PERHAPS A GIFT VOUCHER FOR MUM?: MOTHER'S DAY

Close Notification

Your cart does not contain any items

Windows on Justice in Northern Iberia, 800–1000

Wendy Davies

$305

Hardback

Not in-store but you can order this
How long will it take?

QTY:

English
Routledge
07 April 2016
Although it has a rich historiography, and from the late ninth century is rich in textual evidence, northern Iberia has barely featured in the great debates of early medieval European history of recent generations. Lying beyond the Frankish world, in a peninsula more than half controlled by Muslims, Spanish and Portuguese experience has seemed irrelevant to the Carolingian Empire and the political fragmentation (or realignment) that followed it. But Spain and Portugal shared the late Roman heritage which influenced much of western Europe in the early middle ages and by the tenth century records and practice in the Christian north still shared features with parts farther east.

What is interesting, in the wider European context, is that some of the so-called characteristics of the Carolingian world – the public court, collective judgment – are as characteristic of the Iberian world. The suggestion that they disappeared in the Frankish world, to be replaced by 'private' mechanisms, has played a major role in debates about the changing nature of power in the central middle ages: what happened in judicial courts has been central to the grand narratives of Duby and successive historians, for they are a powerful lens into the very real issues of politics and power.

Looking at the practice of judicial courts in Europe west of Frankia allows us to think again about the nature of the public; identifying all the records of that practice allows us to adjust the balance between monastic and lay activity. What these show is that peasants, like other lay people, used the courts to seek redress and gain advantages. Records were not entirely framed nor practice entirely dominated by ecclesiastical interests.

By:  
Imprint:   Routledge
Country of Publication:   United Kingdom
Edition:   New edition
Dimensions:   Height: 234mm,  Width: 156mm,  Spine: 23mm
Weight:   566g
ISBN:   9781409464730
ISBN 10:   1409464733
Pages:   304
Publication Date:  
Audience:   College/higher education ,  General/trade ,  Primary ,  ELT Advanced
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Active

Wendy Davies, FBA, is Professor Emerita in the Department of History at University College London, UK

See Also