The Birth of Nobility: Constructing

What is the real story of the history of medieval aristocracy? For 300 years scholars in Britain and France have been working industriously to explain the idea of medieval aristocracy. This book is the first attempt at reconciling English and French ideas about aristocracy, and shaping them into a new debate. Reinvents the debate on historiography Summarises and assesses three centuries of work

David Crouch is Professor of Medieval History at the University of Hull

List of plates

x

Acknowledgements

xi

Foreword

xii

Introduction

1

(4)

PART ONE : NOBLE CONDUCT

5

(92)

Reconstructing Chivalry

7

(22)

Preaching Chivalry

8

(6)

Chivalry in Retreat, 1884--1984

14

(7)

Towards Secularism: The Kingdom of Courtliness

21

(8)

From Preudommie to Chevalerie

29

(58)

Noble Conduct before Chivalry: The Preudomme

30

(7)

Courtliness and the Court before 1170

37

(9)

Creating Chivalry: the Noble Habitus

46

(34)

The Appearance of the Code of Chivalry, 1170--1220

80

(7)

Out of the Iron Age

87

(10)

PART TWO : NOBLE DESCENT

97

(74)

Constructing Families

99

(25)

The Age of Durkheim: The `Law' of Family Contraction

101

(9)

The Age of Levi-Strauss: Unstructuring Families

110

(6)

Noble Primogeniture and Lineage in England

116

(5)

New Models of Noble Lineage

121

(3)

The Power of Lineage

124

(32)

Lineage and the Search for Distinction

124

(11)

Parage and the Search for Security

135

(13)

Defending Lineage and Parage

148

(8)

Inventing Snobbery

156

(15)

The Evidence of Heraldry

156

(6)

The Evidence of Death

162

(5)

The Evidence of Literature

167

(4)

PART THREE : NOBLE CLASS

171

(88)

Historians and Noble Class

173

(49)

The British and Class

174

(6)

Explaining Class Formation

180

(11)

Transforming Society

191

(16)

A New Theory of Class Formation: `Cultural Diffusion'

207

(6)

Class Mobility

213

(9)

Medieval People and Social Division

222

(31)

Religious Models of Society

223

(5)

Materialistic Divisions

228

(4)

Early Social Categories

232

(6)

Inventing Social Boundaries

238

(15)

The Precocity of England

253

(6)

PART FOUR : NOBLE LORDSHIP

259

(64)

The Feudal Debate

261

(18)

Enlightenment and Romantic Feudalisms

261

(4)

Britain and the Feudal System after 1900

265

(8)

French Feudalism

273

(6)

Power and Structures

279

(24)

The Honor

280

(12)

Locality: Community and Affinity

292

(5)

Comparing France and England

297

(6)

Noble Women : The View from the Stands

303

(20)

Women in Historiography

304

(4)

The Minimalist View

308

(5)

Maximising the View

313

(6)

Women at Large

319

(4)

Select Bibliography

323

(32)

Index

355

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The Birth of Nobility: Constructing Aristocracy in England and France, 900-1300

Summary

Author Biography

Table of Contents

Supplemental Materials