Medieval Polities and Modern Mentalities

This is a collection of influential and challenging essays by British medievalist Timothy Reuter, a perceptive and original thinker with extraordinary range who was equally at home in the Anglophone or German scholarly worlds. The book addresses three interconnected themes in the study of the history of the early and high middle ages. Firstly, historiography, the development of the modern study of the medieval past. How do our contemporary and inherited preconceptions and preoccupations determine our view of history? Secondly, the importance of symbolic action and communication in the politics and polities of the middle ages. Finally, the need to avoid anachronism in our consideration of medieval politics. Throwing new light both on modern mentalities and on the values and conduct of medieval people themselves, and containing articles never previously available in English, this book is essential reading for any serious scholar of medieval Europe.

• Uniquely, Reuter’s work exemplifies the best of both modern German and English scholarship • Includes previously unpublished papers and articles that have not been available in English before • Covers western European history from the Carolingian period to the twelfth century

Editor\'s note; Introduction; Part I. Modern Mentalities: Historiographies, Methodologies, Preconceptions: 1. Modern mentalities and medieval polities; 2. Medieval: another tyrannous construct?; 3. The insecurity of travel in the early and high Middle Ages: criminals, victims and their medieval and modern observers; 4. Debate: the \'Feudal Revolution\'; 5. Pre-Gregorian mentalities; 6. Whose race? Whose ethnicity?; Part II. The Symbolic Language of Medieval Political Action: 7. Nobles and others: the social and cultural expression of power relations in the Middle Ages; 8. Regemque, quem in Francia pene perdidit, in patria magnifice recepit: Ottonian ruler representation in synchronic and diachronic comparison; 9. Contextualising Canossa: excommunication, penance, surrender, reconciliation; 10. Velle sibi fieri in forma hac: symbolic action in the Becket dispute; Part III. Political Structures and Intentions: 11. Assembly politics, 800-1200; 12. Sex, lies and oath-helpers: the trial of Queen Uota; 13. Plunder and tribute in the Carolingian empire; 14. The end of Carolingian military expansion; 15. The Ottonians and Carolingian tradition; 16. The making of England and Germany, 850-1050; 17. Kings, nobles and others: \'basis\' and \'superstructure\' in the Ottonian period; 18. The \'Imperial Church System\' on the Ottonian and Salian rulers: a reconsideration; 19. Peace-breaking, feud, rebellion, resistance: violence and peace in the politics of the Salian era; 20. The medieval German Sonderweg? The Empire and its rulers in the high Middle Ages; 21. Mandate, privilege, court judgement: techniques of rulership in the era of Frederick Barbarossa; 22. All quiet except on the Western Front? The emergence of pre-modern forms of statehood in the high Middle Ages.