The Aristocracy in ‘Carolingian’ England

Abstract

Chapter 9 argues that late Anglo-Saxon England was a state of the ‘Carolingian’ type. Lordship was fully integrated into the judicial system and public authority played a major part in legitimating comital rule. Traditional historiography is complemented by the concepts of aristocrazia intermedia and ‘zonality’ employed by Cortese for Tuscany. We examine the aristocracy of some Midland counties, with Leofric earl of Mercia taken as a case study for the exercise of comital power. We follow Maitland and Baxter in emphasizing the tripartite division into personal bonds, tenurial bonds, and judicial bonds. The chapter turns then to the rank and file of the aristocracy, the thegnage, and then to the aristocratic presence in towns. Finally, the chapter looks at the direction in which this society was travelling in the eleventh century and sees an increasing degree of uncertainty, competition, and anxiety. There was a relative decline in Königsnähe and an increasing localization of power as the authority of kings weakened.