Professional Documents
Culture Documents
01 - Thomas N. Bisson - The Feudal Revolution (Past and Present, 142, 1994)
01 - Thomas N. Bisson - The Feudal Revolution (Past and Present, 142, 1994)
01 - Thomas N. Bisson - The Feudal Revolution (Past and Present, 142, 1994)
(n. 2 cont.j
politiques dans la France de la fin du Xe et des debuts du Xle siecle", // monachesimo
nell'alto medioevo e la formazione della civiltd occidentale, 8-14 aprile 1956 (Settimane
di studio del Centro italiano di studi sull'alto medioevo, iv, Spoleto, 1957),
pp. 357-400, revised edn., trans. Fredric Cheyette, Lordship and Community in
Medieval Europe (New York, 1968), pp. 100-27; J.-Fr. Lemarignier, Le gouvernement
royal aux premiers temps capetiens, 987-1108 (Paris, 1965).
3
Pierre Bonnassie, La Calalogne du milieu du Xe a la fin du Xle siecle: croissance et
mutations d'une societe, 2 vols. (Toulouse, 1975-6). A list of comparable studies cannot
be given here; works by Robert Fossier (Picardy), J.-P. Poly (Provence), Pierre
Toubert (Latium) and many others are conveniently cited in J.-P. Poly and Eric
Bournazel, La mutation feodale, Xe-XIIe siecles, 2nd edn. (Paris, 1991).
* Georges Duby, Les trois ordres, ou I'imaginaire du feodalisme (Paris, 1978), trans.
Arthur Goldhammer, The Three Orders: Feudal Society Imagined (Chicago, 1980), ch.
13; Pierre Bonnassie, From Slavery to Feudalism in South-Western Europe, trans. Jean
Birrell (Cambridge, 1991; ideas first expressed in 1978), p. 59: "The transition from
[the slave system to feudal society] constitutes what we may, with Georges Duby,
call the Feudal Revolution". See also pp. 130-1, 146, 243.
8 PAST AND PRESENT NUMBER 142
extending from 990 to 1060.5 But when J.-P. Poly and Eric
Bournazel undertook to synthesize the new regionalist research
towards 1977 (just when the notion of revolution feodale became
current), they chose to strengthen the metaphor.6 Their concept
of mutation feodale implied a radical disjunction between the
feudal societies of the eleventh and twelfth centuries and the
public order which preceded it. They made the new chronology
heuristically plausible, or even paradigmatic. Teachers learned
how to explain that, while fiefs and vassals (and lords) could be
5
Robert Fossier, Enfance de I'Europe, Xe-XIIe siecles: aspects economiques et sociaux,
2 vols. (Paris, 1982), i, pp. 288-601.
6
J.-P. Poly and Eric Bournazel, La mutation feodale, Xe-XIIe siecles (Paris, 1980),
trans. Caroline Higgitt, The Feudal Transformation, 900-1200 (London, 1991).
7
Guy Bois, La mutation de Van mil: Lournand, village mdconnais, de I'antiquite au
feodalisme (Paris, 1989).
8
Georges Duby, Le moyen age: de Hugues Capet a Jeanne d'Arc, 987-1460 (Paris,
1987), trans. Juliet Vale, France: The Middle Ages, 987-1460: From Hugh Capet to
Joan of Arc (Oxford, 1991), chs. 5, 6.
' Alain Guerreau, "Lournand au Xe siecle: histoire et fiction", Le Moyen Age, xcvi
(1990), pp. 519-37. See also "L'an mil: rythmes et acteurs d'une croissance",
Medievales, no. 21 (1991), pp. 3-114, a gathering of reflections on Bois's book, with
the latter's reply.
