Conflict in Medieval Europe: Changing Perspectives on Society and Culture
By Piotr Górecki
Ashgate Publishing, 2003

     Conflict is here understood as an element of social life and social relations and is defined broadly and inclusively. From its origins in the study of the law, above all disputes concerning property, medieval conflict study now encompasses a whole range of related issues: the phase and manifestations of conflict that precede, follow, or replace disputing; the behaviour brought to bear on conflict - emotions, language, gestures, and ritual; and subjects that extend beyond property, including criminality, coercion and violence, status, sex, sexuality and gender. Conflict study has also converged with other core questions of medieval historiography: the nature of the transformation spanning the Carolingian period; the implications of that transformation for the meanings of power, violence, and peace; the search for concepts most helpful in understanding these phenomena; and the heuristic issues of access to these subjects through the written record.

     This volume represents the 'American school' of the study of medieval conflict and social order. Framed by two substantial historiographical and conceptual surveys of the field, it brings together two generations of scholars: the pioneers, who continue to expand the research agenda; and younger colleagues, who represent the best emerging work on this subject. The book therefore stands both as a marker of the trajectory of conflict studies in the United States and as a set of original, highly individual contributions across a shifting conceptual range, indicative of a major transition in the field.