Those of My Blood Creating Noble Families in Medieval Francia Constance
Brittain Bouchard Winner of the 2002 best book by an Ohio Historian
Award of the Ohio Academy of History "Constance Bouchard tackles five
major themes: the definition of 'family, ' the position of women in
noble families, the flexibility in constructing who was considered
family, the impact of family strategies on early medieval politics, and
the 'transformation' of the nobility around the year 1000. . . . A
wonderful introduction to those new to the subject as well as a welcome
contribution to the debate on the nature of the medieval
nobility."--Medieval Review For those who ruled medieval society, the
family was the crucial social unit, made up of those from whom property
and authority were inherited and those to whom it passed. One's kin
could be one's closest political and military allies or one's fiercest
enemies. While the general term used to describe family members was
consanguinei mei, "those of my blood," not all of those
relations-parents, siblings, children, distant cousins, maternal
relatives, paternal ancestors, and so on-counted as true family in any
given time, place, or circumstance. In the early and high Middle Ages,
the "family" was a very different group than it is in modern society,
and the ways in which medieval men and women conceptualized and
structured the family unit changed markedly over time. Focusing on the
Frankish realm between the eighth and twelfth centuries, Constance
Brittain Bouchard outlines the operative definitions of "family" in this
period when there existed various and flexible ways by which individuals
were or were not incorporated into the family group. Even in medieval
patriarchal society, women of the aristocracy, who were considered
outsiders by their husbands and their husbands' siblings and elders,
were never completely marginalized and paradoxically represented the
very essence of "family" to their male children. Bouchard also engages
in the ongoing scholarly debate about the nobility around the year 1000,
arguing that there was no clear point of transition from amorphous
family units to agnatically structured kindred. Instead, she points out
that great noble families always privileged the male line of descent,
even if most did not establish father-son inheritance until the eleventh
or twelfth century. Those of My Blood clarifies the complex meanings
of medieval family structure and family consciousness and shows the many
ways in which negotiations of power within the noble family can help
explain early medieval politics. Constance Brittain Bouchard is
Professor of Medieval History at the University of Akron. The Middle
Ages Series 2001 264 pages 6 x 9 ISBN 978-0-8122-3590-6 Cloth $65.00s
£42.50 World Rights History Short copy: "A wonderful introduction to
those new to the subject as well as a welcome contribution to the debate
on the nature of the medieval nobility."--Medieval Review
