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I*
Thomas N. Bisson, a shrewd analyst of the "politicization" of
power after 1200, seeks the origins of the accountability of the
thirteenth century in two hundred years' experience of "bad
lordship": since 1000, the latter's agents had been multiplying
their exactions. His model appears, then, as a variant of a thesis
often argued recently: in one way or another, the feudalization
of the eleventh century was a necessary precondition for the birth
of the modern state.1 Bisson's variant, however, is novel in its
moderation; the "mutation-revolution" of the year 1000 is here
primarily political. This moderation allows him to accept some
of my criticism of "mutationism", first expressed in 1992,2 but
he tends, all the same, firmly to reject it.
The debate is in part about the importance we should attach
to a significant (but not radical) development of the written
instrument in France between 980 and 1030 or between 1020 and
1060, that is to say, in a country and at a period when it did not
yet have the major social role it acquired in the thirteenth cen-
* I am grateful to Jean Birrell for translating this Comment from the French.
1
T. N. Bisson, "The 'Feudal Revolution'", Past and Present, no. 142 (Feb. 1994),
pp. 6-42. For the thesis, see, for example, J.-P Poly and E. Bournazel, The Feudal
Transformation, 900-1200, trans. C. Higgitt (London, 1991), p. 357; J. P. Genet,
"Feodalisme et naissance de l'Etat moderne: a propos des theses de Charles Tilly",
in M. Bourin (ed.), Villes, bonnes villes, cites et capitales: etudes d'htstoire urbaine (XII'-
XVW sie'cle) offertes a Bernard Chevalier (Tours, 1989), pp. 239-46.
2
D . Barthelemy, "La mutation feodale a-t-elle eu lieu? Note critique", Annales
E.S.C., xlvii (1992), pp. 767-77; see also D. Barthelemy, "Encore le debat sur l'an
mil!", Revue histonque de droufranfats et elranger, lxxiii (1975), pp. 349-60.
THE "FEUDAL REVOLUTION" 197
3
tury. But the principal disadvantage of the "mutationist" thesis,
in my view, is that it retains notions which are too vague or
inappropriate, such as the opposition between public and private,
and "feudal society"; it thus invites the peremptory challenge to
any idea of medieval society made by the hyper-Romanist
"school" (Jean Durliat, Elisabeth Magnou-Nortier, even, to some
degree, K. F. Werner). What is needed now is to describe the
changes occurring in the period between Charlemagne and the
3
The conclusions of M. T. Clanchy are, by and large, also applicable to France:
M. T. Clanchy, From Memory to Written Record: England, 1066-1307, 2nd edn
(Oxford, 1993).
4
P. Brown, Society and the Holy in Late Antiquity (Berkeley, 1981), p. 8.
5
G. Duby, The Three Orders: Feudal Society Imagined, trans. A. Goldhammer
(Chicago, 1980), pp. 147-66
6
P. Bonnassie, La Catalogne du milieu du X' a la fin du XI' siecle, 2 vols. (Toulouse,
1975-6); P. Bonnassie, "From the Rhone to Galicia: Origins and Modalities of the
Feudal Order", in his From Slavery to Feudalism m South-Western Europe, trans
J Birrell (Cambridge, 1991), pp. 104-31.
198 PAST AND PRESENT NUMBER 152
7
F. Braudel, The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip
II, trans. S. Reynolds, 2 vols. (London, 1973), ii, p. 719.
'Bisson, "Feudal Revolution", p. 11 (my emphasis).
' G . Duby, La soaete aux XI' et XII' stecles dans la region mdconnaise, 2nd edn
(Paris, 1971; first edn, Paris, 1953), pp. 73-131: hardly a landed "seigneurie", because
it was only a unit of exploitation. See also the definition of C Violante, "La signoria
rurale nel secolo X: proposte tipologiche", Settimane dt studio del Centro itahano di
studi sull'alto medioevo, xxxviii, pt 1 (1991), pp. 329-89, esp. p. 341.1 have two articles
in press on this subject: D. Barthelemy, "Seigneurie", in J. Le Goff and J.-C. Schmitt
(eds.), Dtctionnatre raisonne de I Occident medieval (Paris, forthcoming); D.
Barthelemy, "II mito signorile degh storici francesi", in G. Dilcher and C. Violante
(eds.), La stgnona rurale net secoli X-XII (Bologna, forthcoming).
10
Bisson, "Feudal Revolution", p. 12.
11
Ibid., p. 42; cf. Barthelemy, "Mutation feodale a-t-elle eu lieu?", pp. 771-2.
THE "FEUDAL REVOLUTION" 199
12
rural change. For him, the "revolution" put an end politically
to Carolingian order. The problem is that this scenario exactly
reproduces the ideas of the old school (historians from 1840 to
1940), while changing actors and period! The role of villain passes
from the counts to the lords, and the drama takes place not
between 860 and 890 but a century and a half later.13
To historians of the last century, the feudal revolution hardly
affected the basic seigneurial structures (the villa); it consisted
(n. IS ant )
about the difficulty of enforcement. Surely it is sound historical method to seek to
know what type of facts were of interest, or not of interest, to those who drew up
the document.