THE "FEUDAL REVOLUTION" 9
of the concept of "feudal mutation". He argues: (1) that too
much has been made of verbal transformations — miles to caballa-
rius or beneficium to feudum, for example — as an indicator of
social and legal change; (2) that the history of servitude has been
misconceived, notably by failing to distinguish between diversely
experienced simultaneous modes of agrarian dependency; so that
no very troubling crisis of "free" peasants is discernible towards
AD. 1000; and (3) that the concept of a pre-existing "public
order" preserving justice, freedom and property is anachronistic,
inattentive to social realities in the tenth and later centuries, and
I
One thing must be affirmed at the outset: there was, in some
sense, public order in the tenth century. This is so not because
"mutationism" requires it or because revolutions feast on old
regimes, but because contemporaries thought it was so. They
10
Dominique Barthelemy, "La mutation feodale a-t-elle eu lieu? (Note critique)")
Annales E.S.C., xlvii (1992), pp. 767-77. See also Dominique Barthelemy, La societe
dans le comte de Vendome de Van mil au XlVe siecle (Paris, 1993).
10 PAST AND PRESENT NUMBER 142
16
Decreta, xv Argumentum (P.L., cxl, col. 895).
17
Major themes in later books of Richer's Histoire de France; see notably iv. 1-12
(ed. Latouche, ii, pp. 144-66).
18
E.g. Capitularia regum Francorum (ed. Alfred Boretius and Victor Krause, 2 vols.,
Monuments Germaniae Historica [hereafter M.G.H.], Legum sectio ii, Hanover,
1883-97, i, p. 172, and ii, p. 315, art. 13); Hincmar, "Ad episcopos regni" (P.L.,
cxxv, cols. 1015-16).
19
Richer, Histoire de France, iii.3 (ed. Latouche, ii, p. 10); Karl Leyser, "Ottonian
Government", Eng. Hist. Rev., xcvi (1981), pp. 746-52.
20
Select Charters and Other Illustrations of English Constitutional History, ed. William
Stubbs, 9th edn. (Oxford, 1913), p. 74. Informal settlements were recorded even
where /ex-based justice was prevalent: Bonnassie, Catalogne, i, p. 186.
21
Histoire generate de Languedoc, new edn., 16 vols. (Toulouse, 1872-1904), v, nos.
108, 121, 158, 168; J.-P. Poly, La Provence el la societe feodale, 879-1166 (Paris, 1976),
pp. 47-50; Patrick Wormald, "Charters, Law and the Settlement of Disputes in
Anglo-Saxon England", in Wendy Davies and Paul Fouracre (eds.), The Settlement
of Disputes in Early Medieval Europe (Cambridge, 1986), pp. 151-68. In Leon judge-
ments retained their ancient diplomatic until the twelfth century, e.g. Coleccion
documental del archivo de la catedral de Leon, 775-1230, ed. Jose Maria Fernandez
Caton, v (Leon, 1990), nos. 1347, 1350, 1358.
12 PAST AND PRESENT NUMBER 142
II
It is this regime, revisionist historians suggested, that was sub-
verted by the multiplication of fighting men, of castles and of
harsh new lordships of command based in castles. But the impact
of such an intrusion cannot be grasped without considering the
nature of violence in the tenth century. In this old order violence
was frequent, continuous and by no means new. Capitularies had
railed against abuses of office, protection and military purveyance,
22
See e.g. Diplomatari de I'abat Oliba, no. 62: "illi dixerunt: N o n tenemus iniuste,
sed p e r scripturam emptionis . . . Iuste iudicatum fuit a predicto i u d i c e . . . secundum
legis ordinem (they said to him: w e d o not claim unjustly but by a record of purchase
. . . It was justly judged by t h e aforesaid judge . . . according to law)". T h e record
goes o n to quote from the Liber iudicum.
23
Chartes et documents de I'abbaye de Saint Pierre au Mont Blandin a Gand, ed. A .
van Lokeren, 2 vols. (Ghent, 1868), i, nos. 20, 23, 26, 27, 31.
24
K. F. Werner, "Konigtum und Furstentum im franzosischen 12. Jahrhundert",
Probleme des 12. Jahrhunderts (Vortrage und Forschungen, xii, Stuttgart, 1968),
pp. 177-225, trans. Timothy Reuter, The Medieval Nobility: Studies on the Ruling
Classes of France and Germany from the Sixth to the Twelfth Century (Amsterdam,
1978), ch. 8.
