Negotiating Space

by Rosenwein, Barbara H.

• ISBN13: 9780801435232
• ISBN10: 0801435234
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1999-01-01
• Publisher: Cornell Univ Pr

Summary

Why did early medieval kings declare certain properties to be immune from the judicial and fiscal encroachments of their own agents Did weakness compel them to prohibit their agents from entering these properties as historians have traditionally believed? In a richly detailed book that will be greeted as a landmark addition to the literature on the Middle Ages. Barbara H. Rosenwein argues that immunities were markers of power. By placing restraints on themselves and their agents, kings demonstrated their authority, affirmed their status. and manipulated the boundaries of sacred space.

Rosenwein transforms our understanding of an institution central to the political and social dynamics of medieval Europe. She reveals how immunities were used by kings and other leaders to forge alliances with the noble families and monastic centers which were central to their power. Generally viewed as unchanging juridical instruments, immunities as they appear here are as fluid and diverse as the disparate social and political conflicts that they at once embody and seek to def

Table of Contents

List of illustrations	xi
Prefatory Note	xiii
Acknowledgments	xv
Abbreviations	xvii
Introduction	1	(24)
PART I. PROHIBITION	25	(72)
Late Antique Traditions	27	(15)
Entry and Encroachment	42	(17)
The ``Secret Enclosure''	59	(15)
The Heyday of Merovingian Immunities	74	(23)
PART II. CONTROL	97	(38)
``Playing a New Tune'': The Carolingians	99	(16)
A Meeting of Minds	115	(20)
PART III. DIVERGENCE	135	(78)
A Gift-Giving King	137	(19)
The Making of the Sacred Ban	156	(28)
``A Man's House Is His Castle'': Anglo-American Echoes	184	(29)
Conclusion. Political Theory on the Ground	213	(6)
Appendix 1: An Immunity of King Theuderic III (October 30,688): ChLA 13:90-91, no. 570	219	(2)
Appendix 2. A Comparison of Key Clauses in Gorze, no. 4, and Marculf, no. 1	221	(4)
Appendix 3. An Immunity of Charlemagne (December 6,777): ChLA 19:28-33, no. 679	225	(2)
Appendix 4. Carolingian Immunities and Asylum	227	(2)
Appendix 5. A Concession of King Berengar (August 24,906): DBer no. 65, pp. 177-78	229	(2)
Appendix 6. Foundation Charters of Cluny and Pothieres/Vezelay: Key Clauses Compared	231	(4)
Appendix 7. An Immunity of John XI (March 931): Zimmermann 1:107-8, no. 64	235	(2)
Selected Bibliography	237	(24)
Index	261