16
Duby, Three Orders, p. 149. Duby's hesitation between "revolution" and "revela-
tion" is already apparent in 1953- "The profound transformations of social structure
which, in the years around 1000, would gradually be revealed" Duby, Soctete aux
XV et XII' sticks dans la region mdconnaise, 2nd edn, p. 131.
17
Bonnassie, Catalogne du milieu du X' a la fin du XI' siecle, ii, pp. 9-10.
THE "FEUDAL REVOLUTION" 201
18
J.-F. Lemarignier, Le gouvemement royal aux premiers temps capetiens (987-1108)
(Paris, 1965). Diplomatic analysis suggests a diversification of the documentary tradi-
tion, but not a pure and simple "seigneurialization" of the monarchy; it corroborates,
in addition, my view of the updating of the formulas of immunity: Barthelemy,
"Mutation feodale a-t-elle eu lieu?", p. 770.
19
O. Guyotjeannin, "Les actes de Henri I" et la chancellerie royale dans les annees
1020-1060", in Comptes rendus de I'Acaderme des inscriptions et belles-lettres (1988),
pp. 81-97.
20
Poly a n d Bournazel, Feudal Transformation, p . 5. Admittedly, recent research,
consciously, "has hardly been concerned with" the "hydra of feudalism" which "lies
in wait in the depths of historical ignorance", but this is to acknowledge that the
hydra lives on. Perhaps Poly and Bournazel should have run it to earth in their
own works!
21
Bisson, "Feudal Revolution", p. 19.
22
T. N. Bisson, "The Problem of Feudal Monarchy: Aragon, Catalonia and France"
(1975), repr. in his Medieval France and her Pyrenean Neighbours (London, 1989),
pp. 237-55, esp. pp. 243-7.
202 PAST AND PRESENT NUMBER 152
1
Otto Brunner, "Land" and Lordship. Structures of Governance in Medieval Austria.,
trans. Howard Kaminsky and James Van Horn Melton (Philadelphia, 1992), p. 4.
2
Comments on eleventh-century violence are based largely on evidence from source
collections abbreviated as follows: A: Cartulaire de I'abbaye de Samt-Aubin d'Angers,
ed. Bertrand de Broussillon, 3 vols. (Paris, 1903); MB: Marmoutier: cartulaire blesois,
ed. Charles Metais (Blois, 1889-91); MD: Cartulaire de Marmoutier pour le Dunots,
ed. Emile Mabille (Chateaudun, 1874); MM: Cartulaire manceau de Marmoutier, ed.
E. Laurain, 3 vols. (Laval, 1911-45); MP: Cartulaire de Marmoutier pour le Perche,
ed. Philibert Barret (Mortagne, 1894); MS Lwre des serfs de Marmoutier, ed. A.
Salmon (Pans, 1845); MV: Cartulaire de Marmoutier pour le Vendomms, ed. Charles
Auguste de Tremault (Vendome, 1893); N Cartulaire de I'abbaye de Noyers, ed. C.
Chevalier (Memoires de la Societe archeologique de Touraine, xxn, Tours, 1872); T:
Cartulaire de I'abbaye cardtnale de la Tnnile de Vendome, ed. Charles Metais, 5 vols.
(Paris, 1893-1904); V: Cartulaire de I'abbaye de Saint-Vincent du Mans, ed. R. Charles
and Menjot d'Elbenne, 2 vols. (Mamers, 1886-1913). Space permits only a few
references to these sources.
Many charters include one or more of the following terms: vis: A 160 (1056-60);
V 310 (1080-1100); molentta and derivatives: MD 116 (1050-60); MV 87 (after 1062),
T 460 (1124-30); V 310 (1080-1100); A 218 (1060-7); inqmetare: A 640 (1106); MB
26 (after 1044); MD 26 (1070-2); vexare: A 640 (1106); fattgare: A 626 (1107-10);
injuna and derivatives A 220 (1080-2); MV 91 (1050-63); N 194 (c.1090); T 429
(before 1115); dam(p)num: A 887 (c.1080); MB 86 (1062); MV 57 (1064); T 429
(before 1115); V 369 (1080-96); mala: A 826 (1082-1106); V 369 (1080-96); MV 30
(c.1050); MD 57 (1084-1100); T 174 (1060-4); molestiae: A 235 (1087-1109); MB 74
(1092-1101); MV 11 (1072); T 439 (1122); V 564 (1090-6); rapina or derivatives: A
90 (1067-82); MV 57 (1064); T 251 (1075), V 753 (c.1060); preda or derivatives: A
284 (n.d.); MB 28 (c.1050); MV 42 (1064); V 308 (1080-1100)