25
Elisabeth M a g n o u - N o r t i e r , La societe lai'que et I'eglise dans la province ecclesiastique
de Narbonne (zone cispyrene'enne) de la fin du Vllle a la fin du Xle siecle ( T o u l o u s e ,
1974), chs. 3-7.
THE "FEUDAL REVOLUTION" 13
until they fell silent. We have the anguished testimony of contem-
poraries that Vikings and Magyars perpetrated frightful havoc in
many regions for several generations after about 840; not by
accident we know the history of this crime wave in some detail.
It can hardly be doubted that monastic narrators exaggerated the
damage; but damage there was, including psychic trauma, and
the invaders taught well.26 If aliens, even unhorsed, could plunder
harvest piles or monastic treasures, so could penurious vassals or
mounted servants in a magnate's household.27 The Saracens' cap-
ture (972) and ransom of Abbot Maieul of Cluny was a dangerous
26
See generally Bloch, Societe feodale, i {Feudal Society). More recent views are to
be found in P. H. Sawyer, The Age of the Vikings, 2nd edn. (London, 1971), ch. 6;
Georges Duby, Guerriers et paysans, VIIe-XHe siecle: premier essor de I'economie
europeenne (Paris, 1973), pp. 129-75, trans. H. B. Clarke, The Early Growth of the
European Economy: Warriors and Peasants from the Seventh to the Twelfth Century
(London, 1974), ch. 5.
"Flodoard, Historia Remensis ecclesiae, i.20 (ed. Lejeune, i, pp. 150-1), tells of
brigands in Nevers becoming ominously aware of peasants depositing valuables to a
saint's protection.
28
L. M . Smith, The Early History of the Monastery of Cluny (Oxford, 1920), p p .
134-6; Bloch, Societe feodale, i, p. 16 {Feudal Society, p. 7); Sacrorum conciliorum nova
et amplissima collectio, ed. Mansi, xviii, p p . 266-7.
29
Annales de Flodoard, ed. Lauer, p . 96; Flodoard, Historia Remensis ecclesiae, iv.31
(ed. Lejeune, ii, p. 546); Philippe Lauer, Le regne de Louis IV d'Outre-mer (Paris,
1900), p. 127.
14 PAST AND PRESENT NUMBER 142
30
principal causes of the general disorder". Here we may allow
that customary vengeance had its own (un-public) dynamic or
rationale; unleashed, it could only encourage destructive and
afflictive impulses such as may often have given rise to dispute
in the first place. But violence could take other forms: coercion,
fiscal exaction, extortion, for instance. By no means all such
oppressive behaviour violated societal norms. It looks as if cus-
toms and even ransoms connected with Frankish military admin-
istration formed a continuum of harsh but substantially lawful
practice, even though it early became clear that the clergy and
HI
Among the Miracles of Saint-Maximin of Trier composed towards
964 is the story of a "rich and noble" man named Bernacher
who was not content with the village he had acquired in com-
mendation from the monks; so "fired with the torches of avarice
he unjustly usurped for himself little fields of the poor men that
adjoined the village's lands on all sides, for that land was fertile.
And having gathered crowds of ploughmen he ordered those
fields to be cultivated. Then they on whom he had inflicted this
violence [violentiam] implored him by God and St Maximin that
he make do with what he had and not despoil them wickedly of
^Bloch, Societe feodale, i, p. 199 (Feudal Society, p. 128).
31
Elisabeth Magnou-Nortier, "La place du concile du Puy (v. 994) dans revolution
de l'idee de paix", Melanges offerts a Jean Dauvillier (Toulouse, 1979), pp. 489-506.
32
The Bayeux Tapestry, ed. F. M. Stenton, 2nd edn. (London, 1965), pL 52.
