ed. Roth

and Wittich, , p. 54.32 See Brunner,"Land" and Lordship,pp. xxii-xxiv.



214 NUMBER 152AST AND PRESENT

scriptive terms". Thus, claims-and even the violence used inprosecutingthem-could be debated, and sometimes judged.33

Litigants sometimes justified their claims by invoking the termsof prior agreementswith an abbey or by identifying themselvesas kinsman, lord, lord's kinsmanor tenant of the person throughwhom the abbey claimed.34Although litigants did not cite rulesor customs explicitly, they invoked them by telling stories; theyalleged facts that would have been meaninglessunless they wereinterpreted n the context of an implicit normativeframework.35In additionto plunderingmonastic ands for the count's customs,

the vicarius mentioned above also debated the issue with themonks. One man who "extorted" tithes from the same abbeydid so because his wife was the heir of the donor of the tithes,another because he was the nephew and heir of the donor.Although an adversary of Saint-Aubin destroyed a vineyard,burned houses, and did other damage to the monks, he alsojustified himself by tracing the history of the rights he claimed.Saint-Aubin's dispute with a lord whose men plundered andburned the village of Artheze eventually became the subject ofdiscussion.36 When debated in "normative or prescriptiveterms",37 he use of force to prosecute an allegedly unjust claimwas certainly contested, but not the belief that violence shouldsometimes be used to claim a right or avenge a wrong.

Discussions of disputes took place in several kinds of forum.

33Bisson, "Feudal Revolution", p. 18; see Geary,Phantoms of Remembrance,pp. 108-9; White, "Inheritancesnd LegalArgumentsn WesternFrance";White,

"Proposinghe Ordealand Avoiding t".34 See MV 2 (1052-63),5 (1050-66),7 (1064);White,Custom,Kinship and Gifts to

Saints, chs. 3 and 5 passim;for claimsby alleged enants, ee MD 8 (1064-73).Thetendencyof scribes o associate he outbreak f a disputewith an event such as thedeathof a monastic enefactorA 70 (1067-1109),252 (n.d.)), a litigant's omingofage (A 127 (1060-81),330 (1056-60)),or an important conomic hange divertingstream,clearing forest, buildinga mill) suggests,even in the absenceof recordedargument,hatthe violenceaccompanyingisputes ftenhada normative imension.

35 See White,"InheritancesndLegalArgumentsn WesternFrance";StephenD.White, "Strategie hetorique ans a Conventiode Huguesde Lusignan",n Histoireet societe: melanges oXerts a Georges Duby, 4 vols. (Aix-en-Provence,1992), ii,pp. 147-57. On the recoveryof such normative rameworks r culturalmodels romnarratives,ee JohnL. Comaroff ndSimonRoberts,Rules and Processes:The CulturalLogic of Dispute in an African Context (Chicago,1981), esp. pp. 70-106; DorothyHolland and Naomi Quinn (eds. , Cultural Models in Language and Thought(Cambridge,1987); Karen Ann Watson-Gegeo nd Geoffrey M. White (eds. ,Disentangling:ConflictDiscourse n Pacific Societies(Stanford, 990).

36A 284 (n.d.), 292 (c.1070),900 (c.1087),430 (1113), 325 (1102).37 Bisson,"FeudalRevolution", . 18.




Some discussionsconstituted bilateralnegotiationsbetween par-ties. Others were evidently conducted in the presence of third-

party mediators. Still others took place in the courts of counts,bishops or castellans.38Among the litigants who discussed theircases in these forums were those who had previouslyused "viol-ence" against their monastic adversariesand might do so later.A lord who had sent bulls, cows, pigs and other beasts into themeadows of Saint-Aubin and was later attacked by the count'smen eventuallydebated his case in aplacitum in Angers. A youngknight who had ;'forcibly" taken land from Saint-Aubineventu-

ally settled with the monks, allegedlybecausehe feared incurringthe punishment imposed posthumously on a raptor.39 In theseforums, settlementsof various kinds were reached;and althoughthey did not permanently pacify the participants and did notnecessarily resolve conflicts that should not be reduced to themodel of simple lawsuitsor disputes, "peace-generatingmechan-isms" not only coexisted with mechanismsgenerating feud andviolence but also complemented them.40The same mechanismsalso complemented (and often overlapped with) court hearings,yielding outcomes which, in the form of agreements, wereinformed by normative, as well as political, considerationsandneed not be read as signs of a debased egal order.4lA man whosekinsman killed horses and burned houses in a dispute over landwith Saint-Aubinwas capturedby Count Geoffrey of Anjou and

