Rancor and Reconciliation in Medieval England / / Paul R. Hyams.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter Cornell University Press Backlist 2000-2013
• VerfasserIn: Hyams, Paul R.,
• Place / Publishing House: Ithaca, NY : : Cornell University Press, , [2018]; ©2003
• Year of Publication: 2018
• Language: English
• Series: Conjunctions of Religion and Power in the Medieval Past
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (376 p.)

Duels and bloodfeuds have long been regarded as essentially Continental phenomena, counter to the staid and orderly British ways of settling differences. In this surprising work of social and legal history, Paul R. Hyams reveals a post-Conquest England not all that different from the realms across the Channel. Drawing on a wide range of texts and the long history of argument about these texts, Hyams shatters the myth of English exceptionalism, the notion that while feud and vengeance prevailed in the lands of the Franks, England had advanced beyond such anarchic barbarism by the time of the Conquest and forged a centralized political and legal system. This book provides support for the notion that feud and vengeance flourished in England long beyond the Conquest, and that this fact obliges us to reconsider the genealogies of both common law and the English monarchy.Moving back and forth between a broad overview of 300 years of legal history and the details of specific disputes, Hyams attends to the demands of individuals who believed that they had been aggrieved and sought remedy. He shows how individuals perceived particular acts of violence and responded to them. These reactions, in turn, sparked central efforts to manage disputes and thereby establish law and order. Respectable litigation, however, never eclipsed the danger of direct action, often violent and physical.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- CONTENTS -- INTRODUCTION -- NOTE ON SOURCES AND CITATIONS -- ABBREVIATIONS -- PART I. Approaches to the Study ofWrong -- CHAPTER ONE. UNDERSTANDING FEUD AND FRIENDSHIP -- CHAPTER TWO. SOCIAL EMOTIONS IN A CULTURE OF VENGEANCE -- PART II. Undifferentiated Wrong and Its Redress -- CHAPTER THREE. REDRESS FOR WRONG IN THE GOVERNANCE OF LATE ANGLO-SAXON ENGLAND -- CHAPTER FOUR. VENGEANCEANDPEACE~NG IN THE CENTURY AFTER THE NORMAN CONQUEST -- CHAPTER FIVE. COMMON LAW AND CENTRAL ORDER IN ANGEVIN ENGLAND -- PART III. An Enmity Culture: Writs, Wrongs, and Vengeance in the Age of the Common Law -- CHAPTER SIX. WRONGS AND THEIR RIGHTING IN THE EARLY COMMON LAW -- CHAPTER SEVEN. THE DIFFERENTIATION OF WRONGS: TRESPASS AND THE APPEAL -- CHAPTER EIGHT. WAS THERE AN ENMITY CULTURE IN THIRTEENTH CENTURY ENGLAND? -- APPENDIX: Case Narratives -- BIBLIOGRAPHY -- INDEX -- VOLUMES IN THE SERIES