Fiefs and Vassals: The Medieval Evidence Reinterpreted

Rating:
Summary: An important book but a difficult and specialized one!
Review: I would not disagree with the other reviewers on the importance of this book. But as a professional medieval historian, I found this book to be slow and difficult, so I feel I should warn other readers that this is not a sprightly guide to medieval institutional history, but a heavily argumentative one.

Readers interested in Reynolds' point of view might want to look first at her earlier book, *Kingdoms and Communities in Western Europe 900-1300.* If you really like *Kingdoms and Communities* you might be ready for *Fiefs and Vassals.*

Rating:
Summary: An important book but a difficult and specialized one!
Review: I would not disagree with the other reviewers on the importance of this book. But as a professional medieval historian, I found this book to be slow and difficult, so I feel I should warn other readers that this is not a sprightly guide to medieval institutional history, but a heavily argumentative one.

Readers interested in Reynolds' point of view might want to look first at her earlier book, *Kingdoms and Communities in Western Europe 900-1300.* If you really like *Kingdoms and Communities* you might be ready for *Fiefs and Vassals.*

Rating:
Summary: Feudalism. What's that?
Review: It was time to destroy the Marxist view-point or at least to give a chance to the opposite side. A lot of medieval-history textbooks, from the last decades, have a narrow-minded, simple, rejective attitude when they talked about the society of the Early Middle Ages, especially about the ninth and tenth centuries, the so called "Dark Ages". Though the Western European historians think that they aren't communist historians, in fact sometimes they have a more Marxist viewpoint of the Middle Ages than their colleagues from the former communist countries. The author says and proves that the society in the Middle Ages was very complex, dynamic, flexible and vivid. It was a society without any abstract authorities but with a lot of natural and personal links. It is really a reinterpretation of the 'orthodox' notions like feudalism, fief, vassal etc. Though the book has a very hard subject it's readable and easy to understand. Because the society and metality of those centuries weren't Marxist at all it's very reasonable to explain them without narrow-minded Marxist notions. In a very positive way this is a non-Marxist and I can say an anti-Marxist book. It's a great, not only for historians. Really worth reading!

Rating:
Summary: Most Important Work in Medieval History in the Last 25 Years
Review: Susan Reynolds completes the quiet revolution begun by Marc Bloch with the appearance of Feudal Society in the 1930s-- though arguably it can be traced back to Ferdinand Flach at the turn of the century. Bloch painted a complex and nuanced portrait of medieval society in which feudal relations played but a part. The program of study outlined by Bloch has dominated medieval studies until today. More importantly, he decentered feudalism from analysis of medieval society.

George Duby in his study of the Maconnais played the role of Kepler to Bloch's Copernicus. Duby focused his attention on a small geographical region within the heartland of so-called classical feudalism. Though the Maconnais did not conform to feudal models, Duby modestly suggested that more regional studies needed to be done. He hinted that a great deal of variation was to be expected. Since Duby, medievalists have taken up the micro approach while embracing an ever wider range of social activity.

By the 1970s, feudalism had, by and large, disappeared from scholarly discorse, but, pardoxically, not from textbooks or the classroom. It was only a matter of time before someone pointed this out. In a fameous AHR article EAR Brown lamented this state of affairs. But medievalists are a conservative lot and continued working as before. This is where Reynolds comes in.

Reynolds asks a simple question: whence feudalism? The answer is complex; but the starting point was the 12th century Lombard [Italy] compilation Libri feodorum. The Book of Fiefs was a highly tendentious work that represented one side in a difficult and emotional dispute. It was hardly of pan-European significance. Medieval people, moreover, did not use the term feudalism, a neologism of the Enlightenment era. The Libri first came into French use-- and from there European wide use-- in the 16th century when a now professional judiciary used it to further the systemizing and centralizing goals of the monarchy. And once adopting the Libri as academic law, European scholars began imposing its categories on the medieval past. Reynolds spends the bulk of book showing just how varied and unstable the medieval terms and practices ossified in the Libri were over space and time. It is a fascinating tale expertly handeled by Reynolds. Feudalism is finally dead thanks to this book. I cannot recommend it too strongly.