Those of My Blood: Creating Noble Families in Medieval FranciaFor 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. |
Contents
1 | |
2 The Origins of the French Nobility | 13 |
3 Consanguinity and Noble Marriages | 39 |
4 Family Structure and Family Consciousness in the Ninth Through Eleventh Centuries | 59 |
5 The Bosonids Rising to Power in the Late Carolingian Age | 74 |
6 Patterns of Womens Names in Royal Lineages | 98 |
7 The Migration of Womens Names in the Upper Nobility | 120 |
The Counts of Autun and Countess Adelaide of Chalon | 135 |
9 TwelfthCentury Family Structures | 155 |
Other editions - View all
Those of My Blood: Creating Noble Families in Medieval Francia Constance Bouchard Limited preview - 2001 |