More Josep María Salrach, this time from the older Procés de Feudalització, where I find him observing that both before the feudal revolution (say 950) and after it (say 1070) the count is in charge of the nobility who run his castles for him. (Although there is as you will have observed from the previous post something of a blip between times.) The difference is in the way the link works. Beforehand, the count is the representative of the public power, the power enshrined in the law as the princeps, delegated from the king, and the nobles are agents, whose title is constituted by their office that he gives them. Afterwards the relation is more two-way, an agreed sharing of power that leaves the noble the count’s vassal. Actually this means that the count has more power over the vassal, as the vassal owes not just the castle if requested, but also military service and most importantly homage, which has nasty consequences if broken, whereas before the count’s power was more or less restricted to the taking back of the officer’s honores, if he even could. But the exchange is that the count has to give away more power, leaving the vassal more or less independent in a territory that had once paid the count dues and renders which are now going to the vassal. Both sides give more to get more.
Now of course some might say that the Carolingians imposed universal oaths of homage with theoretical penalties of death for transgressors, the local nobles were always more or less invulnerable in their heartlands unless ousted by force, and that generally less changes here than Salrach implies except in the field of theory and rules. But as ever I’m interested to see the change described so clearly. The big problem remains that we are looking at a lot of changes altogether which are not necessarily associated by nature.
Some day I’ll write it, some day.
A Corner of Tenth-Century Europe 