The Settlement of Disputes in Early Medieval Europe

This is a collection of original essays on the settlement of disputes in the early middle ages, a subject of central importance for social and political history. Case material, from the evidence of charters, is used to reveal the realities of the settlement process in the behaviour and interactions of people - instead of the prescriptive and idealised models of law-codes and edicts. The book is not therefore a technical study of charters evidence. The geographical range across Europe is unusually wide, which allows comparison across differing societies. Frankish material is inevitably prominent, but the contributors have sought to integrate Celtic, Greek, Italian and Spanish material into the mainstream of the subject. Above all, the book aims to 'demystify' the study of early medieval law, and to present a radical reappraisal of established assumptions about law and society.

List of figures; Preface; Abbreviations; Introduction; 1. Disputes in late fifth- and sixth-century Gaul: some problems Ian Wood; 2. 'Placita' and the settlement of disputes in later Merovingian Francia Paul Fouracre; 3. Dispute settlement in Carolingian West Francia Janet L. Nelson; 4. People and places in dispute in ninth-century Brittany Wendy Davies; 5. Visigothic law and regional custom in disputes in early medieval Spain Roger Collins; 6. Land disputes and their social framework in Lombard-Carolingian Italy, 700–900 Chris Wickham; 7. Dispute settlement in the Byzantine provinces in the tenth century Rosemary Morris; 8. Charters, law and the settlement of disputes in Anglo-Saxon England Patrick Wormald; 9. Dispute settlement in medieval Ireland: a preliminary inquiry Richard Sharpe; 10. An early modern postscript: the Sandlaw dispute, 1546 Jenny Wormald; Conclusion; Appendix; Glossary edited by Jane Carpenter; Index.

This is a collection of original essays on the settlement of disputes in the early middle ages, a subject of central importance for social and political history.