Count and Bishop in Medieval Germany: A Study of Regional Power, 11-135 Contributor(s): Arnold, Benjamin (Author) |
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ISBN: 0812230841 ISBN-13: 9780812230840 Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press Anniversary OUR PRICE: $80.70 Product Type: Hardcover - Other Formats Published: December 1991 |
Additional Information |
BISAC Categories: - Political Science | Political Process - General - History | Europe - Medieval |
Dewey: 320.943 |
LCCN: 91-24938 |
Lexile Measure: 1880 |
Series: Middle Ages Series |
Physical Information: 0.86" H x 6.25" W x 9.28" (1.22 lbs) 256 pages |
Themes: - Chronological Period - Medieval (500-1453) |
Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
Publisher Description: In this examination of the functions of lordship in a medieval society, Benjamin Arnold seeks answers to some of the most fundamental questions for the period of political and institutional history: How did the lords maintain control over the people, land, and resources? How was their rule sustained and justified? Arnold chooses to analyze the Eichst tt region, an area on the borders of three major German provinces: Bavaria, Franconia, and Swabia. The region was the geographical and political dimension within which succeeding bishops, with great tenacity and inventiveness, survived the threat of dominion by their secular neighbors, the counts. The bishops of Eichst tt were able to emerge with a durable territorial structure of their own, which they succeeded in recasting, between 1280 and 1320, into a credible and long-lasting principality. Modern ideas of political progress, Arnold contends, tend to be unfair to medieval institutions that have not left easily recognizable descendants. He argues that it would be more prudent to observe in the territorial fragmentation of Germany not the triumph of chaos but the outcome of a reasonably orderly social and legal process that provided alternative institutions to those of a centralized or national monarchy. |