Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
  1. Home
  2. Books
  3. Beyond the Monastery Walls
  • Cited by 2
      • Show more authors
      • You may already have access via personal or institutional login
    • Select format
    • Publisher:
      Cambridge University Press
      Publication date:
      December 2022
      December 2022
      ISBN:
      9781108855426
      9781108479585
      9781108790048
      DOI:
      https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108855426
      Dimensions:
      (229 x 152 mm)
      Weight & Pages:
      0.71kg, 407 Pages
      Dimensions:
      (229 x 152 mm)
      Weight & Pages:
      0.576kg, 400 Pages
      • Subjects:
      Ancient History, Classical Studies, Area Studies, History, European Studies, European History 450-1000
    You may already have access via personal or institutional login
    • Selected: Digital
    Add to cart View cart Buy from Cambridge.org
    Subjects:
    Ancient History, Classical Studies, Area Studies, History, European Studies, European History 450-1000
    Information

    Book description

    Our understanding of life in the early Middle Ages is dominated by Christian churches and monasteries. It is their records and libraries which have survived the centuries, to tell us how the clerics, monks, and nuns who lived and worked within their walls experienced the world around them. We thus see the lay inhabitants of that wider world mostly when they are interacting with the clergy. However, a few sources let us explore lay life in this period more broadly. Beyond the Monastery Walls exploits perhaps the richest of these: manuscript books containing formulas, or models, for documents that do not otherwise survive. Through these books, Warren C. Brown explores the concerns and behavior of lay men and women in this period on their own terms, and casts fresh light on a part of the medieval world that is usually hidden from view. In the process, he shows how early medievalists are winning fresh information from our sources by looking at them in new ways.

    Reviews

    ‘Here is a book that - with wonderful clarity - illuminates experience and attitudes of lay people in the early Middle Ages. The formularies which are its subject may look dense, dry, and legalistic, but Warren Brown shows that there are human beings behind the formulas and that we can examine behaviors that are barely documented elsewhere. His treatment is enhanced by a fine sense of regional difference and of the nuances of personal status.’

    Wendy Davies - University College London

    ‘Warren Brown’s pioneering exposition of the Frankish formulae collections of model legal documents from the eighth and ninth centuries elucidates the way in which they mirror the social realities and possibilities of the lives of the Carolingian laity. The formulae relate to kinship, marriage, and inheritance; legal disputes and conflict resolution; lordship; patronage; freedom and unfreedom; they highlight the crucial part land and property played in early medieval social relationships. In this engaging study, moreover, Brown convincingly demonstrates how the formularies promoted the common culture of documentary use in Carolingian society.’

    Rosamond McKitterick - University of Cambridge

    ‘[Brown]'s challenge was to explain the secular society of the early Middle Ages using formularies. This bet has been fully won, thanks to a careful reading of these documents, informed by a completely up-to-date international bibliography.’

    Benoît-Michel Tock Source: Francia recensio

    Refine List

    Actions for selected content:

    Select all | Deselect all
    • View selected items
    • Export citations
    • Download PDF (zip)
    • Save to Kindle
    • Save to Dropbox
    • Save to Google Drive

    Save Search

    You can save your searches here and later view and run them again in "My saved searches".

    Please provide a title, maximum of 40 characters.
    Cancel
    ×

    Contents

    Contents
    References

    Metrics

    Altmetric attention score

    Full text views

    Total number of HTML views: 0
    Total number of PDF views: 0 *
    Loading metrics...

    Book summary page views

    Total views: 0 *
    Loading metrics...

    * Views captured on Cambridge Core between #date#. This data will be updated every 24 hours.

    Usage data cannot currently be displayed.

    Accessibility standard: Unknown

    Why this information is here

    This section outlines the accessibility features of this content - including support for screen readers, full keyboard navigation and high-contrast display options. This may not be relevant for you.

    Accessibility Information

    Accessibility compliance for the PDF of this book is currently unknown and may be updated in the future.