Begging Pardon and Favor: Ritual and Political Order in Early Medieval France

Cornell University Press, Published 1992. Hardcover, xxiii, 459 pp.; 24 x 16 cm; First Edition; illustrated with 8 black-and-white plates reproducing medieval manuscript miniatures and church art, plus 1 map of northern France.In Very Good condition, no dust jacket. Light blue cloth-covered boards with a red panel on the spine carrying gilt-stamped title and cream lettering for author and publisher. Mild shelf wear and edge wear to the cloth. Binding is tight and square. Pages clean and unmarked.Koziol's major monograph on the political and religious culture of tenth- and eleventh-century France, reconstructing the rituals of supplication (the language and gestures of prayer used to address God and earthly lords alike) and arguing that these "most commonplace of all early medieval rituals" carried the dense political meaning of an age in which lords claimed to rule by the grace of God. Drawing on a remarkable range of sources and engaging ethnological studies, Koziol shows that supplication accurately reflected the complexities and paradoxes in contemporary attitudes toward friendship, enmity, and political authority, and that the rituals adapted to the realities of different political and social communities across northern and western France. A standard reference in the historiography of medieval ritual and Capetian-era political culture. Portions of Chapter 7 were originally published as "Lord's Law and Natural Law" in The Medieval Tradition of Natural Law, ed. Harold J. Johnson (Kalamazoo: Medieval Institute Publications, 1987).Contents: Part One, Begging Favor (The Language of Petition; The Act of Supplication; The Court of the Heavenly King); Part Two, Constructing a Political Community (The Rehabilitation of Royal Dignity; Toward an Iconic Kingship); Part Three, Begging Pardon (Supplication as Penance; The Ideal of Discretionary Justice); Part Four, Ritual and Reality (The Sublimity of Knighthood; How Does a Ritual Mean?); Appendix 1, Disputes Involving Churches and Laity in Northern France, 1000-1100, by Region; Appendix 2, Procedural Patterns in Disputes between Churches and Laity in Northern France, 1000-1100; Notes; Selected Bibliography; Index.…