''Reframing the Feudal Revolution: Political and Social Transformation Between Marne and Moselle, c. 800–c. 1100'' (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013) () is a scholarly book by Charles West. It is based on his Ph.D. thesis, Upper Lotharingia and Champagne c.850 to c.1100 (University of Cambridge, Faculty of History, 2007).
Summary
The book's key purpose, discussed in the introduction, is to advance discussion of the origins of
feudalism
Feudalism, also known as the feudal system, was the combination of the legal, economic, military, cultural and political customs that flourished in medieval Europe between the 9th and 15th centuries. Broadly defined, it was a way of structu ...
. Whereas
Georges Duby
Georges Duby (7 October 1919 – 3 December 1996) was a French historian who specialised in the social and economic history of the Middle Ages. He ranks among the most influential medieval historians of the twentieth century and was one of Franc ...
and his successors had argued from the 1950s that the 'feudal revolution' began in France around the year 1000, but
Dominique Barthélemy
Jean-Dominique Barthélemy OP (16 May 1921, Pallet — 10 February 2002, Freiburg), was a emeritus French professor, Dominican priest and biblical scholar.twelfth century. West argues that scholarship had reached an impasse and needed new perspectives drawing on earlier evidence. His chosen case study was the area between the rivers Marne and
Moselle
The Moselle ( , ; german: Mosel ; lb, Musel ) is a river that rises in the Vosges mountains and flows through north-eastern France and Luxembourg to western Germany. It is a bank (geography), left bank tributary of the Rhine, which it jo ...
, corresponding to
Champagne
Champagne (, ) is a sparkling wine originated and produced in the Champagne wine region of France under the rules of the appellation, that demand specific vineyard practices, sourcing of grapes exclusively from designated places within it, ...
and
Upper Lotharingia
The Duchy of Lorraine (french: Lorraine ; german: Lothringen ), originally Upper Lorraine, was a duchy now included in the larger present-day region of Lorraine in northeastern France. Its capital was Nancy.
It was founded in 959 following t ...
.
The key argument of the book, and its 'biggest departure from the Feudal Revolution model' is that the ninth-century
Carolingians
The Carolingian dynasty (; known variously as the Carlovingians, Carolingus, Carolings, Karolinger or Karlings) was a Frankish noble family named after Charlemagne, grandson of mayor Charles Martel and a descendant of the Arnulfing and Pippi ...
, faced with a world in which property rights were not clearly defined, and in which the meanings of rituals were fluid and open to interpretation, spurred a drive to define and formalise social relations, now known loosely as the ' Carolingian reforms'. West argues that while many aspects of Carolingian political life did not survive the collapse of the
Carolingian Empire
The Carolingian Empire (800–888) was a large Frankish-dominated empire in western and central Europe during the Early Middle Ages. It was ruled by the Carolingian dynasty, which had ruled as kings of the Franks since 751 and as kings of the ...
in the 880s, this urge to formalise did. He finds that the driver of feudalisation was not primarily the relationship between
fiefs
A fief (; la, feudum) was a central element in medieval contracts based on feudal law. It consisted of a form of property holding or other rights granted by an overlord to a vassal, who held it in fealty or "in fee" in return for a form of ...
and
vassals
A vassal or liege subject is a person regarded as having a mutual obligation to a lord or monarch, in the context of the feudal system in medieval Europe. While the subordinate party is called a vassal, the dominant party is called a suzerain. ...
, but the formalisation of power as property rights (particularly ownership of land), which could then be exchanged. 'The ruling family's monopoly on rule was eventually lost, but in the end that was a mere matter of dynastic accident. It seems more important that had the Carolingian project continued, it would have ended in a world dominated by power so formalised and well-defined that it could in some circumstances even be thought of as property, which is more or less exactly what happened' (p. 263).
The book is arranged chronologically in three parts.
Part I, 'The Parameters of Carolingian Society', is structured as a thesis, antithesis, and synthesis. Chapter 1 shows that the Carolingians' efforts to formalise and integrate institutions of government─not least kingship─were not merely rhetorical and did have significant consequences. Chapter 2, however, shows the validity of counter-arguments that, despite this, formal ideas of offices and property 'dissolve on inspection' (p. 76), revealing a politics that was more unstable, contested and provisional. Chapter 3 synthesises these arguments by arguing that while Carolingians did not create a public state, their cultural reforms did have a profound effect on elites' ways of thinking: 'the impasse ... between top-down approaches and those centred on the local practice of power, which has shadowed the debate on the Feudal Revolution, can be dismantled. We need to think of symbolic practices reaching throughout society, with eminently practical consequences' (p. 104). This chapter has been seen as 'the keystone of the entire book'.
