Neighbours and Strangers: Local Societies in Early Medieval Europe

Author/Contributor(s):	Zeller, Bernhard ; West, Charles ; Tinti, Francesca ; Stoffella, Marco ; Schroeder, Nicolas ; Van Rhijn, Carine ; Patzold, Steffen ; Kohl, Thomas ; Davies, Wendy ; Czock, Miriam
Publisher:	Manchester University Press
Date:	07/12/2022
Binding:	Paperback
Condition:	NEW

This book explores social cohesion in rural settlements in western Europe from 700-1050, asking to what extent settlements, or districts, constituted units of social organisation. It focuses on the interactions, interconnections and networks of people who lived side by side - neighbours. Drawing evidence from most of the current western European countries, the book plots and interrogates the very different practices of this wide range of regions in a systematically comparative framework. Neighbours and strangers considers the variety of local responses to the supra-local agents of landlords and rulers and the impact, such as it was, of those agents on the small-scale residential group. It also assesses the impact on local societies of the values, instructions and demands of the wider literate world of Christianity, as delivered by local priests.