Legal Practice and the Written Word in the Early Middle Ages
Alice Rio
Legal formularies are books of model legal documents compiled by early medieval scribes for their own use and that pupils. A major source the history Europe, they document social relations beyond narrow world political elite. Formularies offer much information regarding lives ordinary people: sales gifts land, divorces, adoptions, disputes over labour as well theft, rape or murder. Until now, a historical has been hampered severe methodological problems, in particular through difficulty establishing precise chronological geographical context them. By examining Frankish from Merovingian Carolingian periods, this book provides an invaluable, detailed analysis problems possibilities associated with formularies, will be required reading scholars history.