Conflict, Letters, and Personal Relationships in the Carolingian Formula Collections
Warren Brown
Over the last few decades, scholarship on early medieval conflict has been driven and shaped by kinds of sources that scholars have used. The different source genres offer their own characteristic pictures ways people processed disputes in Middle Ages. Narrative sources, for example, such as chronicles or saints' lives, tend process achieving narrative orhagiographic goals to highlight violence, extra-judicial settlement, ritual symbolic expression disputeresolution. Normative law codes royal legislation (for capitularies issued Carolingian kings), naturally emphasize institutional tools handling conflict, formal judicial assemblies procedures, officials, laws. Archival from period consist primarily charters, is, records rights privilege ranging diplomas kings emperors property churches andmonasteries. These blend images produced first two genres. Often they record resolution propertydisputes headed kings, counts, representatives; often refer laws imply cases theydeal with were covered some generally recognized set norms. Charters also, however, provide a great deal evidence negotiation well public communication part dispute processing.
Law and History Review