Re-Thinking Kinship and Feudalism in Early Medieval Europe

Stephen D. White is the Asa G. Candler Professor of Medieval History and Director of the Medieval Studies Program at Emory University, USA.

Contents: Introduction; Maitland on family and kinship; The invention of English individualism: Alan Macfarlane and the modernization of pre-modern England (with Richard T. Vann); Clotild's revenge: politics, kinship, and ideology in the Merovingian blood feud; Kinship and lordship in early medieval England: the story of Sigeberht, Cynewulf, and Cyneheard; The discourse of inheritance in 12th-century France: alternative models of the fief in 'Raoul de Cambrai'; English feudalism and its origins; Stratégie rhétorique dans la Conventio de Hugues de Lusignan; The politics of fidelity in early 11th-century France: Fulbert of Chartres, William of Aquitaine, and Hugh of Lusignan; Book review: Susan Reynolds, Fiefs and vassals: the medieval evidence reinterpreted; The politics of exchange: gifts, fiefs, and feudalism; Giving fiefs and honor: largesse, avarice, and the problem of 'feudalism' in Alexander's testament; Service for fiefs or fiefs for service: the politics of reciprocity; A crisis of fidelity in c.1000?; Index.