Portraits of Medieval and Renaissance Living

by Cohn, Samuel Kline; Epstein, Steven A.; Herlihy, David

• ISBN13: 9780472106714
• ISBN10: 0472106716
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1996-05-01
• Publisher: Univ of Michigan Pr

Summary

This volume--a collection of essays dedicated to one of this century's most distinguished medieval historians, David Herlihy--introduces the general reader to the new social history of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. The essays address three themes: sex and the family, power and patronage in local history, and society in town and countryside. The authors use current research to illustrate how Herlihy's ideas continue to shape work about the lives of powerful and ordinary people in this long and important period of Western history. Portraits of Medieval and Renaissance Livingopens with Herlihy's final summary of his views on family history, followed by a reminiscence by his most important collaborator, Christiane Klapisch-Zuber. The first group of essays takes us inside specific familial settings, using recent methods in anthropological, legal, and women's studies to uncover new dimensions of medieval and Renaissance family life. A second group of studies focuses on the question of authority in medieval society and advances new theses about politics and society in Florence and other local settings. The final group of authors considers the special circumstances of town and countryside in Italy, England, and Spain and draws insightful generalizations across territorial and national boundaries. Like Herlihy's own work, these essays present innovative and challenging hypotheses about significant problems in the history of medieval and Renaissance Europe. Important new material on Florence, family history, religion, the Inquisition, and taxation is presented for the first time, but the essays are not simply technical exercises focused on small or isolated pieces of research. Thus the volume will go beyond the interest of specialists in medieval and Renaissance social history and will attract a wide audience of students and scholars. Samuel K. Cohn, Jr., is Professor of History, Brandeis University. Steven Epstein is Professor of History, University of Colorado.

Table of Contents

Introduction	p. 1
Family	p. 7
David Herlihy and the Florentine Catasto	p. 29
Genealogy and Marriage Alliance: Memories of Power in Late Medieval Florence	p. 39
Reproduction and Production in Early Ireland	p. 71
Friends and Family, Politics and Privilege in the Kingship of Berengar I	p. 91
Clotild's Revenge: Politics, Kinship, and Ideology in the Merovingian Blood Feud	p. 107
The Twilight of Morgengabe	p. 131
The Medieval Family: A Place of Refuge and Sorrow	p. 149
Writing, Memory, and Landholding in Medieval Provence	p. 175
Praesidentes Negotiis: Abbesses as Managers in Twelfth-Century France	p. 189
A Medieval Inquisitor at Work: Bernard Gui, 3 March 1308 to 19 June 1323	p. 207
Toward a New Periodization of Ecclesiastical History: Demography, Society, and Religion in Medieval Verona	p. 233
When Heaven Came down to Earth: The Family of St. Martial of Limoges and the "Terrors of the Year 1000"	p. 245
Patrimony and Clientage in the Florentine Countryside: The Formation of the Estate of the Cathedral Chapter, 950-1200	p. 259
A Trecento Bishop as Seen by Quattrocento Florentines: Sant' Andrea Corsini, His "Life," and the Battle of Anghiari	p. 283
Was There a Medieval Middle Class? Mediocres (mediani, medii) in the Middle Ages	p. 301
Poverty, Payments, and Fiscal Policies in English Provincial Towns	p. 325
Municipal Finances in Medieval Castile: Palencia at the Middle of the Fifteenth Century	p. 349
Religious Diversity and Communal Politics in Thirteenth-Century Italy	p. 363
Inventing Braudel's Mountains: The Florentine Alps after the Black Death	p. 383
A Geography of the "Contadi" in Communal Italy	p. 417
The Imaginary Piazza: Tommaso Garzoni and the Late Italian Renaissance	p. 439
A Bibliography of David Herlihy's Works	p. 455
Contributors	p. 465
Index	p. 467
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