(no subject)

[fpb]

Sometimes you have to laugh. More than twenty years ago, I wrote a paper for the Social Anthropology course at SOAS, arguing that the Carolingian Empire was not a "state" in the sense we understand it, but rather a kind of military occupation of the territory with minimal administrative features. The paper was well received, but no more. Now I am reading "State and Society in the early Middle Ages" by Matthew Innes, published in 2000 - ten years later. It argues pretty much the same thing and it is presented as groundbreaking and novel. I wonder if anyone would have noticed if my paper had been presented not to Social Anthro, but to History.

Comments

[fellmama.livejournal.com]

In the late 70s, late antiquity didn't exist, let alone early medieval studies. All those dreary Marxists were too busy trying to reframe medieval France as a clock-free utopia to pay attention to anything before A.D. 1000.* Imagined Communities hadn't been published yet. Or in other words--your timing was off!

In all seriousness, though, I doubt presenting it in history would have made much difference.

*I'm looking at YOU, Le Roy Ladurie!

[fpb.livejournal.com]

My timing? I said 20 years ago - that is, in 1990. I am aware of the heavy Marxist colouring of historical studies in the sixties and seventies (this was the age of Howard Zinn's success), but, apart that not all Marxist historians were bad - English history could not do without Christopher Hill - by 1990 things had moved on.

[fellmama.livejournal.com]

Haha, shows you when I was doing my work, doesn't it? When I was an undergraduate, we all used "twenty years ago" as shorthand for 1980. I suddenly feel rather old.

Most Marxist historians aren't necessarily bad historians, especially if they use it as a lens rather than just trying to cram everything into Marx's historical model. I'll certainly give you Hill, whom I've found very useful in my own research. As noted above, though, I'm still bitter about a few of 'em.

As far as your timing, I'm at a loss when it comes to 1990. Maybe you'd have done better at a US institution? Your argument would have been well received at Cornell. Well, assuming that you could get anyone at Cornell to pay attention to Carolingians.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

No, I think the point is that the Anthropology lot simply weren't aware of the heavily state-oriented tradition of Middle Age studies, where the Carolingian entity was either a failed imitation of the old Roman Empire or an early attempt at achieving a Habsburg-type grouping of states - and either way a failure. Anthropologists deal with different kinds of socio-political organizations and found my reading of ninth-century social organization (which I contrasted with the top-down, clearly state-like organization of Norman England at the time of the Domesday Book) simply obvious. Which shows you the importance of contacts between disciplines - even more than self-conscious inter-disciplinarity, which may only address one issue at a time and may leave plenty simply unnoticed.

[mentalguy.livejournal.com]

I think, for similar reasons, we need more generalists: people who have a foot in multiple fields and are really capable of synthesis.

[fellmama.livejournal.com]

Certainly we need better cross-disciplinary training. In my own field, classicists are constantly making asses of themselves by trying to write history.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

You should see what some archaeologists have managed!