Hostages in the Carolingian world (714–840)

The medieval hostage ( obses ) was a form of personal surety, a person deprived of liberty by a second person in order to guarantee an undertaking by a third person. Although they were used in private transactions, they normally appear in the early medieval sources in the context of relations between political entities. Close to seventy distinct hostage episodes are recorded in greater Francia and the Italian Peninsula in the period 714–840. Drawing on this evidence, as well as on the few surviving normative sources that refer to hostages, the present article develops a definition of hostages in the Carolingian period, examines the situations in which they were used, and argues that they must be seen as more than a simple means for securing agreements. In particular, grants of hostages might involve individuals beyond the trio of creditor–debtor–hostage, and they could transcend their immediate guaranteeing function to serve symbolic and political ends. The proper context for the study of hostages emerges as not legal but social and political relations.     

Between court and counts: Carolingian Catalonia and the aprisio grant, 778–897

In the late eighth century, Charlemagne issued a new kind of land grant in Septimania and the Spanish March to refugees fleeing Muslim Spain. This grant, the aprisio , was made from fiscal land in deserted areas and included special rights and immunities. Previous scholars have interpreted the aprisio in economic and military terms as a mechanism to entice settlers to the region in order to make the land productive and to provide warriors to defend the Frankish frontier. This article suggests that political concerns also may have played an important role, arguing that the aprisio grant was an attempt by Carolingian kings to limit the power exercised by very powerful marcher counts.     

The significance of the Carolingian advocate

This article argues that ninth-century advocates in the Frankish world deserve more attention than they have received. Exploring some of the wealth of relevant evidence, it reviews and critiques both current historiographical approaches to the issue. Instead of considering Carolingian advocates as largely a by-product of the ecclesiastical immunity, or viewing advocacy as a Trojan horse for a subsequent establishment of lordship over monasteries, the article proposes a reading of ninth-century advocacy as intimately linked with wider Carolingian reform, particularly an interest in promoting formal judicial procedure.     

‘The revolt of the medievalists’. Directions in recent research on the twelfth-century renaissance

This historiographical article contains two basic parts. First, it discusses recent approaches to the twelfth-century renaissance in the last two decades by focusing on some selected themes. These themes basically derive from Charles Homer Haskins' notion of the renaissance and include individualism, rationality, secularisation, and the question of the emergence of a ‘critical mentality.’ From this point of departure, the article addresses the question of thematic innovation with regard to the twelfth-century renaissance. The second part of the article discusses the effect of the so-called linguistic turn on renaissance studies in general and on the twelfth-century renaissance in particular. In conclusion, some suggestions for further research are singled out.     

The Struggle to Reform Regulatory Procedures, 1978–1998

This article examines the attempts between 1978 and 1998 to enact general regulatory procedural reform legislation. Two decades of off-again, off-again legislative efforts have yielded only fragments of reform. A major explanation for this, despite the official popularity of reform, seems to be the inability of putative reformers-traditionalists, populists, and restrictivists-to agree among themselves on the direction and content of general reform legislation. This experience raises a number of important theoretical issues for students of regulation, including the ethicalness of using procedural restraints deliberately to disrupt or impede the regulatory process and the impact of procedural controls on regulatory policy.     

The Capitulare de Villis,the Brevium exempla,and the Carolingian court at Aachen

For all the scholarship done on the Capitulare de villis and the Brevium exempla, much about them remains unclear, and no new interpretations have been offered in the last few decades. This article reads the documents without some of the assumptions prevalent in previous scholarly interpretations, and alongside both the written and material record, especially the archaeological evidence from Charlemagne's properties at Aachen and throughout his realm. It argues that the Capitulare de villis and the Brevium exempla were most likely issued shortly after 794, as a result of the logistical issues introduced when Charlemagne's court became resident at Aachen.