Review Author(s): J. B. Owens Review by: J. B. Owens Source: The American Historical Review, Vol. 96, No. 1 (Feb., 1991), pp. 152-153 Published by: Oxford University Press on behalf of the American Historical Association Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2164059 Accessed: 07-06-2016 17:04 UTC Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at http://about.jstor.org/terms
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152
Reviews
of
Books
JAMES F. POWERS. A Society Organizedfor War: The Iberian
shrewd and intriguing, although disappointingly brief.
Municipal Militias in the Central Middle Ages, 1000-1284.
Such subjects may not fall under the author's deliberate
Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California
focus, however, and stand less as a criticism than as a
Press. 1988. Pp. xii, 365. $45.00.
call to further exploration. This volume is a model of
its kind and a pathbreaker in its field. Both in English For twenty years the colleagues of James F. Powers
and in the Spanish translation, this book will long
have valued his pioneering articles on Spain's medieval
remain the standard treatment and a benchmark for
town militias and looked forward to this book. Their
successors.
patience has been rewarded with an exhaustive, well-
ROBERT I. BURNS
documented narrative with thematic coverage from
University of California,
Portugal to Catalonia during the central three centu-
Los Angeles
ries of the urban warriors' rise and flourishing. The topic has been sadly neglected. These were not the
feeble auxiliaries historians encounter in northern Eu-
DENIS MENJOT. Fiscalidad y sociedad: Los murcianos y el
ropean feudalism but a central defense of the realm, so
impuesto en la Baja Edad Media. Murcia: Academia
formidable that James the Conqueror could threaten his nobles in 1264: "All the towns of Aragon and
Alfonso X el Sabio. 1986. Pp. 388.
Catalonia are on my side against you, and they are as skilled as you in warfare" (p. 3). Although he has assiduously worked the archives and leaves no evidence unturned or secondary work unread, the author's fundamental source is the municipal codes, thefueros.
With this collection of eight essays, Denis Menjot has
Consequently, he examines law as much as war and the interaction between the two that shaped urban evolu-
tion on this permanent frontier. The result was a behavioral model these townsmen eventually carried into the New World. Although he plays the fuero
made a valuable contribution. Although most have been published, the essays have appeared in journals
and conference proceedings that have limited circulation and are difficult to obtain. Moreover, most of the
chapters complement each other, and Menjot has emphasized this aspect through helpful cross references. Menjot groups his essays into three sections: a detailed study of municipal fiscal administration and its ties to the royal treasury, an analysis of the types and incidence of taxation, and a topical examination of the fiscal system's impact on the economy. Since Menjot investigates fiscal matters because of their centrality to
elements in dazzling combinations, Powers does not neglect Arabic and Hispanic chronicles or the Islamic influences resonant in militia terminology. Three rather demanding chronological chapters narrate the militias' origins and multifarious evolutions
any political community, one learns a great deal from his essays about a Castilian region in the late Middle
in every Spanish realm. Five chapters tlfematically
Ages.
detail the mutual shaping of Spain's urbanization and
Two aspects of the book make it particularly impor-
its institutionalized warfare: constitutional limitations protecting the town warrior (how often, how long, how
tant. First, the southeastern Spanish city of Murcia
far, how many, how armed); militia towns as an indepth defensive network and as long-distance offensive aggressors; spoils as an economy, a lifestyle, and veterans' compensation; and severe military justice and laws
of war framing the whole (hanging, exile, branding, perhaps scalping). The treatment of arms, horses, and procedures is original and fascinating. An epilogue stresses the unique range and independence of the
militias and their later transformation into both vigilante and nonfrontier forms.
It is not easy to criticize such a knowledgeable
author. Having a stronger orientation toward nonMediterranean Spain, he seems more comfortable with the Castilian-Aragonese model than with the CatalanValencian. Townsmen naval power is absent. (They helped take the Balearic Islands by massive amphibious landings and the Valencian kingdom by naval flanking
and logistical support; the Catalan counts regularly assigned galleys to be built and manned by various towns at town expense.) The role of Jewish and especially Mudejar militia contingents in Mediterranean Spain does not appear, nor do the dogs of war that locals used to reinforce watchtower garrisons. The comparisons with Italian and Occitan town armies are
preserves one of the richest documentary collections available for research on Castilian history in the late
fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries. Murcia was
the capital of a sparsely populated kingdom of the same name that was sandwiched between the sea and the kingdoms of Aragon (Valencia) and Muslim Granada. The records of its council meetings exist in an almost complete series beginning in 1364, and these are complemented by registers of royal correspondence and the municipal account books for ten years (plus another partial one) spread over the period from 1391 to 1460. Miguel Angel Ladero Quesada's important work on the fifteenth-century Castilian treasury was based on normative documents found mostly in the royal archive of Simancas. Menjot's use of sources has allowed him to explain the development of the fiscal system under the early Trastamara monarchs, to show how limitations on central authority often meant that local reality deviated from the royal norm, and to undertake a statistical study of taxation. Because he consistently compares his data with what is known about other areas of Castile and Western Europe in the same period, Menjot's insights go beyond the particularity of Murcian history. On the latter subject, his most interesting conclusions deal with how a regional elite
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Medieval
153
used the fiscal system to solidify its power in the face of
them to evaluate the author's arguments. The key
royal intervention and popular hostility and how fiscal
literary texts are given in an appendix.