THE "FEUDAL REVOLUTION" 15
42
Jean Yver, " L e s chateaux forts en Normandie jusqu'au milieu du X l l e siecle:
contribution a l'etude du pouvoir ducal", Bulletin de la Societe des antiquaires de
Normandie, liii (1955-6), p p . 39-51; D . C. Douglas, William the Conqueror: The
Norman Impact upon England (Berkeley, 1964), pp. 141-2; David Bates, Normandy
before 1066 (London, 1982), pp. 174-7; B. S. Bachrach, " T h e Angevin Strategy of
Castle-Building in the Reign of Fulk N e r r a , 987-1040", Amer. Hist. Rev., lxxxviii
(1983), p p . 533-60.
43
O a t h of 1023: "Cellaria in circuitu ecclesie causa salvamenti ejusdem n o n infrin-
g a m " , ed. Pfister, in his Etudes sur le re'gne de Robert le Pieux, p . be. See also A b b o of
Fleury, Collectio canonum, ii ( P . L . , exxxix, cols. 4 7 6 - 7 ) ; Chronicon sancti Michaelis
monasterii in pago Virdunensi, 1033-44, iv.81 ( e d . Georg Waitz, M . G . H . , Scriptores
[hereafter SS]); Adso, Miracula S. Waldeberti ( P . L . , exxxvii, cols. 696-7); Miracles
de Saint Benoit, iii. 13 (ed. de Certain, p. 159), and vi.3 (p. 221); "R. ad Hugonem
abbatem S. Germani Parisiensis", Recueil des historiens des Gaules et de la France, ed.
Martin Bouquet et al, 24 vols. (Paris, 1738-1904), xvi, p. 170, no. 500 (1162-80):
"contra vos et nos Theobaldus advocatus noster, immo nostrorum raptor (Theobald
our defender or rather our pillager against you and us)"; Jacques Flach, Les origines
de Vancienne France, 4 vols. (Paris, 1886-1917), i, pp. 437-47.
44
Both are illustrated b y t h e consuetudines of Count Bouchard at V e n d o m e : E u d e s
de S a i n t - M a u r , Vie de Bouchard le Venerable, comte de Vendome, ed. Charles Bourel
de La Ronciere (Paris, 1892), pp. 33-8.
18 PAST AND PRESENT NUMBER 142
51
O a t h o f Beauvais, e d . Pfister, in his Etudes sur le regne de Robert le Pieux, p p . lx-lxi.
52
Chronique, ou Livre de fondatipn du monastere de Mouzon, i.7 ( e d . M i c h e l B u r ,
Paris, 1989, p. 152). See also Canulaire de Saim-Pere de Chartres, i, p. 73; The
Ecclesiastical History of Orderic Vitalis, vii.8 (ed. Marjorie Chibnall, 6 vols., Oxford,
1968-80, iv, p. 42). On "bad customs" see generally See, Classes rurales et le regime
domanial, pp. 318-26; Bloch, Societe feodale, i, pp. 179-84 (Feudal Society, pp. 113-6);
Elisabeth Magnou-Nortier, "Les mauvaises coutumes en Auvergne, Bourgogne meri-
dionale, Languedoc et Provence au Xle siecle: un moyen d'analyse social", Structures
fe'odales et feodalisme dans VOccidem mediterraneen, Xe — XIHe siecles: bilan et perspec-
tives de recherches (Rome, 1980), pp. 135-72.
53
Ed. Pfister, in his Etudes sur le regne de Robert le Pieux, p p . lx-lxi. See also P o l y
and Bournazel, Mutation feodale, 2nd edn., pp. 235-40 (Feudal Transformation,
pp. 151-5).
THE "FEUDAL REVOLUTION" 21
IV
The invasions had ended — or at least the foreign ones had. But
there were more armed and fortified men about than ever, more
people to dominate in growing populations, more agrarian wealth
for the taking. While violence and the arrogation of patrimonial
54
See Barthelemy, "Mutation feodale?", p. 774; Duby, Societe mdconnaise (1953),
p. 196, and (1971), p. 165.
