Matthew Innes

The Sword, the Plough and the Book

An Introduction to Early Medieval Western Europe, 400-900

Marios Costambeys

Warren Brown

Adam Kosto

This revealing study explores how people at all social levels, whether laity or clergy, needed, used and kept documents.

Documentary Culture and the Laity in the Early Middle Ages

Yitzhak Hen

Yitsḥaḳ Ḥen

tzhak Hen

This is the first book to investigate how people in the early middle ages used the past: to legitimate the present, to understand current events, and as a source of identity. Each essay examines the mechanisms by which ideas about the past were - sometimes - subtly reshaped for present purposes.

The Uses of the Past in the Early Middle Ages

This book, first published in 2000, is a pioneering study of politics and society in the early Middle Ages. Whereas it is widely believed that the source materials for early medieval Europe are too sparse to allow sustained study of the workings of social and political relationships on the ground, this book focuses on a uniquely well-documented area to investigate the basis of power. Topics covered include the foundation of monasteries, their relationship with the laity, and their role as social centres; the significance of urbanism; the control of land, the development of property rights and the organization of states; community, kinship and lordship; justice and dispute settlement; the uses of the written word; violence and the feud; and the development of political structures from the Roman empire to the high Middle Ages.

The Middle Rhine Valley, 400–1000

State and Society in the Early Middle Ages

Matthew Innes

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