England and the Continent in the Ninth Century

Iii, Rights and Rituals

Bibliographic Data

ID11005228
AuthorsJanet L Nelson (corresponding author)
Year2004
Volume14
Pages1-24
Publication date2004-12-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueTransactions of the Royal Historical Society (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0080-4401 • E-ISSN: 1474-0648
PublisherCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/s0080440104000052
OpenAlexW2156926433
LanguageEN
Citations received10

This essay aims to show that in England and on the Continent, ninth-century individuals and groups in a wide variety of social milieux from peasants to substantial landowners, and including women, had a strong sense of rights to status and property that were rational in something like the modern sense while surrounded by rituals that seem very un-modern. Un-modern, too, seem the terms on which rights were held, and the forms and contexts in which rights were negotiated and renegotiated between local holders, lords and kings. With reference to material from Wessex and from various parts of the Carolingian Empire, it is suggested that the linkage of rights and rituals was symptomatic of sophisticated cultures with apt ways of managing conflict and creating consensus in localities and in kingdoms. The so-called decimation of King Æthelwulf is discussed as a meaningful case in point

Ancient history · Empire · Genealogy · Inheritance (genetic algorithm · Kingdom · Ninth · Point (geometry · Political science · Property rights · Sociology · Variety (cybernetics · History · Law · Medieval Literature and History

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