The year 1000 in Europe: the place of the robber-baron

Over the course of the last couple of generations European scholars (and particularly historians) have spent more time and nervous energy worrying about the meaning of L’an mil than their tenth-century predecessors ever did. Much may be said to have been gained through this academic process. However, it has come to centre increasingly on issues of governance and identity within an unargued framework of big government.

It is time for a change of focus. Most aspects of government in Latin Europe remained small-scale and relatively local in the central Middle Ages, although the growth of national governmental machinery was developing in some parts of that world in the eleventh and twelfth centuries.

A useful beginning for research will be to consider the origins, the subsequent focuses, and the present results of scholarly attractions to the millennial era in European history: in that way the researcher will be thoroughly grounded in the initial motives, the developing preconceptions, and any ideological and teleological biases. Also still central to the discourse of scholarly millennialists is a conviction that central mediaeval society can be described as ‘feudal’. Such intellectual baggage will need to be reconsidered at an early stage of the research.

The ‘robber-baron’ is a widespread phenomenon across Latin Europe from the tenth century. The labels attached to him, the types of behaviour associated with him, his motivations and his place in the larger socio-political community need to be gathered and analysed to discover how complex a phenomenon he represented. Major primary sources are readily accessible, but the industrious researcher will have little difficulty in unearthing new witnesses and identifying new dimensions to this issue.

Selection will be made on the basis of academic merit. Languages: a good working knowledge of Modern French and German (other modern languages would of course be useful) and of that linguistic sine qua non for the mediaevalist ‒ Latin.