38 On methods of dispute-processing in early medieval France, see, e.g., PatrickJ. Geary, "Living with Conflict in Stateless France: A Typology of Conf3ictManagement Mechanisms, 1050-1200", in his Livingwith heDead n theMiddleAges,pp. 125-60; Barthelemy, Societe ans e comte e VendoFme,p. 652-80; Geoffrey Koziol,

Begging ardon ndFavor:RitualandPoliticalOrdern EarlyMedieval ranceIthaca,1992), esp. ch. 7. For critiques of work on dispute processing, see Maureen Cain andKalman Kulcsar, "Thinking Disputes: An Essay on the Origins of the DisputeIndustry", Law and SocietyRev., xvi (1981-2), pp. 375-402; June Starr and Jane F.

Collier, "Introduction: Dialogues in Legal Anthropology", in J. Starr and J. F. Collier(eds.), HistoryandPower n the Studyof Law: New Directionsn LegalAnthropology(Ithaca, 1989), pp. 1-28.

39 A 178 (1056-60), 330 (1056-60).

40Bisson, "Feudal Revolution", p. 41; on broken settlements, see Geary,"Humiliation of the Saints", p. 150 n. 69; Johnson, Prayer,Patronage, nd Power,pp. 91-7 and the tables on p. 92.

41 Whereas Bisson treats the Conventiof Hugh of Lusignan as evidence of a "crisisof fidelity" ("Feudal Revolution", p. 27), White uses the same text to show how theidea of fidelity figures in the political relationship between lord and fidelis:White,"Strategie rhetorique dans la Conventioe Hugues de Lusignan"; Stephen D. White,"La politique de la fidelite: Hugues de Lusignan et Guillaume d'Aquitaine", in ClaudieDuhamel-Amado and Guy Lobrichon (eds.), GeorgesDuby: l'ecriture e lthistoire(Brussels, 1996), pp. 223-30.



216 NUMBER152AST AND PRESENT

turned over to the monks, to whom he then paid compensation.An angry litigant who did such evil as he could to Saint-Aubin

later sought the abbot'sforgiveness.A litigantwho unsuccessfullyclaimed rights over a mill returned to the monks who held itsome grain that a court found he had takenunjustly.Adjudicatingthe claim about fishing-rightsalready noted, a court found thatit was an "ancient custom" for local people to exercise suchrightsunder certain imited conditions.42 nder these settlements,litigants sometimes returned what they had plundered and paidfines for their violent acts.43The finding that many lay litigants

settled with their monasticadversariesn such a way as to continuepre-existing relationshipswith an abbey reveals the ironies ofboth monastic friendshipswith lay plunderersand of lay friend-ships with monastic communities that impoverished lay kingroups;44 he same evidence also shows that violence was notsimply an "unpolitical"method of wilful dominationand enrich-ment, but also a tactic used, within limits, in the process ofrenegotiatingpolitical relationships.45

Although eleventh-centuryviolentia was far more than a lin-guistic artefact,modernunderstandings f it are inevitablyshapedby the ways in which it is represented-and not represented-in survivingdocumentation.46 significant egment of that docu-mentation is made up of religious texts dramatizingboth theviolence of a church or monastery'senemies and the ritualizedor imaginary counter-violences inflicted on these enemies by,respectively, the monks themselves and by God and his saintsacting at the monks' behest.47Beginning well before the time

when eleventh-centurymonks and priests had attackedthe viol-

entia and rapina of their enemies in charters,clamores, miraclestories and records of peace movements, their ninth- and tenth-century predecessorswere using the same terminology to con-struct images of their own enemies and images of themselves as

42A 939 (c.1030), 940 (1038-55); A 826 (1082-1106);MV 32 (1066-72); MV37 (1080).

43A 284 (n.d.), 680 (1112), 939 (c.1030);MV 32 (1066-75).44 Bisson,"FeudalRevolution", . 17; see Rosenwein,HeadandFarmer,"Monks

and their Enemies",esp. pp. 769-77; BarbaraH. Rosenwein,To be a Neighbor fSaintPeter:TheSocialMeaning f Cluny's roperty, 09-1049 Ithaca, 989),pp. 72-7;Johnson,Prayer,Patronage,ndPower, h. 3.

