Publisher description
Pen, Plow and Sword examines the self-image of clergy, nobility, peasants and townsmen in the medieval Low Countries, and how these could differ markedly from the perceptions held by people outside of these groups. The images of aristocrats, peasants, merchants and townsmen which have come down to us are almost exclusively extracted from texts written by religious men, and as such, must be viewed as external images which should be juxtaposed with information about these groups' self-images. For example, merchants organized in a confederacy with new urban legal customs, group rituals, their own militia and taxation would have felt a sense of group identity and mutual solidarity and considered their commune as a legitimate form of self-organization. The church authorities, however, regarded it as a breach of God's divine order, and condemned its members as deviating from the statutory laws, as a form of conspiracy, sinful vainglory and sacrilege. In order to chart this diversity Dr Kuenzel applied a combination of techniques. Using the historical-philological method, dozens of texts were searched for judgments concerning patterns of behaviour and presumed emotions, which could be analyzed using concepts and methods from the disciplines of history, sociology, cultural anthropology, folklore, socio-psychology, and psychology. By examining how medieval people experienced and interpreted the world around them, this book reconstructs how various social groups perceived, judged, and behaved towards one another, and the degrees of overlap between them. As such it will prove valuable for all students of early medieval history, and for those wishing to explore the field of historical anthropology or the methodology of history
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Plow, Pen and Sword. Images and Self-Images of Medieval People
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