Re-Thinking Kinship and Feudalism in Early Medieval Europe

Contents: Introduction; Maitland on family and kinship; The invention of English individualism: Alan Macfarlane and the modernization of pre-modern England (with Richard T. Vann); Clotild's revenge: politics, kinship, and ideology in the Merovingian blood feud; Kinship and lordship in early medieval England: the story of Sigeberht, Cynewulf, and Cyneheard; The discourse of inheritance in 12th-century France: alternative models of the fief in 'Raoul de Cambrai'; English feudalism and its origins; Stratégie rhétorique dans la Conventio de Hugues de Lusignan; The politics of fidelity in early 11th-century France: Fulbert of Chartres, William of Aquitaine, and Hugh of Lusignan; Book review: Susan Reynolds, Fiefs and vassals: the medieval evidence reinterpreted; The politics of exchange: gifts, fiefs, and feudalism; Giving fiefs and honor: largesse, avarice, and the problem of 'feudalism' in Alexander's testament; Service for fiefs or fiefs for service: the politics of reciprocity; A crisis of fidelity in c.1000?; Index.