45 See Rosenwein, To be a Neighbor f Saint Peter, p. 48; Geary, "Living withConflictn StatelessFrance".

46 See Geary,Phantomsf Remembrance,. 178.47 See n. 15 above.




their enemies' victims. The most powerful verbal images of thiskind survive in the form of ritualizedresponses to alleged spoli-

ation of churches. In a late ninth-century pontifical from Sens,according o Lester Little, "a charge is made againstmalefactorswho are devastating(devastando)nd preying upon (depredando)the goods and lands of the church". In a clamorrom Tours(c.1020) canons ask Christ to "attack those who are attackingus", namely the "iniquitousand proud men [who] invade, plun-der, and lay waste the lands of this your sanctuaryand of otherchurches subject to it". A ninth- or tenth-century text fromSaint-Wandrille records a "solemn malediction ... againstmolestatores,erturbatores,aptores,atrones t predonesf themonastery'spossessions".48

Identical images of lay plunderersand lay violence appear incharters and records of the peace movements-and, indeed,figure prominently n modern discussionsof the latter. Drawingfrom a special register of canonical terms reserved largely foreleventh-century France, historians have depicted an interludeof turmoil, nsecurity,disorder,violence, anarchyand lawlessness

between more respectableperiods of law and public orderby por-traying aggressive, restive and violent warriorsand local strongmen, who practiseusurpation,coercion,extortion,rapine,pillage,depredation, plunder and endemic brigandage.49AlthoughBisson, too, drawsfrom the same dark iteraryregister o dramat-ize the "feudal revolution", his analysis is more qualified andnuanced than most arguments that treat "seigneurialviolence"as the defining feature of eleventh-centurysociety.50 t therefore

48Little, Benedictine aledictions,p. 9, 22-3, 24, 25; see also ibid.,p. 107, and thecase materials at pp. 131-43.

49 H. E. J. Cowdrey, C'ThePeace and the Truce of God in the Eleventh Century",Past andPresent, o. 46 (Feb. 1970), pp. 47, 48, 53, 57, 60; Georges Duby, C'Laityand the Peace of God", in his Chivalrousociety, p. 125, 132; Andre Debord, "TheCastellan Revolution and the Peace of God", in Head and Landes (eds.), PeaceofGod,pp. 145, 151, 152; Bernard S. Bachrach, "The Northern Origins of the PeaceMovement at Le Puy in 975", Historical eflectionsReflexionsistoriques,iv (1987),pp. 405, 411, 415; Steven D. Sargent, "Religious Responses to Social Violence inEleventh-Century Aquitaine", ibid.,xii (1985), pp. 219, 220, 224, 227, 22S, 235, 239;Christian Lauranson-Rosaz, "Peace from the Mountains: The Auvergnat Origins of

the Peace of God", in Head and Landes (eds.), Peaceof God,pp. 105-10, 114-17,120, 132; Daniel Callahan, "The Peace of God and the Cult of the Saints in Aquitainein the Tenth and Eleventh Centuries", ibid.,pp. 165, 167.

50 Since Bisson's response to Barthelemy's initial critique of mutationnisme-thethesis that French society rapidly underwent a general crisis and major structualtransformation around 1000 the latter has developed the critique much further:Barthelemy, Societedans e comtede Vend6me;ominique Barthelemy, "Qu'est-ce

(cont. onp. 218J




invitesfurtherqualification.First, in additionto addinga "feudaldimension"to the feudalrevolution,5lBisson,unlikeeitherBoisor

Bonnassie,doubts whether seigneurialviolence transformedrelations of production. But if seigneurialviolence no longerappearsas the instrument hroughwhicha rulingclassestablishedand maintaineda new kind of servitude, then the case for thekind of revolution posited by Bois and Bonnassie falls apart.Secondly, Bisson further weakens the case for anotherkind of"feudalrevolution"by undermining he conventionaloppositionbetween, on the one hand, the "feudal anarchy" createdby eleventh-centuryknights and

castellansand, on the other,the lordship of twelfth-century rulers,52who, he argues, didnot really "govern" their dominions, because their underlings"behavednot as agentsbutas . . . aggressive ordsreplicating hepredatorymethods of the early castellans".If, as he suggests,rulerssuch as Louis VI did not suppress what he calls "theterrorism f fortifiedlordships",and if, in the twelfth century,"menappointedto guardcastles,collectcustomaryrevenuesandkeeplocal order behaved not as agents but as lords on themake",53hen Bisson providesgroundsfor askingwhether thefeuding ultureof eleventh-centurycastellansor somethinglikeitastednot justbeyond 1100but beyond 1200,andalsowhethertheuse of a developingstateapparatusas a meansof enrichmentby tate agents did not last at least as long.54How differentareeleventh-centuryseigneurial violences from those of laterperiods?5s

How different,indeed,are they from tenth-centuryviolences?

