Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of maps
- List of tables
- Acknowledgements
- List of abbreviations
- INTRODUCTION
- 1 LEÓN AND CASTILE IN THE TWELFTH CENTURY
- 2 CLASS, FAMILY AND HOUSEHOLD
- 3 THE LINEAMENTS OF POWER
- 4 THE NOBILITY AND THE CROWN
- 5 A WARRIOR ARISTOCRACY
- 6 PIETY AND PATRONAGE
- CONCLUSION
- Appendix 1 The counts of twelfth-century León and Castile
- Appendix 2 Select genealogies
- Appendix 3 Select charters
- Glossary of Spanish terms
- Bibliography
- Index
- Cambridge Studies in Medieval Life and Thought Fourth series
3 - THE LINEAMENTS OF POWER
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 17 November 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of maps
- List of tables
- Acknowledgements
- List of abbreviations
- INTRODUCTION
- 1 LEÓN AND CASTILE IN THE TWELFTH CENTURY
- 2 CLASS, FAMILY AND HOUSEHOLD
- 3 THE LINEAMENTS OF POWER
- 4 THE NOBILITY AND THE CROWN
- 5 A WARRIOR ARISTOCRACY
- 6 PIETY AND PATRONAGE
- CONCLUSION
- Appendix 1 The counts of twelfth-century León and Castile
- Appendix 2 Select genealogies
- Appendix 3 Select charters
- Glossary of Spanish terms
- Bibliography
- Index
- Cambridge Studies in Medieval Life and Thought Fourth series
Summary
Notwithstanding the widespread acceptance of the term ‘feudalism’ into the historical lexicon, historians have been utterly divided over its meaning. On the one hand, there have been those for whom the feudal system was above all a political-institutional means of military organisation - based upon vassalage and the fief- within the ranks of the upper classes. On the other, there have been those, like Marc Bloch, for whom ‘feudal society’ embraced not just the warrior élite, but the dependent peasantry too. Indeed, from a strictly Marxist viewpoint, ‘feudalism’ represented nothing less than a system of economic production which relied upon the subjection and exploitation of the rural population by the nobility and the church. In Spain, however, the ‘feudal debate’ has taken on peculiar characteristics of its own. Until twenty years ago, the consensus among scholars was that the Muslim invasion of the eighth century had prevented feudalism from fully taking root in the peninsula. The wars of reconquest against the Muslims strengthened royal authority, so the argument ran, and made it possible for large numbers of free peasants to keep powerful secular and ecclesiastical lords at arm's length. Accordingly, the medieval kingdoms of León, Castile, Aragón and Navarre (Catalonia was a different case entirely) could not possibly be considered feudal states, for they had simply grafted a series of foreign institutions (based on vassalage and the fief) onto existing social structures towards the end of the eleventh century.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Aristocracy in Twelfth-Century León and Castile , pp. 67 - 103Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1997