Medieval Communities

""Malgré un paysage rural marqué par l'aridité du climat, des conditions de vie âpres et difficiles et un peuplement dispersé qui ignore le rassemblement en village, l'Islande médiévale a su produire une institution originale, les hreppar. Cette organisation que nous traduirons en français par "communauté d'habitants" offre un modèle unique d'assistance aux pauvres et de solidarité rurale dans l'ensemble du monde nordique. L'institution obéit à des codes très précis, comme l'atteste la section consacrée aux indigents, dans le recueil de loi rédigé en langue vernaculaire (vieil-islandais) et connu sous le nom de Grágás. On y apprend par exemple que les membres se réunissent deux fois par an pour célébrer une libation et un festin rituel et offrir des "dons de nourriture" (matgjafir) aux indigents.

Le présent article reprend le dossier concernant l'origine des hreppar tout en proposant une nouvelle explication tenant compte d'autres structures contemporaines, comme les ghildes norvégiennes ou anglo-saxonnes et les institutions charitables de l'Église. L'introduction de la dîme et sa codification au tournant du XIe siècle semble marquer la véritable naissance du hreppur comme organisation de secours mutuel et d'assistance, offrant un encadrement des individus les plus pauvres et leur permettant de survivre malgré leur précarité.

L'article ne s'occupera que de la première phase de développement des hreppar. Il ne prendra pas en compte les développements ultérieurs des communautés d'habitants, notamment en rapport avec la nouvelle société seigneuriale qui se développe dans l'Islande du XIIIe siècle.""

That the increasing fiscal pressure of monarchs facilitated the emergence of local identities in Late Medieval Catalonia is commonly accepted, particularly in respect to urban soil. However, there is comparatively much less knowledge of the chances of this happening in those Catalan estates under baronial lordship. 
A mere glance at sources issued by public notaries subjected to the authority of those high nobles reveals that, at least in some cases, local communities evolved similarly to their royal counterparts, thus developing legal personalities that preserved their communal traits and made them capable of defending themselves against abuse or limiting further seigneurial demands.
In these baronial contexts, local communal identities and their legal personalities appear to have adopted a public discourse that not only exposed a clear, respectful, and therefore cautious recognition of the reality of power relationships, but also tell us much about negotiation processes that initially are not expected from feudal nobility. Yet those identities arose of an acknowledgement that the future of noble lordship in such an age of crisis would depend mainly on fostering acceptancy by granting privileges. In return, barons may even have relied on this strategy to obtain immediate political and military support when necessary. 
The estates of the viscounts of Cabrera (one of the more powerful and long-lasting lineages of the Medieval Catalan high nobility) provide us with some instances of this kind. In this sense,
the aim of this paper is to show when and how communal identities began to emerge in the Cabrera states; in which manner they used discourse to ensure that their otherwise evolving legal personalities were respected; and, finally, how their building strengthened bonds between viscounts and subjects to the extent of creating a true belief in the legitimacy of defending the former against whatever foe, even the king himself.

Les historiens médiévistes hésitent à parler d’État ou de nation quand ils évoquent les entités politiques du Moyen Âge central ; quand il s’agit de désigner une entité politique correspondant à une province, le terme royaume – parfois même en l’absence d’un roi – est moins conflictuel. Existait-il pour autant des communautés politiques spécifiques à l’échelle des royaumes, des « communautés de royaume » ? D’ailleurs, dans plusieurs régions d’Occident, l’usage du syntagme communitas regni caractérisait plutôt la terminologie des programmes politiques des mouvements d’opposition au roi. Les contributions réunies dans ce volume prennent toutefois appui sur cette notion pour proposer un questionnement renouvelé des fondements politiques d’une partie de l’Occident médiéval (Scandinavie, Empire, France, Angleterre et Écosse, pays tchèques), afin de comprendre ce qui en faisait la singularité.

Цель статьи – попытка переосмыслить некоторые традиционные
историографические представления о характере эволюции местного рыцарства в Центральной Испании в XI – середине XIV вв. Представлению о «демократическом» или «народном» рыцарстве (caballeros villanos)
автор противопоставляет тщательный анализ источников по локальной
истории из архива города Сепульведа. Данные местных городских хартий (фуэро), а также актовый материал свидетельствуют о том, что в своей эволюции местное сепульведское рыцарство прошло те же этапы, что и представители того же социального слоя за Пиренеями. А именно – от статуса незнатных профессиональных конников до низшей страты господствующего феодального класса. Основным объектом анализа являются военные функции, правовое положение, источники доходов и формы самосознания местного рыцарства Сепульведы в указанный период.

The gap between written law (lex scripta) and legal practice has long been a problem that medieval historians have had to confront.  The content of written law does not necessarily envisage structures for its own enforcement nor were the texts themselves cited when disputes arose and accusations were made on the ground.  Indeed, it is often thought that written law was solely the preserve of the literate and specialist elite, whether they be legal specialists or churchmen.  How written law could be enforced, particularly in societies which had a comparatively low level of literacy in comparison with modern ones, is thought to be hard to see.  Previous solutions have either understood written law to be a form of political ideology with little practical import or have stopped using written law altogether as evidence for any form of social practice or regulative force.  This paper offers a different perspective on an old problem: that of the enforcement of written law.  It compares three written legal traditions from tenth- and eleventh-century Anglo-Saxon England and twelfth- and thirteenth-century Wales and Scotland.  Despite being produced in very different legal contexts, and in within very different political structures, this paper argues that all three contain a common expectation that individuals in the locality should actively participate in maintaining legal order when transgressions occurred.  Indeed, in two of the three traditions – Wales and Anglo-Saxon England – there were explicit consequences for not doing so.  Moreover, these ‘individuals’ responsible for upholding order were expected to be socially and legally embedded in their communities, through the ties of kin, lordship, friendship and suretyship.  The relative absence of top-down structures for enforcement thus does not have to be a problem: written law took as its subject the values and structures already present in the locality and then repackaged them on the wider and more general level of a kingdom or a people.  All three legal traditions thus contained a common expectation of enforcement of the legal order in the localities that existed despite differences in political suprastructure (a developing strong state in England; a minimal central power in Wales).  The content of written law absorbed and was informed by the values and socio-legal networks of an abstracted local community.  Seeing enforcement as a ‘problem’ that the drafters of written law failed to confront – or did not think they needed to confront – is thus to misunderstand the communal logics that informed most of the particular prescriptions and norms conveyed by lex scripta examined here.