At he other end of the period he discusses, Bisson, although(n.0 cont.)

quee servage,en France,au XIe siecle?",Revue historique,cclxxxvii (1992),pp.33-84;DominiqueBarthelemy, Qu'est-ceque la chevalerie, n Franceau XeetIesiecles?",bid., ccxc(1993),pp. 15-74;andin severalotherworks.51 Bisson,"FeudalRevolution", p.23-8. Bisson'sargumentbout iefsshouldbeexaminedn the lightof SusanReynolds,Fiefs and Vassals: The Medieval EvidenceReinterpretedOxford,1994),esp.pp. 115-80.52 See,e.g., Lemarignier,rancemedievale,chs.3 and7.53Bisson,"FeudalRevolution", p.36, 34.

54Andpossiblya lot longer.See, e.g., WilliamBeik, Absolutismand Society inSeventeenth-Centuryrance: State Pozoerand Provincial Aristocracy in Languedoc(Cambridge,985),pp. 3-33.55 See,e.g., RobertFossier,"Fortunes t infortunes aysannes u Cambresis lainuXIIIe iecle", n Economies t societesau MoyenAge: melangesoffertsd EdouardPerroyParis,1973),pp. 171-82;HughM. Thomas,Vassals,Heiresses,Crusaders, ndThugs:he Gentryof Angevin Yorkshire, 154-1216 (Philadelphia,993),pp.59-65.




arguing for "abrupt and disruptive change" around 1000, alsosoftens the contrast between a violent eleventh century and a

peaceful Carolingian ra by indicating that some features of the"old regime" may have survived the feudal revolution,56whileothers at least foreshadowed eatures of the new one. Again, thequalificationsn his nuancedargument nvite furtherqualificationsin their turn.

First, Bisson notes that in tenth-centuryFrancia, f not earlier,violence was "frequent [and] continuous"; was "normal" and"endemic" n war and in feud; did not necessarilyviolate "societal

norms"; and was "institutionalizedwithin as well as outside the[Carolingian] egal order". If this is so, then what he calls "thenormal brutalities of [tenth-century] war and feud" would beworth comparingwith what Barthelemycalls "l'indeniablebru-talite" of eleventh-century uerres. 57Were there at least similarit-ies between the two feuding cultures, if not the identity thatBrunnerapparentlysaw?

Secondly, Bisson acknowledgesnot only that Carolingian olit-

ical institutions did not "protect freedom and property verywell", but also that, for the tenth century, "not even traces ofdelegated routine action" survive.58If the power to delegatepower and maintainaccountability s a crucial eatureof "govern-ment"59and if twelfth-century government, as Bisson sees it,was a mask concealing a regime closely resembling eleventh-century "militant lordship", then how much does tenth-century"government" differ from eleventh-centuryarbitrary ordship?

Thirdly, Bisson says that the Carolingian oliticalorder "coun-tenanced extra-legal structures":"disputing parties could easilybypass regalian tribunals" and "personal and patrimonial ord-ships were proliferating".If this is so, how, precisely, do tenth-centurymethods of dispute processingcomparewith the practices

56 Bisson,"FeudalRevolution",pp. 22, 12, 37. The concessions re mainly o theworkof K. F. Werner: bid.,p. 12 n. 24.

57 Bisson, "FeudalRevolution",pp. 12-14; Barthelemy,Societedans e comtedeVendoAme, p. 10; see also ibid.,pp. 351, 438.

58 Bisson,"FeudalRevolution",p. 11.59 Bisson dentifies"the demiseof accountable ervice"as "the most profoundly

subversive egacy of the eleventh century": bid., p. 34. "Even if we admit thesubsistence f publicorderat the level of the principalityin the eleventhcentury],it hardly ollows hatbureaucraticdeals nformed he deportment f fideleswho camebetween he lord-ruler nd his people": bid.,p. 37.



