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Internet Medieval Sourcebook
Selected Sources: Crisis? Collapse? Recovery?
Contents
External Attacks: Vikings: Magyars: Arabs
Vikings
- Claudia Rapp and Johannes Prieser-Kapeller, eds.. Mobility and Migration in Byzantium; A Sourcebook [At Vr-elibrary.de] PDF [Internet Archive version here]
Five hundred pages of translations into English on sources about migration in Byzantium. Includes both internal migration, and sections on Jews, Slavs, Armenians, Varangians (Norse), Catalans, Turks, and in relation to the Crusades. Gender-related migration is also covered.
- Viking
and Hungarian Raiders late 9th Cent. [Internet Archive, was at Hillsdale]
-
Ibn Fadlan. Risala 921 CE [At
VikingAnswerLady] [Internet Archive version here]
Ibn Fadlan was an Arab chronicler. In 921 C.E., the Caliph sent Ibn Fadlan with an embassy
to the King of the Bulgars of the Middle Volga. Ibn Fadlan wrote an account of his
journeys with the embassy, called a Risala. This Risala is of great value as a
history, although it is clear in some places that inaccuracies and Ibn Fadlan's own
prejudices have slanted the account to some extent.
- Ibn Fadlan and the Rusiyyah, trans of the Risala by James E. Montgomery, Journal of Arabic and Islamic Studies 3 (2000) PDF [Internet Archive version here]
- Yāqūt’s Quotations From The Book of Ibn Faḍlān Arabic and English, by James E. Montgomery, from Mission to the Volga by Aḥmad ibn Faḍlān, translated by James E. Montgomery [At Library of Arabic Literature] [Internet Archive version here]
- A Hispano-Muslim Embassy to the Vikings in 845: An Account of al-Ghazal’s Journey to the North, 845, trans Mohammed Ballan [At Ballandalus] [Internet Archive version here]
- Al-Tartushi: Reports on his visit to Hedeby in the tenth century. [Internet Archive, was at Yale]
- Othere's report on his travels. [Internet Archive, was at Yale]
- The Account given by Ohthere of the Northlands to King Alfred, from The Old English Orosius [At Anglo-Saxon Archeology] [Internet Archive version here] + A PDF of the Anglo-Saxon Text with English Translation (1773)
- Description of Northern Europe in the Anglo-Saxon translation of the History of Orosius. [Internet Archive, was at Yale]
- The Account given by Wulfstan of the Northlands to King Alfred, from The Old English Orosius [At Anglo-Saxon Archeology] [Internet Archive version here] + A PDF of the Anglo-Saxon Text with English Translation (1773)
- Wulfstan's report on his travels. [Internet Archive, was at Yale]
- Alcuin: Letter to Higbald [Internet Archive, was at Yale]
- Anglo-Saxon Chronicle [Internet Archive, was at Yale]
- Annals of St. Bertin [Internet Archive, was at Yale]
- Beowulf, lines 229-257, translated by Seamus Heaney. [Internet Archive, was at Yale]
- Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus, De administrando imperio [Internet Archive, was at Yale]
- Halldórr inn ókristni, Eiriksflokkr [Internet Archive, was at Yale]
- The Jelling Monument [At Danish National Museum]
- The Battle of Maldon [Internet Archive, was at Yale]
- Rimbert: The Life of Anskar, the Apostle of the North,
801-865. See also
Catholic
Encyclopedia: St Anschar
- Rimbert: The Life of Anskar, the Apostle of the North,
801-865. PDF [Internet Archive]
- Rimbert, Life of Ansgar [Internet Archive, was at Yale]
- The Rök Stone [Internet Archive, was at Yale]
- Royal Frankish Annals 777-828 [Internet Archive, was at Yale]
- Ruotger of Cologne, Life of Archbishop Bruno of Cologne 40
- Skúli Þorsteinsson, Flokkr
- Theoderic the Monk: The Ancient History of the Norwegian Kings 7-14 [Internet Archive, was at Yale]
- Thietmar of Merseburg, Chronicle 694-95 [Internet Archive, was at Yale]
- Widukind, The Deeds of the Saxons 3.65 [Internet Archive, was at Yale]
- The Collapse of Security
- A Castellan Revolution
- Viking Adventures
- Initiation
of a Warrior: Going Berserk, Volsunga Saga chapters 7-8. [At Internet Archive, was at Eliade Page]
-
Abbo of Fleury: The Martyrdom of St. Edmund,
King of East Anglia, 870, trans. Kenneth Cutler
- The Discovery of North
America by Leif Ericsson, c. 1000 from The Saga of Eric the Red, (1387)
-
Eirik the Red's Saga [At
Project Gutenberg]
- WEB Vikings in America: L'Anse Aux. [At Internet Archive, was at Pitt]
- WEB
Fotevikens Museum
A maritime archaeological museum concentrated on research and inventory of shipping, ships
and maritime relics
- 2ND Jessica A. Browner: "Viking"
Pilgrimage to the Holy Land fram! fram! cristmenn, crossmenn, konungsmenn! (Oláfs
saga helga, ch. 224.). Essays in History 34 (1992)
- The Viking World
Arabs
Magyars
Feudalism?