22 PAST AND PRESENT NUMBER 142
55
See generally Lemarignier, "Dislocation d u ' p a g u s ' " ; D u b y , Trois ordres,
p p . 183-205 (Three Orders, ch. 13); Poly a n d Bournazel, Mutation feodale, 2 n d edn.
(Feudal Transformation), chs. 1, 5.
56
Goetz, "Paix de Dieu en France", p. 132.
57
Magnou-Nortier, "Place du concile du Puy", pp. 489-98.
THE "FEUDAL REVOLUTION" 23
58
D u b y , Trots ordres, p p . 183-6 (Three Orders, p p . 147-50); Moyen age, p p . 89-90
(France, p p . 55-6).
59
Records cited in nn. 44, 50.
60
D u b y , Trois ordres, p . 189 (Three Orders, p . 153).
61
Bonnassie, Catalogue, i, p p . 2 0 9 - 1 1 , a n d ii, chs. 13, 14.
24 PAST AND PRESENT NUMBER 142
Picardy the proliferation of castles and fiefs was delayed until the
twelfth century. But knights multiplied with castles and their
masters in other regions, perhaps first on the model of episcopal
lordships in old Frankish lands.62
The changes here in question have a further and more consider-
able feudal dimension which has been little noticed by historians
of the millennium. Imagine the plight of castellans trying to
secure the fidelity of their knights. None too faithful themselves
to traditional obligations, these lords on the take were vulnerable
to every temptation and liability of betrayal. What were the
62
Poly, Provence, p p . 137-8; R o b e r t Fossier, La terre et les hommes en Picardie
jusqu'd la fin du XUIe siecle, 2 vote. (Paris, 1968), ii p t 3; Poly a n d Bournazel, Mutation
feodale, 2 n d e d n . , p . 132 (Feudal Transformation, p p . 64-5).
63
Richer, Histoire de France, iv.74-8, 8 0 (ed. L a t o u c h e , ii, p p . 2 6 6 - 7 5 , 276-8);
Historia Francorum Senonensis (ed. Georg Waitz, M . G . H . , S S , ix, H a n o v e r , 1851,
p. 369); Eudes de Saint-Maur, Vie de Bouchard, ed. Bourel de La Ronciere, pp. 18-19.
"Richer, Histoire de France, iv.78, 80 (ed. Latouche, ii, pp. 272, 276-8); Lot,
Hugues Capet, pp. 159-63. One is reminded of the case of Ganelon in the (Oxford)
Roland, 11. 3765-75 (ed. F. Whitehead, La Chanson de Roland, Oxford, 1970, p. 110).
THE "FEUDAL REVOLUTION" 25
68
Abbo of Fleury, Collectio canonum, iv (P.L., cxxxix, col. 478).
69
Die Briefsammlung Gerberts von Reims (ed. Fritz Weigle, M . G . H . , Die Briefe der
deutschen Kaiserzeit, ii, Weimar, 1966, nos. 107, 112).
70
The Letters and Poems of Fulbert of Chartres, ed. Frederick Behrends (Oxford,
1976), nos. 51, 9, 10.
THE "FEUDAL REVOLUTION" 27
V
Violence — violence in deed and word — , the accelerated
diffusion of powers of command among more and more lords
dispensing knights' fiefs, institutional reaction: the Peace of God,
newly realistic vocabulary, the regulation of knightly and vassalic
fidelity. Once only these events and signs coincided: at the end
of the tenth century and for a few years thereafter. Some (besides
knights) may have thought the Peace an over-reaction, but during
the 1020s the king's authority itself was reduced to seigneurial
means of expression; security and public justice collapsed in
explosive violence in Catalonia and Provence; and new efforts to
pacify and discipline the strong in Francia and Aquitaine betray
desperation. By the middle of the eleventh century people had
ceased to think of the king and the princes as guarantors of
social order.
This may be likened to a revolution (as well as a revelation)
because it confirmed, rewarded and institutionalized the subvers-
75
Briefsammlung Gerbertt von Reims (ed. Weigle, n o . 125); Gerbert of R e i m s , "Acta
concilii Remensis" (P.L., cxxxix, col. 310).
