Very interesting topic which Ive been looking at lately and was planning on broaching it in my next post (I specialize in medieval pragmatic writing to which Law belongs). I read some of Brown, agreed with most but not with all, ie. she writes the word "fief" does not even occur very often in medieval manuscript witnesses, which is false. The biggest bestseller of the German speaking Middle Ages is a law book the Sachsenspiegel of Eike von Repgow (which Brown mentions), the second part of which is Lehensrecht (fief law). The word Lehen (fief) occurs in the great literature too, in Gottfried's Tristan (where fiefs are distributed). In Wolfram's Parzival, where fiefs are received. Walther von der Vogelweide has a song "I got me a fief!" (which was true, he was granted one).
Also the word Beneficium obv occurs in Latin. I think what Brown is getting at is correcting the old bad French scholarship which wanted to make the F word into a system, which it wasn't. There really are no systems in the Middle Ages. Even Law is not a system and has no legal authority like we understand it. Its more like a guideline. I agree w Brown that not all fiefs are created equal, there's no template for them. The issuance of legal documents was always curated and negotiated for the situation at hand, so every deal is a different deal. I went to the most old fashioned Uni in Germany and its still somewhat like this. The administration does not just have every form sitting there, but they still have to draft them! (which they will complain about). On the whole Brown is stating the obvious, there was no homogenous system of feudalism, so the word is useless. I can never recall any professor at the Uni Marburg ever using it because it does not describe much. That doesnt mean that fiefs were not granted and that there was no property law, there was. She is saying it does not look like our property law, which is right. I was able to hone in on her argument because the same dynamic happens with lots of medieval topics whereby modern ppl project their lens onto the past. Its the same thing regarding the Hanseatic League, another of my specialties. Old scholarship said it was a concrete and powerful trading organization w its own government and military. However, it was loose association like a pick up basketball game instead of the NBA. If your city participated or not at any given time was amorphous. Your emissaries went to the convention held in Lübeck or they didn't. Some claimed they did when they hadn't, in order to get better tariff rates. It was very loose, not an institution or organization like we understand them today. Anyways, thanks for supplying food for thought about what i was already planning to post post next.
Thank you so much for this comment and taking the time to share your knowledge! It's very enlightening! I'm going to look into some of these sources you mention. I also haven't heard of the Hanseatic League before, so I will look into that as well. I hope you will still post about feudalism. We all come at medieval history from different perspectives and we can all gain from hearing and learning from each other.
I was going to cover the Sachsenspiegel but from the approach of looking at the physical manuscripts
Maybe a later post on this word Lehen or fief in the poetry I mentioned
Historians dont look to these as sources because its Literature ie fiction (which is a problematic term in the High Middle Ages). I think you can learn, for example, about poverty in 19th Century London from Dickens though, maybe more than from historical sources, legal documents and such.
Much of Brown (1941!) seems like common knowledge to me tbh, and its somewhat old. In the meantime scholars know the really old bad French scholarship about féodalité which she rightly critiqued is outdated by now. I agree w her its a useless term and nothing would be lost if it didn’t exist, but imo she gets some minor things wrong. ie the term fief is prevalent in the literature in German and Latin anyway not sure about English though, which may be where she was looking?
Interesting. It does remind me about scholarly language and how much concentration it takes to bring it into sensibility. (Not yours, but the quotes.) Maybe I've just been out of university for too long...
Very interesting topic which Ive been looking at lately and was planning on broaching it in my next post (I specialize in medieval pragmatic writing to which Law belongs). I read some of Brown, agreed with most but not with all, ie. she writes the word "fief" does not even occur very often in medieval manuscript witnesses, which is false. The biggest bestseller of the German speaking Middle Ages is a law book the Sachsenspiegel of Eike von Repgow (which Brown mentions), the second part of which is Lehensrecht (fief law). The word Lehen (fief) occurs in the great literature too, in Gottfried's Tristan (where fiefs are distributed). In Wolfram's Parzival, where fiefs are received. Walther von der Vogelweide has a song "I got me a fief!" (which was true, he was granted one).
Also the word Beneficium obv occurs in Latin. I think what Brown is getting at is correcting the old bad French scholarship which wanted to make the F word into a system, which it wasn't. There really are no systems in the Middle Ages. Even Law is not a system and has no legal authority like we understand it. Its more like a guideline. I agree w Brown that not all fiefs are created equal, there's no template for them. The issuance of legal documents was always curated and negotiated for the situation at hand, so every deal is a different deal. I went to the most old fashioned Uni in Germany and its still somewhat like this. The administration does not just have every form sitting there, but they still have to draft them! (which they will complain about). On the whole Brown is stating the obvious, there was no homogenous system of feudalism, so the word is useless. I can never recall any professor at the Uni Marburg ever using it because it does not describe much. That doesnt mean that fiefs were not granted and that there was no property law, there was. She is saying it does not look like our property law, which is right. I was able to hone in on her argument because the same dynamic happens with lots of medieval topics whereby modern ppl project their lens onto the past. Its the same thing regarding the Hanseatic League, another of my specialties. Old scholarship said it was a concrete and powerful trading organization w its own government and military. However, it was loose association like a pick up basketball game instead of the NBA. If your city participated or not at any given time was amorphous. Your emissaries went to the convention held in Lübeck or they didn't. Some claimed they did when they hadn't, in order to get better tariff rates. It was very loose, not an institution or organization like we understand them today. Anyways, thanks for supplying food for thought about what i was already planning to post post next.
Thank you so much for this comment and taking the time to share your knowledge! It's very enlightening! I'm going to look into some of these sources you mention. I also haven't heard of the Hanseatic League before, so I will look into that as well. I hope you will still post about feudalism. We all come at medieval history from different perspectives and we can all gain from hearing and learning from each other.
I was going to cover the Sachsenspiegel but from the approach of looking at the physical manuscripts
Maybe a later post on this word Lehen or fief in the poetry I mentioned
Historians dont look to these as sources because its Literature ie fiction (which is a problematic term in the High Middle Ages). I think you can learn, for example, about poverty in 19th Century London from Dickens though, maybe more than from historical sources, legal documents and such.
Much of Brown (1941!) seems like common knowledge to me tbh, and its somewhat old. In the meantime scholars know the really old bad French scholarship about féodalité which she rightly critiqued is outdated by now. I agree w her its a useless term and nothing would be lost if it didn’t exist, but imo she gets some minor things wrong. ie the term fief is prevalent in the literature in German and Latin anyway not sure about English though, which may be where she was looking?
Interesting. It does remind me about scholarly language and how much concentration it takes to bring it into sensibility. (Not yours, but the quotes.) Maybe I've just been out of university for too long...