This thesis presents original evidence on changes occurring within the exchange economy of a north-west Oxfordshire rural community during the first half of the eighteenth century. It has been suggested that capitalism began to evolve in rural areas of England during this period due to the transformation of agriculture and growth of consumerism. Thus one would expect to find evidence of a growing commercialisation of the agrarian population characterised by increased reliance upon the market and a diminution of customary exchange and self-provisioning. Drawing evidence from the Ditchley estate accounts, the balance of monetary and nonmonetary exchange, the nature of transactions, and the role of kinship connections in mediating them, are described and analysed. It is argued that whilst the accounts do reveal significant levels of monetization and widespread use of market exchange especially after 1725, an extensive, largely non-monetized internal estate market in goods operated in parallel. These two systems appear to have been as much complementary as in competition, reflecting the high levels of integration within the local agrarian economy of the stonebrash region. Moreover, analysis of kinship networks suggests that many seemingly monetary transactions had a social component. Market exchange at Ditchley was essentially as dependent on social relations as reciprocal exchange within the neighbourhood area. The customary economy of kinsman and neighbour continued to flourish and to complement the expanding market economy in early eighteenth-century England, because both had a moral component. For the villagers at Ditchley there was no clear dichotomy between the two.

Although developments in feudal law in the thirteenth century influenced the legal environment of Europe for centuries, much of past and current historical research of feudalism examines the social system anthropologically but neglects an in-depth analysis of feudal law codes. My research combines the social-anthropological approach with relevant customary codes to demonstrate the importance of feudal law to a thirteenth-century society plagued by war, economic and social instability, and competing powers of the monarchy, judiciary, and religion. The assessment of feudal law within each legal code highlights its prominence as an accepted category of jurisprudence. This thesis provides a new perspective on the influence of feudalism in the thirteenth century, demonstrating the significance of feudal law as a mode of maintaining peace and prolonging land tenure.

This thesis explores the relationship between lordship and landholding in Anjou, from c.1000 to c.1150, focussing specifically on the effects of power upon that relationship. I consider questions central to lordship: how closely connected was lordship with control of land; to what extent was the exercise of seignorial power characterised by the use of force; what influence, if any, did legal norms have upon the exercise of power? I address these questions over four chapters. In chapter 1, I focus on the consent of lords to grants of land, emphasising the close relationship between lordship and landholding. Chapter 2 looks at claims for services lords brought on their tenants of ecclesiastical lands, and highlights the remedies contemporaries possessed against lordly heavy-handedness. In chapter 3, I explore lordship from the perspective of the tenant by outlining warranty of land, and suggest that warranty ensured the tenant considerable security of tenure. Chapter 4 rounds off the thesis through a detailed discussion of five cases, which I use to elucidate the workings of seignorial power, drawing attention to the interactions between lords and their lay followers. I situate these issues within a framework emphasising competition for control of land and resources, and stress the importance of legal norms in relation to such competition. The thrust of my argument is twofold. First, whilst I stress an environment of intense, sometimes violent, competition over resources, I suggest that the exercise of lordly power was not unlimited, nor was it arbitrary. Instead, ideals of good lordship, together with legal norms, served to act as important restraints upon power. Secondly, I emphasise the need to look at both the short-term and long-term consequences of competition over land, and stress that legal norms were influenced by the former, with an eye to the latter. I therefore stress the capacity for legal innovation and change in eleventh- and early twelfth-century society.

L'émergence du confessionnalisme au Liban est en corrélation avec le développement particulier du capitalisme dans la société libanaise, ce qui semble différent du modèle de modernisme de la société européenne et occidentale. C'est ainsi qu'on peut avancer que l'émergence historique de la formule politique confessionnelle n'était jamais un phénomène aléatoire ou spontané. Force est de constater que l'institutionnalisation du confessionnalisme était le corollaire de la déviation ou la déformation de la capitalisation ainsi que de la modernisation, un système confessionnel s'étant établi au lieu de l'instauration d'une institution étatique moderne sur la base du contrat social concrétisant l'unité nationale et la solidarité sociale à l'instar de la société européenne contemporaine. Ainsi, la pénétration du capitalisme occidental et l'articulation de l'économie nationale au marché capitaliste mondial incarnent la place du Liban dans l'économie internationale comme zone périphérique en marginalisant ses secteurs productifs. La bourgeoisie commerciale et bancaire s'impose alors dans le contexte d'une économie rentière tout en entreprenant la fonction d'intermédiaire entre Occident et Orient. Cette bourgeoisie intermédiaire contrôle l'intégralité du système libanais en coalition avec l'aristocratie traditionnelle. Elle s'applique à restreindre et à étouffer toute sorte de mobilité syndicale ou associative émanant d'une lutte des classes sociales tout en suscitant en contrepartie un alignement et un affrontement d'envergure confessionnelle, à quoi est dû le sectarisme marquant le parcours historique de la vie publique libanaise et la «configuration» de l'organisation constitutionnelle du pays. / The emergence of sectarianism in Lebanon is correlated with the particular development of capitalism in the Lebanese society, which seems different from the model of modernism in the Western and European society. This is how we can argue that the historical emergence of sectarian political formula was not a random or spontaneous phenomenon. It is clear that the institutionalization of sectarianism was the corollary of the deflection or deformation of capitalization and modernization; a sectarian system was established instead than the establishment of a modern state institution on the basis of the social contract that concretize national unity and social solidarity just like the contemporary European society. Thus, the penetration of Western capitalism and the articulation of the national economy into the world capitalist market embody Lebanon's position in the international economy as a peripheral area marginalizing its productive sectors. The commercial and banking bourgeoisie wins in the context of a rent economy by undertaking an intermediary function between West and East. This intermediate bourgeoisie controls the entire Lebanese system in coalition with the traditional aristocracy. It applies to restrict and stifle any form of syndicate or association mobility emanating from a struggle of social classes by creating confessional alignment and confrontation to which is due sectarianism that marks the historical track of the Lebanese public life and the "configuration" of the constitutional structure of the country.

Originally presented as the author's Thesis (doctoral)--Universidad de Valencia, 1978. / Includes bibliographical references.

No description available.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Lehigh University, 1997. / Includes vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 222-233).

Originally presented as the author's Thesis (doctoral)--Universidad de Valencia, 1978. / Includes bibliographical references.

Inaug.-Diss.--Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg, Erlangen. / Vita. Bibliography: p. 471-492.

Habilitationsschrift--Universität des Saarlandes, Saarbrücken. / Bibliography: v. 1, p. [11]-36.