76
Gerbert of Reims, "Acta concilii Remensis" (P.L., cxxxix, cols. 289-96).
77
Elisabeth Magnou-Nortier, "Fidelite et feodalite meridionales d'apres les ser-
ments de fidelite, Xe — debut du Xlle siecle", Annales du Midi, lxxx (1968),
pp. 464-5.
THE "FEUDAL REVOLUTION" 29
83
Moyen age, p. 98 (my translation; cf. France, p. 65).
84
Ecclesiastical History of Orderic Vitalis, viii.5, 16 (ed. Chibnall, iv, p p . 158-60,
228-30); Henry of Huntingdon, "Epistola de contemptu mundi", in Henrici archidia-
coni Huntendunensis historia Anglorum, ed. T. Arnold (London, 1879), pp. 308-10;
Suger, Vie de Louis VI, chs. 7, 24 (ed. Waquet); The Letters and Charters of Gilbert
Foliot, ed. A. Morey and C. N. L. Brooke (Cambridge, 1967), no. 3; Bisson, "Crisis
of the Catalonian franchises", pp. 161-5. I am not persuaded by Francois-Olivier
Touati, "Violence seigneuriale, quelle violence? Le point de vue d'un observateur
revolte et partial au debut du XHe siecle: Guibert de Nogent", Violence et contestation
au moyen age (Actes du 114e congres national des Societes savantes, 1989, section
d'histoire medievale et de philologie, Paris, 1990), pp. 47-57. Guibert's exaggerations
hardly exonerate a "tyranny" recorded by several sources; cf. Dominique Barthelemy,
Les deux ages de la seigneurie banale: pouvoir et sociite dans la terre des sires de Coucy,
milieu Xle — milieu Xllle siecle (Paris, 1984), pp. 69-99.
32 PAST AND PRESENT NUMBER 142
85
the good and gentle but also to the wicked ones"? An unsure
line marked off the perversity acceptable to the clergy in the
name of order from that they denounced in the name of peace.
Lords at Laon must have learned gratefully of the archbishop's
sermon on the Petrine text in 1114, dwelling as it did on the
sufferance of "hard and greedy" masters; perhaps not accidentally
one of those lords, Thomas de Marie himself, carried on a singu-
larly ferocious reign of rural terror in the next few years.86 Such
ideas were widely held in these generations when new forms of
servility were becoming customary. In bitterly ironic hyperbole
fn. 88 com.)
to die by starvation a n d violence, especially in Yorkshire)". See also iii (ii, p. 90),
and v.19 (iii, p. 194).
89
Eadmeri historia novorum in Anglia, ed. Martin Rule (London, 1884), p p . 192-3,
trans. Geoffrey Bosanquet, Eadmer's History of Recent Events in England (London,
1964), p . 205.
90
See generally Carl Stephenson, " T h e Origin and N a t u r e of t h e taille", Revue
beige de philologie et d'histoire, v (1926), p p . 801-70, repr. in B. D . Lyon (ed.),
Mediaeval Institutions: Selected Essays (Ithaca, 1954), p p . 41-103; La chronique de
Morigny, 1095-1152, ed. Leon Mirot (Paris, 1912), p p . 5-6; See, Classes rurales et le
regime domanial, p p . 479-82.
91
Historia Karoli Magni el Rotholandi, ou Chronique du Pseudo- Turpin, ch. 11 (ed.
C. Meredith Jones, Paris, 1936, p . 121); Gualbertus, De miraculis S. Rictrudis, ii. 1
(Acta sanctorum, ed. Bollandus, Maii, iii, p . 133).
92
Fiscal Accounts of Catalonia under the Early Count-Kings, 1151-1213, ed. T . N .
Bisson, 2 vols. (Berkeley, 1984), ii, no. 144.
93
M y translation from t h e source q u o t e d b y Bloch, Societe feodale, ii, p . 199 {Feudal
Society, p . 411).
