medieval social interaction

[Julian the apostate]

hate to do this but the monastary is off limits for me cuz i'm new
but whatever.
i'm looking for any information on law systems and cultural interaction in western europe during the middle ages. i remember a lot of it comming from the germanic tribal laws merging with others.
Thank you

[Faenaris]

I'll post the thread for you. Can you view the Monastery? Or can't you see that subsection at all?

[Phalaxar]

hate to do this but the monastary is off limits for me cuz i'm new
but whatever.
i'm looking for any information on law systems and cultural interaction in western europe during the middle ages. i remember a lot of it comming from the germanic tribal laws merging with others.
Thank you

Sorry to hear that; I'm sure you'll be made a fuller member shortly. Still, this is basically spam and is just going to draw out the time to promotion. PMing someone helpful like Faenaris is always your best bet

[econ21]

The original post is certainly not spam. I'll move it to the monastery - Julian the apostate can't reply there, but at least historically minded folk will have an opportunity to provide some information.

[Ice]

hate to do this but the monastary is off limits for me cuz i'm new
but whatever.
i'm looking for any information on law systems and cultural interaction in western europe during the middle ages. i remember a lot of it comming from the germanic tribal laws merging with others.
Thank you

What time period in the middle ages? I'm currently enrolled in Early Medieval History (300-1000 AD, approx). I might be of some help. Could you be a little bit more specific?

[matteus the inbred]

The Middle Ages is usually considered to be about 1000-1500AD, although a lot of historical texts will probably start at significant dates like 1066 (Battle of Hastings) or 1071 (Battle of Manzikert, or even, in the case of MTW, 1087 (death of William the Conqueror)...! A lot of the major medieval history texts were written by British scholars, hence the apparent 'Anglophile' nature of the timespan...
End dates like 1453 (fall of Constantinople) or 1485 (Battle of Bosworth) or even 1492 (Columbus' voyage) tend to be used as well.

Do you want to know about stuff like Salic Law (Germanic laws of kingship) and feudal laws, or more about actual social laws governing marriage and everyday business? The more specific you are, the more the nice people at the Org can help you.

EDIT
Being a JM, Julian cannot post here yet, but he has PM'd me to specify more of what he'd like to know about...
"prefer mainly social laws mainly things that involve the class interaction of nobles, merchants, peasants"

any social historians in the house?

[ajaxfetish]

Hmm, it's still a very broad question, and I'm not sure exactly what you're going for, but I'll throw out a couple of things that may or may not be useful.

As far as overall background on medieval law, the main law traditions were the Roman system, where law was voted into being by a representative body, and case law, which AFAIK is associated especially with the English tradition, where law developed based on the decisions of past trials. Medieval law will usually be in one of these forms or a mix of the two.

There were two somewhat parallel law systems during the middle ages: secular and canon law. Clerics were usually tried in different courts and according to a different procedure than laymen.

One prominent example of social law was the sumptuary laws, present in many nations and varying considerably depending on the time and place. These laws regulated dress, decreeing certain types of fabric, color, cut, etc. to be acceptable for each social class. Many people were concerned about keeping the classes static, especially as the medieval economy grew and left lower-class merchants with the money to dress as well as nobility (feared as a source of confusion and blurring class distinction), and these laws were meant to keep the lower classes in their place, no matter what they could afford, but it seems there was usually little success enforcing such laws.

Hopefully that is of some use, and if you can think of a more specific approach you need answered, do try to let one of us know.

Ajax

[Aenlic]

hate to do this but the monastary is off limits for me cuz i'm new
but whatever.
i'm looking for any information on law systems and cultural interaction in western europe during the middle ages. i remember a lot of it comming from the germanic tribal laws merging with others.
Thank you

Many decent sources for medieval law on the internet. Much of it was based on Roman law, Germanic customary law (and the descendant English Common Law) and canon/ecclesiastical law.

The Internet Medieval Sourcebook - legal history section - Paul Halsall's amazing resource from Fordham University.

http://home.hetnet.nl/~otto.vervaart/medieval_law.htm - Another great source with a wonderful bibliography (the Fordham U. site is in the links here, too).

Canon Law - Canon law from the Catholic Encyclopedia.

http://www.lexscripta.com/legal/history/medieval.html - A set of links to various sources (including some of the above) for the Middle Ages.

The above is a good place to start anyway! Good luck, Julian the Apostate, and welcome to the Org!

[matteus the inbred]

Hmph, I no longer have all my old bibliographies, and can't remember many of them.
However, I can recommend Richard II, by Nigel Saul, ISBN0300078757, as it has a complete chapter dealing with the Peasant's Revolt of 1381, which looks in detail at social, legal and economic problems and interactions of the lower/middle/upper classes in medieval England, and has a huge bibliography of primary and secondary sources, many of them also concerning the relationships between 'great men' and those of low status.