Part II, 'The Long Tenth Century, c. 880–c. 1030', examines a period where evidence is particularly hard to interpret, essentially bridging the better understood periods on either side.Theo Riches, review of Charles West, ''Reframing the Feudal Revolution: Political and Social Transformation between Marne and Moselle, c. 800–c. 1100'', Cambridge Studies in Medieval Life and Thought, Fourth Series 90 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), ''Early Medieval Europe'', 24 (2016), 261--63 (p. 262). DOI: 10.1111/emed.12151. Cf. Levi Roach, review of Charles West, ''Reframing the Feudal Revolution: Political and Social Transformation between Marne and Moselle, c. 800–c. 1100'', Cambridge Studies in Medieval Life and Thought, Fourth Series 90 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), ''History'', 99 (2014), 305--7 (p. 306). DOI: 10.1111/1468-229X.12057_4 306 West uses the clearer evidence of sections 1 and 3 to establish a framework, and tries provisionally to interpret the disparate evidence about the tenth century through this framework. Chapter 4 argues that the weaker kingship evident in the post-Carolingian period may have been a consequence of the Carolingians' own project of formalising and stabilising the power of the aristocracy, and so a symptom of wider social change rather than a cause of it. Chapter 5, correspondingly, argues that the tenth century saw a process of 'symbolic impoverishment', whereby the social meanings of rituals and practices became less fluid and more fixed. Thus, rather than being defined through relationships with the royal court, the position of count (''comes'') came to be legally stable on its own terms, independently of the ruling dynasty.
Part III, 'The Exercise of Authority through Property Rights, c. 1030–c. 1130' argues that the emergence of feudalism was a knock-on effect of ninth-century Carolingian reforms. Chapter 6 focuses on the emergence of so-called ' bannal lordship' and argues that the eleventh century saw the emergence of a more tightly defined concept of land ownership familiar today but not before. Whereas before aristocrats might pass on their ''office'' to their successors, in the twelfth century they could pass on the ownership of land: a '
precipitation
In meteorology, precipitation is any product of the condensation of atmospheric water vapor that falls under gravitational pull from clouds. The main forms of precipitation include drizzle, rain, sleet, snow, ice pellets, graupel and hai ...
of rights' into a form of ' petrified social power'. Whereas the exercise of power had once been quite improvisatory, 'in the late eleventh century, lords everywhere were busily working out whether they had the right' to extract rents and dues (p. 196). Chapter 7 is the book's closest engagement with Susan Reynolds's seminal ''Fiefs and Vassals'', and argues amongst other things that the ecclesiastical
Investiture Dispute
The Investiture Controversy, also called Investiture Contest (German: ''Investiturstreit''; ), was a conflict between the Church and the state in medieval Europe over the ability to choose and install bishops (investiture) and abbots of monast ...
is evidence for a more general enthusiasm for defining and constituting more precisely social roles, statuses, laws and rituals. Finally, chapter 8 compares and contrasts Champagne and Upper Lotharingia, considering how different political conditions in these parts of the former Carolingian Empire cast light on West's thesis. 'Judicial rights emerged from the undifferentiated authority of the ninth century everywhere; it was merely the means by which they did so that differed. East of the Meuse, the process took place in a more ordered way, managed by the kings and co-ordinated by the exploitation of intact ecclesiastical estates; in the west, with less co-ordination provided either by ecclesiastical estates or the royal court, there was greater fragmentation' (p. 254).
Reviews
*
Shami Ghosh
Shami Ghosh is an Indian-born historian who is Associate Professor at the Centre for Medieval Studies and Department of History at the University of Toronto. He researches Marxist history and the history of Germanic-speaking Europe.
Biography
Sh ...
, Medieval Revolution and Reform Review Article , ''Reviews in History'', review no 1651 (September 2014), DOI: 10.14296/RiH/2014/1651
* Levi Roach, ''History'', 99 (2014), 305–7. DOI: 10.1111/1468-229X.12057_4
* Theo Riches, ''Early Medieval Europe'', 24 (2016), 261–63
* Simon John, ''English Historical Review'', 130 (2015), 692-94. DOI: 10.1093/ehr/cev099