Beyond the Monastery Walls

Warren C. Brown is Professor of History at the California Institute of Technology. His previous publications include Violence in Medieval Europe (2011) and, as co-editor, Documentary Culture and the Laity in the Early Middle Ages (Cambridge, 2012).

• Part I. The Gate: 1. Introduction; 2. The manuscript; 3. Language, anachronism, and the laity; Part II. The Laity: 4. Laypeople and documents; 5. Laypeople and property; 6. Family; 7. Conflict and justice; 8. Power, personal relationships, and letters; 9. Freedom and unfreedom; 10. Conclusion.

'Here is a book that - with wonderful clarity - illuminates experience and attitudes of lay people in the early Middle Ages. The formularies which are its subject may look dense, dry, and legalistic, but Warren Brown shows that there are human beings behind the formulas and that we can examine behaviors that are barely documented elsewhere. His treatment is enhanced by a fine sense of regional difference and of the nuances of personal status.' Wendy Davies, University College London