Marmoutier: Familia versus Family. The Relations between Monastery and Serfs in Eleventh-Century North-West France
Paul Fouracre
This book compares community definition and change in the temperate zones of southern Britain northern France with starkly contrasting regions Spanish meseta Iceland. Local communities were fundamental to human societies pre-industrial world; crucial supporting their members regulating relationships, as well wider society. While geographical biological work on territoriality is very good, existing archaeological literature rarely time-specific lacks social context; most its premises are too simple for interdependencies early medieval world. Historical work, by contrast, has a weak sense territory no scale; like much there confusion about distinctions - relationships between kin groups, neighbourhood collections tenants small polities.
Studies in the early Middle Ages