Publisher's Synopsis
This is the second anthology in a series of three from the project Peasants' control over land and resources from the High Middle Ages to the end of the early modern period -- Norway, Scandinavia and the East-Alpine region, funded by the Norwegian Research Council. The first volume concentrated on ownership to land and peasant tenures. The present anthology in a more general way deals with vertical relations between peasants, landlords and territorial lords as well as with horizontal bonds and conflicts within the peasant society. These vertical and horizontal relations of power and influence have in the German academic tradition been described by the terms Herrschaft and Genossenschaft. This volume explores such relations with special emphasis on peasants' participation in and influence on courts and village assemblies. The contributors examine regions with contrasting topography and manorial systems in the Alps, in Bavaria and in the Scandinavian countries, taking into consideration that peasant participation might vary according to the strength of ecclesiastical and lay lords and the growth of territorial power. Their results show that peasants in all those regions had some influence, mostly in the Late Middle Ages, but that especially Tyrol and Norway can be identified as regions with substantial and continuous peasant influence from the Middle Ages well into the Early Modern Period.
