Drawing on untapped archival records, this book provides new insights into lord-tenant relations, state formation, social inequality, political participation and everyday life in rural societies. ...This title is part of the Flip it Open Programme and may also be available Open Access. Check our website Cambridge Core for details.
In this reevaluation of the estate system, which has long been recognized as the central economic institution of medieval Japan, Thomas Keirstead argues that estates, or shoen, constituted more than ...a type of landownership. Through an examination of rent rolls, land registers, maps, and other data describing individual estates he reveals a cultural framework, one that produced and shaped meaning for residents and proprietors. Keirstead's discussion of peasant uprisings shows that the system, however, did not define a stable, closed structure, but was built upon contested terrain. Drawing on the works of Foucault,de Certeau, and Geertz, among others,this book illuminates the presuppositions about space and society that underwrote estate holding. It traces how the system reordered the social and physical landscape, establishing identity for both rulers and subjects. Estate holders, seeking to counter the fluid movement of populations across estate boundaries, pressed into service a social distinction between "peasants" and "wanderers." Peasant rebels made use of the fiction that the estate comprised a natural community in order to resist proprietorial exactions. In these instances, Keirstead contends, the estate system reveals its governing logic: social and political divisions were articulated in spatial terms; power was exercised (and contested) through geography.
Originally published in 1992.
ThePrinceton Legacy Libraryuses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These paperback editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.
The "glorious house" of the senatorial family of the Flavii Apiones is the best documented economic entity of the Roman Empire during the fifth through seventh centuries, that critical period of ...transition between the classical world and the Middle Ages. For decades, the rich but fragmentary manuscript evidence that this large agricultural estate left behind, preserved for 1,400 years by the desiccating sands of Egypt, has been central to arguments concerning the agrarian and fiscal history of Late Antiquity, including the rise of feudalism.
Wine, Wealth, and the State in Late Antique Egyptis the most authoritative synthesis concerning the economy of the Apion estate to appear to date. T. M. Hickey examines the records of the family's wine production in the sixth century in order to shed light on ancient economic practices and economic theory, as well as on the wine industry and on estate management. Based on careful study of the original manuscripts, including unpublished documents from the estate archive, he presents controversial conclusions, much at odds with the "top down" models currently dominating the scholarship.
The Low Countries-an area roughly embracing the present-day Netherlands and Belgium-formed a patchwork of varied economic and social development in the Middle Ages, with some regions displaying a ...remarkable dynamism. Manors and Markets charts the history of these vibrant economies and societies, and contrasts them with alternative paths of development, from the early medieval period to the beginning of the seventeenth century. Providing a concise overview of social and economic changes over more than a thousand years, Bas van Bavel assesses the impact of the social and institutional organization that saw the Low Countries become the most urbanized and densely populated part of Europe by the end of the Middle Ages. By delving into the early and high medieval history of society, van Bavel uncovers the foundations of the flourishing of the medieval Flemish towns and the forces that propelled Holland towards its Golden Age. Exploring the Low Countries at a regional level, van Bavel highlights the importance of localized structures for determining the nature of social transitions and economic growth. He assesses the role of manorial organization, the emergence of markets, the rise of towns, the quest for self-determination by ordinary people, and the sharp regional differences in development that can be observed in the very long run. In doing so, the book offers a significant contribution to the debate about the causes of economic and social change, both past and present. Available in OSO: http://www.oxfordscholarship.com/oso/public/content/history/9780199278664/toc.html
This report outlines investigation of the early manor at Guiting
Power, a village in the Cotswolds with Saxon origins, lying in an
area with interesting entries in the Domesday Survey of 1086.
...Excavation has shown that, during the later Saxon period, a lightly
defended compound contained a principal area of habitation, with an
adjacent, more open 'working area' partly divided by ditched
sub-enclosures, perhaps related to subsidiary settlement, or other
economic activity. This complex may have formed the main
estate-centre for a more extensive land-holding, scattered over the
northern Cotswolds, and leased from the king, its last Saxon tenant
being one 'Alwin', as sheriff of the county a thegn of
some standing. During the major economic and social changes
following the Conquest, under a change to Norman lordship, the
manorial perimeter was reinforced, and a small apsidal church was
constructed within it, now restored as a standing monument.
Subsequently, a new complex of manorial buildings was established
on a fresh site within the enclosure, the precursor of the present
parish church was constructed nearby, with further development of
manor and village into the full medieval period.
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