94
Cortes de los antiguos reinos de Aragon y de Valencia y principado de CataluHa, 26
vols. (Madrid, 1896-1922), i, p. 86. See also Paul Freedman, The Origins of Peasant
Servitude in Medieval Catalonia (Cambridge, 1991), chs. 3, 4.
34 PAST AND PRESENT NUMBER 142
VI
For by this time we have come full circle. The tenacious survival
of customary violence may seem out of phase with the revival of
administrative power in the twelfth century. Had not rulers like
Louis VI and Henry I long since suppressed the terrorism of
fortified lordships? Historians impressed with their success would
95
Historia Gaufredi, i ( i n Chroniques des comtes d'Anjou el des seigneurs d'Amboise, i,
ed. Louis Halphen a n d Rene Poupardin, Paris, 1913, p p . 183-91).
96
Abbo of Fleury, Collectio canonum, ii (P.L., cxxxix, col. 477): " q u i se putant
non jam advocatos sed dominos". See also Historia miraculorum [S. Rictrudis], iii.3
(Acta sanctorum, ed. Bollandus, Maii, p . 93E): "Sed erat miles ex adverso, cui nomen
Osbertus, qui villae ipsius advocationem sibi usurpaverat, n o n tamen advocatus sed
tyrannus (But there was opposed a knight named Osbert w h o had usurped the
advocacy of that village for himself, yet n o t an advocate b u t a t y r a n t ) " .
97
Miracles de Saint Benoit, viii.2 (ed. de Certain, pp. 278-9).
98
Catalogue des actes d'Henri Ier, roi de France, 1031-1060, e d . F r e d e r i c Soehnee
(Paris, 1907), no. 109; Lemarignier, Gouvernement royal, p. 157.
36 PAST AND PRESENT NUMBER 142
ments and exactions in the Ile-de-France." At Chartres towards
1114 the provosts of the canons had diminished the patrimony
and afflicted the peasants, rapaciously exacting money, grain,
animals and fowl; "and", wrote Bishop Ivo, "they were sending
their sergeants on horseback through the prevotes, demanding
grain from peasants as if they were lords"; they had "prodigious
meals" got up for them, imposed reliefs and sold marriage
licenses; struck and imprisoned people, etc., all without the chap-
ter's approval. 10° In Flanders the castellans at Saint-Omer gouged
the townspeople "unjustly and violently" by demanding an
99
Henri Gravier, Essai sur les prevots royaux du Xle au XlVe stick (Paris, 1904),
pp. 66-7.
100
Cartulaire de Notre-Dame de Chartres, ed. E. de Lepinois and Lucien Merlet, 3
vols. (Chartres, 1862-5), i, no. 33. Forty years later the situation had hardly improved,
see nos. 57, 58.
101
"Le privilege de Saint-Omer de 1127", ed. Georges Espinas, Revue du Nord,
xxix (1947), pp. 45-8, art. 15.
102
Ecclesiastical History of Orderic Vitalis, iv (ed. Chibnall, ii, p. 202); William of
Malmesbury, Historia novella, ii.43 (ed. Potter, p. 41).
103
Benjamin Arnold, German Knighthood, 1050-1300 (Oxford, 1985), pp. 48-9.
104
Ferdinando Guterbock, "Alia vigilia della Lega Lombarda: il dispotismo dei
vicari imperiali a Piacenza: documenti", Archivo storico italiano, xcv (1937), pp. 64-77.
Karl Leyser drew this evidence to my notice.
THE "FEUDAL REVOLUTION" 37
120
Barthelemy, "Mutation feodale?", pp. 771-2.
121
Letter to Bishop Hermann of Metz (15 March 1081), viii.21, Das Register Gregors
VII (ed. Erich Caspar, 2 vols., M.G.H., Epistolae selectae, Berlin, 1920-3, ii, p. 552).
Cf. I. S. Robinson, Authority and Resistance in the Investiture Contest: The Polemical
Literature of the Late Eleventh Century (Manchester, 1978), p. 132.