European Medieval History

The French kingdom dissolved into civil wars, known as the ‘wars of religion’, for a generation from 1562 to 1598. This book examines the reactions of France's governing groups to that experience. Their major political endeavour was securing peace, which they attempted to achieve through a religious pluralism not envisaged in any other state on this scale in this period. Its achievement would only be fulfilled, however, alongside a reform of the kingdom's institutions and society. Peace and social reform went hand in hand — a moral agenda for restoration. France's notables drew on reservoirs of classical and Christian moral philosophy and wisdom to find practical answers to the difficult problems of governance that confronted them. The resulting public introspection and vocal debates are difficult to match anywhere else in Europe at this time. They were an essential part of the profound sense of crisis that France's governing elites experienced during the later 16th century. This book analyses the debates at the Estates General of Blois (1576–1577) and the Assembly of Notables at Saint-Germain-en-Laye of 1583–1584. It shows the French polity in a fresh light, presenting major issues of political thought in their public and practical context. It also re-examines the crucial and little understood reign of Henry III, the last ruler of the Valois monarchy, suggesting how Bourbon France could have emerged very differently from the civil wars of the late 16th century.

In medieval Europe, hostages were given, not taken. They were a means of guarantee used to secure transactions ranging from treaties to wartime commitments to financial transactions. In principle, the force of the guarantee lay in the threat to the life of the hostage if the agreement were broken; but while violation of agreements was common, execution of hostages was a rarity. Medieval hostages are thus best understood not as simple pledges, but as a political institution characteristic of the medieval millennium, embedded in its changing historical contexts. In the early Middle Ages, hostageship is principally seen in warfare and diplomacy, operating within structures of kinship and practices of alliance characteristic of elite political society. From the eleventh century, hostageship diversifies, despite the spread of a legal and financial culture that would seem to have made it superfluous. Hostages in the Middle Ages traces the development of this institution from Late Antiquity through the period of the Hundred Years War, across Europe and the Mediterranean world. It explores the logic of agreements, the identity of hostages, and the conditions of their confinement, while shedding light on a wide range of subjects, from sieges and treaties, to captivity and ransom, to the Peace of God and the Crusades, to the rise of towns and representation, to political communication and shifting gender dynamics. The book closes by examining the reasons for the decline of hostageship in the early modern era, and the rise of the modern variety of hostageship that was addressed by the Nuremberg tribunals and the United Nations in the twentieth century.

The interdict was an important and frequent event in medieval society. It was an ecclesiastical sanction which had the effect of closing churches and suspending religious services. Often imposed on an entire community because its leaders had violated the rights and laws of the Church, popes exploited it as a political weapon in their conflicts with secular rulers during the 13th century. This book examines this significant but neglected subject, presenting a wealth of new evidence drawn from manuscripts and archival sources. It begins by exploring the basic legal and moral problem raised by the interdict: how could a sanction that punished many for the sins of the few be justified? From the 12th-century, jurists and theologians argued that those who consented to the crimes of others shared in the responsibility and punishment for them. Hence, important questions are raised about medieval ideas of community, especially about the relationship between its head and members. The book goes on to explore how the interdict was meant to work according to the medieval canonists, and how it actually worked in practice. In particular it examines princely and popular reactions to interdicts and how these encouraged the papacy to reform the sanction in order to make it more effective. Evidence including detailed case-studies of the interdict in action, is drawn from across 13th-century Europe — a time when the papacy's legislative activity and interference in the affairs of secular rulers were at their height.

This book investigates the common medieval belief that magic could cause impotence. Because impotence was a ground for annulling a marriage in medieval canon law, it received a large amount of discussion in the Middle Ages, and many of these discussions also described how impotence could be caused by magic. Chapters 1-4 trace the development of ideas about magically-caused impotence from the ancient world into the 12th century, arguing that medieval writers only gradually came to distinguish impotence magic from other forms of love magic. Chapters 5-9 then analyse the main kinds of sources which mentioned impotence magic in the late Middle Ages: magical texts, confession manuals, canon law commentaries, theology commentaries, and medicine. A comparison of these sources reveals that medieval writers held surprisingly diverse opinions about what magic was, how it worked, and whether it was ever legitimate to use it. Finally, in Chapter 10, the book shows how ideas about impotence magic were affected in the 15th century by new fears of demonic witchcraft. The book argues that many authors who discussed impotence magic were interested in popular magical practices, and so it acts as a case study of the relationship between elite and popular culture in the Middle Ages. It emphasizes the importance of the 13th-century pastoral reform movement, which sought to enforce more orthodox religious practices. This movement brought churchmen into contact with popular magic, and encouraged them to write about what they saw.

The mendicant orders—Augustinians, Carmelites, Dominicans, Franciscans, and several other groups—spread across Europe apace from the early thirteenth century, profoundly influencing numerous aspects of medieval life. But, alongside their tremendous success, their members (or friars) also encountered derision, scorn, and even violence. Such opposition, generally known as antifraternalism, is often seen as an ecclesiastical inhouse affair or an ideological response to the brethren’s laxity: both cases registering a moral decline symptomatic of a decadent church. Challenging the accuracy of these views, The Making of Medieval Antifraternalism contends that the phenomenon exhibits a breadth of scope that, on the one hand, pushes it far beyond its accustomed boundaries and, on the other, supports only tenuous links with Reformation or modern forms of anticlericalism. Based on numerous sources, from theological treatises, to poetry, to criminal court records, this study shows that people from all walks of life lambasted and occasionally assaulted the brethren, orchestrating in the process detailed scenes of urban violence. Their myriad motivations and diverse goals preclude us from associating antifraternalism with any one ideology or agenda, let alone allow us to brand many of its proponents as religious reformers. At the same time, it demonstrates the friars’ active role in forging a medieval antifraternal tradition, not only by deviating from their founders’ paths to varying degrees, but also by chronicling their suffering inter fideles and thus incorporating it into the orders’ identity as the vanguard of Christianity. In doing so, The Making of Medieval Antifraternalism illuminates a major chapter in Europe’s social, urban, and religious history.

The Low Countries—an area roughly embracing the present‐day Netherlands and Belgium—formed a patchwork of varied economic and social development in the Middle Ages, with some regions displaying a remarkable dynamism. Manors and Market charts the history of these vibrant economies and societies, and contrasts them with alternative paths of development, from the early medieval period to the beginning of the seventeenth century. Providing a concise overview of social and economic changes over more than a thousand years, Bas van Bavel assesses the impact of the social and institutional organization that saw the Low Countries become the most urbanized and densely populated part of Europe by the end of the Middle Ages. By delving into the early and high medieval history of society, van Bavel uncovers the foundations of the flourishing of the medieval Flemish towns and the forces that propelled Holland towards its Golden Age. Exploring the Low Countries at a regional level, van Bavel highlights the importance of localized structures for determining the nature of social transitions and economic growth. He assesses the role of manorial organization, the emergence of markets, the rise of towns, the quest for self‐determination by ordinary people, and the sharp regional differences in development that can be observed in the very long run. In doing so, the book offers a significant contribution to the debate about the causes of economic and social change, both past and present.