medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Medieval historians have tended not to use the "f-word" since Susan
Reynolds's 1994 book "Fiefs and Vassals: the Medieval Evidence
Reinterpreted". [The writing had been on the wall since Elizabeth A. R.
Brown's article "The Tyranny of a Construct: Feudalism and Historians of
Medieval Europe," The American Historical Review, Vol. 79, No. 4 (Oct
1974), pp. 1063-1088.]
John Briggs
On 05/10/2012 16:52, Laura Jacobus wrote:
>
> Sorry this isn't strictly religion, but feudalism isn't my thing. I'm
> trying to make sense of the fact that someone is recorded as being granted
> or having purchased the *comitatus* of a place (which I take to be the
> title and lands of a Count) which was in the fief of a bishop- and some
> forty years later his great-grandson is also recorded as being granted the
> same *comitatus* by a later bishop. I'd assumed that being a count was
> hereditary, but this instance would seem to suggest that it was some sort
> of renewable vassallage and that the land reverted to the feudal overlord
> (ie the bishop) either on a periodic basis or on the death of the holder of
> the title. In this case, maybe the title was heredity in practice- as
> several generations had been and gone without leaving much trace in the
> record- but still the feudal formalities were being observed. We're talking
> 13thC northern Italy here- does this sound right?
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