220 PAST AND PRESENT NUMBER 152

of the next century, when one also finds a mix of adjudicatoryand non-adjudicatory rocessesbeing used?60

Fourthly, whereasprevious writers on the feudal revolutionreliedheavilyon the public/privatedistinctionto explain,amongotherthings,howthecrisisof theCarolingiantatewasnecessarilylinked to the revolutionaryconstructionof the seigneurie anale,which usurpedpreviouslypublicpowers,6lBissoncontendsthat"[i]t is unnecessary, ndeedmisleading,to invokemodernstatistconceptions of public/private to understand [the Carolingian]regime".62But if we treat the "statist" distinction between

"public institutions"and "privateinstitutions"as an anachron-ism, what happens to argumentsto which this distinctionwascentral?If the distinction is abandoned,the Carolingianstatebeginsto look like an integralpartof Carolingianociety, not anexternalforce ruling it;63and Carolingianand eleventh-centuryseigneurialviolencebecomeharderandharder o distinguish romone another.

Finally, having locatedin tenth-centuryFrancecertainprac-tices that some mutationnistesreatas consequencesor corollariesof the feudalrevolution,Bisson,unlikeBonnassieorBois,refrainsfrom arguingfor any statisticalincrease, during the late tenthcentury, in the incidence of "violence" during a well-definedrevolutionaryperiod.64nstead,he arguesfor a feudalrevolutionthat changedthe ways in which certainkinds of people thoughtaboutpower and violence. In the tenth century, "there was, insomesense,publicorder. . . This is so . . . becausecontemporar-ies thought t was so".65"That [violence] was dis-order,none

who placed their hope in legitimate authority doubted."66 utaround1000, seigneurialviolence was naturalized:t "ceasedtoseemnew".67"By the middleof the eleventhcenturypeople had

60 Bisson,"FeudalRevolution",p. 11;see PatrickJ. Geary,"MoralConflict ndPeerPressure:ConflictResolutionntheMedievalAristocracy",n Duhamel-AmadoandLobrichoneds.),Georges uby: 'ecritureel'histoire,p.217-22.

61 SeeDuby,"Evolution f Judicialnstitutions".62 Bisson,"FeudalRevolution", . 12.63 On this distinction, ee Beik, Absolutismnd Society n Seventeenth-Century

France,. 12.

64Bois's eudalrevolutioneruptsin the 980s and lasts for two decades:Bois,TransformationftheYearOneThousand,p. 136,149.Forcriticism f hisargumentsforan increasen violence,see AlainGuerreau, Lournandu Xesiecle:histoireetfiction", eMoyenAge,xcvi (1990),p. 536.

65 Bisson,"FeudalRevolution", . 9 (myemphasis).66 Ibid.,p. 13(myemphasis n the lastword).67 Ibid.,p. 21 (Bisson's mphasis).




ceased o thinkof thekingandtheprinces sguarantorsf socialorder":a revolutionaryconceptualevelation" adled to "a

new preoccupationwith power in unofficialand affectiveforms".68 ownew,then,aretheseunofficialormsof power?By qualifyingn thesewaysan earlierargumentor a social,

economic ndpolitical evolution,Bisson reates newargumentfor a revolutionn whichchangesn political hinkinganddis-coursewithina restrictedlassof peopleseemmorecentralhando changesn politicalpractice.Howmuchremains f thestarkcontrast etweenpre-andpost-revolutionaryrance?The con-trastwouldbemoreplausiblef thealarmisthetoric69as

accom-paniedby preciseanalysesof violence,disputeprocessing ndpoliticaldiscoursebothbeforeand after the year 1000and, inparticular,f evidenceaboutviolencedid not consist argelyofevidence (disparagedby historiansas differentas Brunner,BarthelemyndElisabethMagnou-Nortier)f stylizedmonasticreactions o stylizedrepresentationsf "pillagingand plun-dering".70 rgumentsor political"rupture" round he year1000wouldalsobe morecompellingf theydidnot depend o

muchon the assumptionhatwhenallegedlypublic nstitutionsdisappearncontrollediolencenecessarilyreaks ut.