The usefulness of feudalism as a term is at present under intense discussion
among historians of the middle ages, with the majority of experts now rejecting the term. Feudalism was not a word used in the middle ages.
It has had two quite distinct
meanings in recent usage.
The first meaning - promoted by radicals during the French
Revolution and developed by Marxist historians - refers to a social system based on a
society in which peasant agriculture is the fundamental productive activity; in which
slavery is non-existent or marginal but peasants are tied to the land in some way; and in
which a small elite defined by military activity dominates.. This is probably the most
important meaning in modern popular usuage.
For most of the 20th-century, professional medievalists have given the term a quite
different meaning [see F. Ganshof, Feudalism for a classic summary]. For medieval
historians the term has come to mean a system of reciprocal personal relations among
members of the military elite, which lead ultimately to parliament and then Western
democracy.
For many recent historians of the middle ages, the older "Lord and peasant" model was
subsumed in the concept of manoralism. It is not clear if this near consensus among
medievalists ever really made it on to the larger stage of common culture, or even to
other departments within a university (or even to non-medievalists within a history
department)!
Building on work of Elizabeth Brown, the historian Susan Reynolds, in her Fiefs and
Vassals, systematically attacked the basis of the professional medievalists' version
of feudalism [although she did not tackle the older social and economic, or
Marxist, model]. Reynolds argued that recent historians had been too ready to read back
11th- and 12th-century legal texts (which do use feudal) terminology onto a much
more variated 9th- and 10th century society and had ended up creating a "feudal
world" which simply did note exist, or which, at most, described small parts of
France for short periods. Most reviewers have found Reynold's arguments compelling. [See, for instance, the very
informative comments of Steven Lane: Review of Susan
Reynolds, Fief and Vassals, [At TMR]. As a result teachers can no longer teach
"feudalism" without severe qualifications.
The texts here have traditionally been used to explain the "feudal system".
They may be better read and discussed, perhaps, as examples of how people created a
variety a social and personal bonds in a society with few stable and accessible legal or
governmental authorities. They do not represent a "system".
- Online Reviews of Fiefs and Vassals
- Oaths and Contracts
- Methods of Land Transfer
- Inheritance
- Codex Justinianus: Violation of the Thracian Land Law,
c. 530 [XI.52.i.]
- The Ripuarian Law: Inheritance of Allodial Land, c.
450
- Law of The Visigoths: Succession to Inheritance,
c. 475
- Gregory I the Great (r.590-604): Succession to Tenant
Holdings on Church Land, c. 600
- Law of The Visigoths: Succession to Inheritance,
c. 475
- The Ripuarian Law: Inheritance of Allodial Land, c.
450
- The Lombard Law of Rothari: Succession of Legitimate
and Natural Sons, c. 643
- Canute, King of the English: Inheritance in Case of
Intestacy, c. 1016-1035
- St. Omer: The Inheritance Law of 1128
- Count Alberto of Tuscany: An Oral Grant of
Inheritance, 1210
- Abbot Samson of Bury St. Edmunds: Denial of Claims to
Hereditary Right, 1191
- Grants
- Fiefs
- Methods of Supporting an Army
- William I: Summons for Military Service, 1072, copyrighted
- William II: Writ for Collection of Relief 1095/96, copyrighted
- Henry I: Grant Concerning Scutage 1127, copyrighted
- Charter of Homage and Fealty, 1110.
- Methods of Government
- Burchard of Worms: Lex Familie Wormatiensis, ca.
1025, trans Steve Lane [slane@tezcat.com].
