From slavery to feudalism in south-western Europe (review)

Short Notices Bonnassie, Pierre, From slavery to feudalism in south-western Europe, trans. Jean Birrell, (Past and Present publications), Cambridge and Paris, Cambridge University Press and Maison des sciences de l'homme, 1991; cloth; pp. xii, 352; 2 maps, tables; R.R.P. AUS$120.00. The change from slavery to feudalism is a central part of the development historians are learning to call the 'feudal mutation' or the 'feudal revolution'. These phrases describe the rapid and violent collapse of an ancient public order around the year 1000 in the face of a new regime of lordship based on casdes, knights, and the seigneurie banale. Pierre Bonnassie has been a major figure in the construction of this historical model. The articles translated for this volume, originally published between 1968 and 1992, address both the model as a whole and the specific role played in it by slavery and servitude. Although the themes of the collection are masked by an awkward organization, perhaps inevitable repetitions, and the inclusion of a survey of Visigothic society that is only tangentially relevant, nevertheless, From slavery to feudalism represents a major contribution to the study of the transformation of medieval societies. It offers a powerful evocation of the social disparities and the violence that characterized this period of history. Several essays are closely tied to Bonnassie's fundamental work on Catalonia. A chapter of his 1973 these d'etat, published in 1975-76, describes the simultaneous rise of a new nobility and the descent of the peasantry into a new servitude in the eleventh and early-twelfth centuries. The richness of the Catalan documentation is in full evidence here, especially in the table itemizing the moveable wealth of a member of the 'old' nobility (pp. 238-42). Other essays examine the feudal conventions (convenientiae) that were a hallmark of the new order and the passage of once free Catalan rural communities into various states of enfranchisement and enserfment under the new regimes. A close reading of the miracles of Sainte-Foy extracts information on casdes of the Midi from an unexpected source. 'The formation of Catalan feudalism and its early expansion' presents Bonnassie's work in the light of later research and gives a sense of the new directions in the study of the history of Catalonia. The most 302 Short notices ambitious essay, 'From the Rhone to Galicia', attempts to extend the Catalan model of change to Languedoc and northern Spain. Chronological disparities mar the elegance of its argument, but die common characteristics of these societies of south-western Europe remain worth pursuing. It is the three articles that examine questions of slavery and servitude in a wider European context that will be of the most interest to non-specialists. In 'The survival and extinction of the slave system in die early medieval West', the finest piece in the book, Bonnassie demonstrates the persistence of ancient slavery up to the eleventh century and examines the reasons for its disappearance. 'From one servitude to another' considers the moment of transition, when slavery was vanishing and the free peasantry began to oppose, sometimes violently, the imposition of the new servitude that accompanied theriseof the seigneurie banale. Thefinalessay, a homage to Marc Bloch, examines die life of the peasantry under diat new servitude, a life that seems to have been only slightly better dian diat of the slaves of the early Middle Ages. Adam Kosto Department of History Harvard University Erlande-Brandenburg, Alain, The cathedral builders of the Middle Ages, Thames and Hudson, 1995; paper; pp. 175; 165 illustrations; R.R.P AUSS19.95. This lavishly illustrated small volume is a delight. Much of its charm is due to the gorgeous colour plates but die text is also intelligent and informative. It is not a 'scholarly' work but it offers a general perspective on medieval architecture for die non-specialist reader. The four chapters are strictly architectural in focus; for example, Chapter One, 'A new world', makes no attempt to portray medieval society but lists the kinds of buildings such a society required and die technical innovations which made it possible to erect them. The remaining diree chapters progress through 'The architect', with details of known individuals...