Violence in Medieval Europe

Medieval Violence is generally cast by modern popular media in two contradictory ways: either as a reflection of medieval brutality and lawlessness or as the basis for a romantic life of freedom, glory and honour. This book will introduce students to the questions and evidence that are driving current debates about whether and to what degree violence characterized medieval Europe.

· This is the first book to draw together a diverse scholarship into a narrative about violence across the entire Middle Ages.

· Warren Brown includes many real life examples to capture the imagination of the student and the interested reader

· Provides a synthesis of recent and classic scholarship about medieval violence, conflict, and power in all of the relevant languages and is based on primary sources that are readily available in English translation

The author focuses on violence used by individuals or small groups within a given society as a tool for achieving personal or political ends and/or for expressing emotion.

The question of violence understood in this way dominates current efforts to understand power and political order in medieval societies. For example, it occupies centre stage in debates over the co-called 'feudal revolution' of the first millennium and over the development of national states in the later Middle Ages. These discussions hinge on the following questions: did violence subvert political order or help to uphold and maintain it? How did the relationship between violence and political order change over time? What did 'peace' mean and what did violence have to do with it? Scholars have often told the story of violence and power in the Middle Ages as one in which 'private' violence threatened and sometimes destroyed 'public' order. Yet some academics are asking to what degree violence that we might call 'private', in contrast to the violence wielded by a central authority, might have been part of a viable alternative or complementary order, or at least might have been understood and legitimised in this way by its practitioners. Following this line of thought, Warren C. Brown will focus on the question of whether violence was an acceptable element of social and political relationships in medieval Europe, and, if so, when and how, and for whom. He will show that the story of medieval political order is in large part a story of conflict and competition over whose norms of violence would prevail and be broadly accepted as legitimate.

Warren C. Brown is Associate Professor of History at California Institute of Technology. His previous publications include 'Unjust Seizure: Conflict, Interest, and Authority in Early Medieval Society' (Cornell University Press).