State and Society in the Early Middle Ages: The Middle Rhine Valley, 400–1000 (Cambridge Studies in Medieval Life and Thought: Fourth Series Book 47)

by Matthew Innes

What follows is divided into two parts. In the first, consisting of chapters 2-5, I adopt a broadly `horizontal' approach, focusing on the `source-rich' Carolingian period and analysing the fundamentals of social and political organisation. I begin by attempting to explain precisely why the Carolingian period is so well documented, examining the relationship between monasteries and lay society. I go on to examine the nature of landownership and the relationships between kinship, social status and the land; the texture of power, the places at which collective action took place, and the activities of those who ruled this society; and, finally, the ability of the political centre to impinge on the locality, to raise armies and tap the agrarian surplus. None of these discussions, however, stays wholly rooted in the Carolingian period, or presents a picture of stasis; they glance forward and back, and attempt to locate the vivid Carolingian evidence in longer patterns of development. I then present a diachronic analysis of the process of political change. Within this analysis, I offer a history of middle Rhenish politics from the late Roman period to the eleventh century - not a conventional political narrative so much as an analysis of changing political structures and the key points in their evolution. In conclusion, I identify the key characteristics of the political structures of the early medieval west, and trace the