Anne J. Duggan 
Nobles and Nobility in Medieval Europe 
Concepts, Origins, Transformations

The great strength of this collection is its wide range…a valuable work for anyone interested in the social aspects of the medieval nobility. CHOICE


Articles on the origins and nature of ‘nobility’, its relationship with the late Roman world, its acquisition and exercise of power, its association with military obligation, and its transformation into a more or less willing instrument of royal government. Embracing regions as diverse as England(before and after the Norman Conquest), Italy, the Iberian peninsula, France, Norway, Poland, Portugal, and the Romano-German empire, it ranges over the whole medieval period from the fifth to the early sixteenth century.


Contributors: STUART AIRLIE, MARTIN AURELL, T. N. BISSON, PAUL FOURACRE, PIOTR GORECKI, MARTIN H. JONES, STEINAR IMSEN, REGINE LE JAN, JANET N. NELSON, TIMOTHY A REUTER, JANE ROBERTS, MARIA JOAO VIOLANTE BRANCO, JENNIFER C. WARD

Table des matières

Introduction: Concepts, Origins, Transformations – Anne J. Duggan

The Origins of the Nobility in Francia –

The Nearly Men: Boso of Vienne and Arnulf of Bavaria – Stuart Airlie

Nobility in the Ninth Century – Janet L Nelson

Continuity and Change in the Tenth-Century Nobility – Regine Le Jan

The Old English Vocabulary of Nobility – Jane Roberts

Nobles and Others: The Social and Cultural Expression of Power Relations in the Middle Ages – Timothy A Reuter

Princely Nobility in an Age of Ambition [
c. 1050 – 1150] – Thomas Bisson

Words, Concepts, and Phenomena: Knighthood, Lordship, and the Early Polish Nobility,
c. 1100 –
c. 1350 – Piotr Gorecki

Nobles and Nobility in the Narrative Works of Hartmann von Aue – Martin H Jones

A Noble in Politics: Roger Mortimer in the Period of Baronial Reform and Rebellion, 1258 – 1265 – David Carpenter

King Magnus and his Liegemen’s ‘Hirdskrå’: A Portrait of the Norwegian Nobility in the 1270s – Steinar Imsen

The Nobility of Medieval Portugal [XIth – XIVth Centuries] – Maria Joao Violante Branco

Noblewomen, Family, and Identity in Later Medieval Europe – Jennifer C Ward

The Western Nobility in the Late Middle Ages: A Survey of the Historiography and some Prospects for New Research – Martin Aurell