Slavery and Serfdom in the Middle Ages: Selected Essays PDF
Preview Slavery and Serfdom in the Middle Ages: Selected Essays
Slavery and Serfdom in the Middle Ages Published under the auspices of the CENTER FOR MEDIEVAL AND RENAISSANCE STUDIES University of California, Los Angeles Publications of the CENTER FOR MEDIEVAL AND RENAISSANCE STUDIES, UCLA 1. Jeffrey Burton Russell: Dissent and Reform in the Early Middle Ages 2. C. D. O'Malley: Leonardo's Legacy 3. Richard H. Rouse: Serial Bibliographies for Medieval Studies 4. Speros Vryonis, Jr.: The Decline of Medieval Hellenism in Asia Minor and the Process of Islamization from the Eleventh through the Fifteenth Century 5. Stanley Chodorow: Christian Political Theory and Church Politics in the Mid-Twelfth Century 6. Joseph J. Duggan: The Song of Roland 7. Ernest A. Moody: Studies in Medieval Philosophy, Science, and Logic 8. Marc Bloch: Slavery and Serfdom in the Middle Ages SLAVERY AND SERFDOM IN THE MIDDLE AGES Selected Essays by MARC BLOCH Translated by William R. Beer Berkeley Los Angeles London UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS 1975 University of California Press Berkeley and Los Angeles University of California Press, Ltd. London, England Translated and extracted from Melanges Historiques 1966 by Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes English translation copyright © 1975 by The Regents of the University of California ISBN: 0-520-02767-6 Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 79-123627 Printed in the United States of America In Memory of Van Courtlandt Elliott Contents Translator's Preface 1X 1. How and Why Ancient Slavery Came to an End 1 2. Personal Liberty and Servitude in the Middle Ages, particularly in France. Contribution to a Class Study 33 3. The "Colliberti." A Study on the Formation of the Servile Class 93 4. The Transformation of Serfdom: Concerning Two Thirteenth-Century Documents Regarding the Parisian Region 151 5. Blanche de Castile and the Serfs of the Chapter of Paris 163 6. Serf de la Glèbe 179 Notes 203 Glossary 273 Translator's Preface Scholarly essays are difficult to translate gracefully. Marc Bloch's style is full of explicit hesitations and doubts, and this is one of the qualities that have made his historiography great. In How and Why Ancient Slavery Came to an End and in Personal Liberty and Servitude in the Middle Ages he wrote primarily to be simultaneously exact and speculative, rather than to offer flowing prose. This is not to say that his writing is not readable and amusing. Blanche de Castile and the Serfs of the Chapter of Paris and The Transformations of Serfdom show his ability to pierce historical pretensions and ambiguities in a uniquely ironical fashion. Another complication stems from Bloch's frequent use of words themselves as historical data, for want of clearer records. Translating these words is always dangerous, as it can distort the logic of the argument. Thus, frequently, as in The Colliberti and Serf de la Glèbe some words have been left in French to preserve the clarity of the exposition. In addition, many technical terms were left in the original because there are no precise English equivalents for them. A glossary is provided to help the reader with these terms. I wish to acknowledge with thanks the help of Professor Eliza- beth Brown of the Brooklyn College Department of History. William R. Beer Department of Sociology Brooklyn College City University of New York ix
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