Barthelemys hardly he onlyrecenthistoriano queryargu-ments for sharply contrasting enth- and eleventh-centuryFrance.Whilecontendinghata significantoliticalransforma-tion ookplacearound 000,ChrisWickham otonlydenies hatit wasassociatedwithrevolutionaryconomic hange,but alsorepresentst as merelythe droppingof a veil that had been

maskingrivatepower ora longtime.7l"Overstated"s PatrickJ.Geary's haracterizationf argumentsorfeudalrevolution rmutation:[c]hangesn socialandpoliticalraditionsherecer-

68 Ibid.,pp. 28 (my emphasis), 23-

69 "The social storm" of the millennium, "the fever of violence", "[la] frenesie deviolence":Bois, Transformationf the YearOneThousand,. 148; Pierre Bonnassie,"Fromthe Rhone to Galicia: Origins and Modalities of the Feudal Order", in hisFrom laveryto Feudalismn South-Westernurope,p. 104; Christian Lauranson-Rosaz,"Les mauvaises coutumes d'Auvergne (fin Xe-XIe siecle)", Annales uMidi,

cii(1990), p. 574.70 See nn. 6 and 16 above; also Dominique Barthelemy, "La mutation feodale

a-t-elleeu lieu?", AnnalesE.S.C., xlvii (1992), pp. 772-4.71 See Chris Wickham, "Mutations et revolutions aux environs de l'an mil",

Medievales,xi (1991), pp. 33-5; Chris Wickham, "The Other Transition: From theAncientWorld to Feudalism", in his LandandPozver:tudiesnItalianandEuropeanSocialHistory, 00-1200 London, 1994), pp. 1-12, 30-6.




tainlywere, but these hadbegunin the late ninth centuryacrossEurope and had been under way for more than a century".72

Janet Nelson asks whether studies of peace movements do notrun the risk of presentinga rosy view of the anteriororder:

Waspublicjusticeso ubiquitous,he stateso authoritative,oyalagents(purveyorsncluded) o nicelyundercontrol,privatecastlesso uncom-promisinglydemolished, hurch andsandallodsso securelyheld, bonihomineso independentlyctive? nfact,alltheabusesdenounced . 1000had been denounced wo centuriesearlier.The Carolingiantate, nobureaucratic achine, oexistedwithseigneurialower n alwaysuneasy,yet necessary,nterdependence,n constantnteraction,onstantriction.The publicwas enmeshedwith the private.Royalagentandlocallord

wereoftenactuallyoneandthe sameman.Viewing the revolutionof the year 1000 from a Carolingianist'sperspective,she writes: "The crisismodel and the methodsandassumptionsboundup in it seem ripe for collapse".73

A principalassumptionunderlyingBisson's model of feudalrevolution is that by maintainingand deploying carefullycon-structed, canonical oppositions between power and violence,orderand disorder,the politicaland the unpolitical,government

and lordship, law and will, medieval historiansof power canidentifyan eraof violentlordshipduringthe centralMiddleAgesandneatlydistinguish t frombothearlierandlatermedievalerasof government, awandpublicorder.Yetthe sociologicalopposi-tion Bisson posits between the era of violent lordship in theeleventhcenturyand the era of publicorderin the tenth is onlyas stable as the conceptualoppositionsout of which it is con-structed. f it is "misleading" or medievalists"to invokemodernstatist

conceptions of public/private",74 hen the oppositionsbetweenviolence and power and between the politicaland theunpoliticalcollapse as well. If conceptualoppositions such asthesecollapse,what becomesof the revolutionof the year 1000?WhatBonnassieandBois, amongothers,representedas "massivesocialand institutionalchange"75 nd what Bissonnow treatsasapoliticalrevolution ooksless thanrevolutionary, inceso muchofit involves changesin the way in which some of the survivingsourcesrepresent power. Such ruptures in discourse surelymatter.But how much?Andto whom?Clearly, heymattermore

72 Geary,Phantomsof Remembrance,pp.24,178.73 JanetL. Nelson,reviewof HeadandLandeseds.),Peaceof God, Speculum,Xix

, p.168.74 Bisson,"FeudalRevolution",p. 12.75 Ibid., p. 6.




to those historians for whom "statist conceptions" provide theonly categories for analysing power. The ruptures will matter

less to those who treat statist discourse as just one possibility;who see the relationshipbetween practiceand discourseas prob-lematic and contingent;and who, as Bisson has recently argued,view "government" as "a concept historiansof medieval powershould not take for granted".76

Emory University StephenD. White

76 T. N Bisson,reviewof JudithA. Green,The Government f EnglandunderHenryI (Cambrldge,986), Speculum, xiv (1989), p. 438.

Barthélemy en White Feudal Revolution debat jaar 1000

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