An internal law for the dependents of the bishop of Worms, written mostly to settle
disputes and feuds.
- Acts of First Dukes of Normandy, copyrighted
- Chronicle of the Counts of Anjou, c.1100, trans. Steve
Lane .
- Development of the Later Legal Terminology of "Feudalism"
- Laws of Henry I, copyrighted
- WEB Robert Palmer: Law and Courts Before Common Law [Was At Univ. Houston, now Internet Archive] for texts, plus discussion, with case examples.
- Glanvil texts?
- Modus Faciendi Homagium & Fidelitatem (The Manner of Doing Homage & Fealty), c. 1275
English common law document.
- Charles de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu: Book XXX. Theory of the Feudal Laws among the Franks in the Relation They Bear to the Establishment of the Monarchy and Book XXXI. Theory of the Feudal Laws among the Franks, in the Relation They Bear to the Revolutions of their Monarchy, from the Spirit of the Laws, [Was At Constitution.org, not Internet Archive]
- French National Assembly:
Decree Abolishing Feudalism, 11 August 1789. [At Hanover]
Although not a medieval text, this decree of the French Revolutionary assembly is
significant in determining what the modern term feodalisme meant.
- A Militarized Society
- Monetization of Military Activity
The Ottonian Dynasty and After
- King Henry the Fowler (c.876-r.919-d.936): Grant of Freedom to the Priest Baldmunt from Slavery, 11 Aug 962 [At After Empire] [Internet Acrhive version here]
- Widukind of Corvey (d.c. 1004): The Coronation Oath of Otto I (963-973)
- The Quedlinburg Annals: The Foundation of Quedlinburg 936/937 [At After Empire] [Internet Acrhive version here]
- Widukind (c. 925 - after 973): The Battle of Lechfeld 955, from Deeds of the Saxons, or Three Books of Annals
- Liutprand of Cremona (c.922-c.972): Report
on Mission to Constantinople, 963. full text
- Liutprand of Cremona (c.922-c.972): Report
on Mission to Constantinople, 963, excerpts.
- Liutprand of Cremona: The Works of Liudprand of Cremona, trans F.A. Wright (1930), full text PDF [At Internet Archive]
Includes Antapodosis, Liber de Rebus Gestis Ottonis, Relatio de Legatione Constantinopolitana.
- WEB The Parts of a Tenth Century Charter [At After Empire] [Internet Archive version here]
- Otto I: Edict of Pavia on Single Combat
971, trans. William North. PDF [At Carleton] [Internet Archive version here]
- Fragment of a lost history about Duke Arnulf the Bad of Bavaria. 935, circa: [At Salutemmundo] [Internet Archive backup of index page here]
- The Life of Burchard Bishop of Worms, trans.
William North, 1025
- Otto I provides for resolution of disputes over property by judicial combat.
- Indiculus Loricatorum 981 trans William North.PDF [At Carleton] [Internet Archive version here]
Otto II summons armored knights from episcopal, abbatial, and lay contingents.
- Otto III: Capitulary on Doing Justice c.996-1002, trans.William North. PDF [At Carleton] [Internet Archive version here]
- The Penance of Arduin, or the Roman Synod of 999 , trans. William North. PDF [At Carleton] [Internet Archive version here]
Describes the penance imposed on Arduin for leading the murderers of Bishop Peter of Vercelli.
The Y1K Problem: The Year 1000
NOTES: copyrighted means the text is not available for free distribution. Links to files at other site are indicated by [At some indication of the site name or
location]. No indication means that the text file is local. WEB indicates a link to one of small
number of high quality web sites which provide either more texts or an especially valuable
overview.
The Internet Medieval Sourcebook is part of the Internet History Sourcebooks Project. The Internet History Sourcebooks Project is located at the History Department of Fordham University, New York. The Internet
Medieval Sourcebook, and other medieval components of the project, are located at
the Fordham University Center
for Medieval Studies.The IHSP recognizes the contribution of Fordham University, the
Fordham University History Department, and the Fordham Center for Medieval Studies in
providing web space and server support for the project. The IHSP is a project independent of Fordham University.
Although the IHSP seeks to follow all applicable copyright law, Fordham University is not
the institutional owner, and is not liable as the result of any legal action.
© Site Concept and Design: Paul Halsall created 26 Jan 1996: latest revision 15 November 2024 [CV]
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