administration contributed to the demographic and
Trexler has written an important and provocative
economic stagnation of a region already ill-favored by
book. He recognizes that his evidence is often thin and
its natural environment and frontier location.
subject to different interpretations. Much of his socio-
Second, the book is an exemplary guide for this type
logical evidence comes from Florence and must be
of research. Menjot makes careful use of his documen-
compared to other evidence from Tuscany, because
tation and provides clear explanations of the work of
comparable studies from Umbria are lacking. Trexler
various officials and of the taxes collected. The author
errs when he says that the Spiritual and Conventual
has packed into these pages a great deal of useful
parties were close to schism by 1260 (p. 40). That was
information about a period when fiscal matters were
only true after 1305 when Clement V agreed to hear
acquiring a preponderant place in the preoccupations
the dispute and Ubertino assumed the role of speaking
of authorities and individuals.
for the rigorists. Trexler speaks as if all of the Spirituals
Of course, these articles assume a knowledge of late
were Joachites, which is not borne out by the evidence
medieval Castilian history, but even specialists may be
(p. 41). Trexler has, however, raised important issues
puzzled by Menjot's vague references to factional con-
that scholars who study Francis and the history of the
flicts. He has avoided a specific study of these because they have been the focus of the books of Maria de los Llanos Martinez Carrillo.
order will have to consider. Historians interested in the
J. B. OWENS
familial aspects of the later Middle Ages will find the book interesting, not least because it uses art as evi-
dence for understanding social issues.
Idaho State University
E. RANDOLPH DANIEL
University of Kentucky RICHARD C. TREXLER. Naked before the Father: The Renun-
ciation of Francis of Assisi. (Humana Civilitas, number 9.)
DAVID BURR. Olivi and Franciscan Poverty: The Origins of
New York: Peter Lang, under the auspices of Center
the Usus Pauper Controversy. (Middle Ages Series.)
for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, University of
Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. 1989.
California, Los Angeles. 1989. Pp. xii, 129. $22.95.
Pp. xii, 211. $29.95.
Richard C. Trexler first argues that Pica, the mother of
This book provides a history of the Franciscan poverty
Francis of Assisi, had been widowed before she married Pietro Bernardone and that she had a son, Angelo, by her former husband. Angelo's son, Piccardo, procu-
controversy from 1279 to 1299 with special emphasis on Peter John Olivi. Focusing on Olivi, David Burr has provided a series of wonderful books and articles about Franciscan apocalypticism, sacramental theory, and biblical commentary. This book is about the early
rator of San Francesco (1256-84), used property inher-
ited from Pica to enrich the basilica. Second, Trexler
analyzes the renunciation accounts. According to Thomas of Celano and Bonaventure, Pietro possessed the money before he and Francis went to the bishop so that Francis could renounce his paternal inheritance. Because, according to the Three Companions, Francis
still had the money when he came before the bishop, Trexler suggests that in their view "Francis ... left the
history of the "spiritual party" within the Franciscan order.
The early history of the Franciscan poverty controversy is inseparable from the history of Olivi's trials and tribulations. Hence, Burr's earlier work, The Persecution
of Peter Olivi (1976), dealt with much of the same material covered in this volume. In both studies, Burr
world to spite Pietro, after being warned by the prelate
avoided the temptation to read the events of 1279-99
that he could not both emancipate himself and give to the church the money he had earned off his father's goods before that emancipation" (p. 43). Trexler thinks that Celano used the story of Bernardo of Quintavalle as a model for those joining the order, intimating that they should give their goods to the
anachronistically by seeing Olivi as Franz Ehrle did in the terms set by the Council of Vienna of 1311. But this book deals more masterfully with the Olivi material
poor, especially the friars themselves (p. 46). Third, Trexler examines the visual tradition from the Bardi Master (c. 1235) to the sixteenth century and argues
that the presence of Pica in the Bardi and Sienese renunciations indicates that Francis renounced his ma-
ternal as well as his paternal inheritance and that Pietro was primarily concerned with Pica's property. Later scenes of the renunciation depicted generational conflicts between Tuscan males over women's dowries. The thirty-two illustrations are in black and white, but most are sufficiently clear to enable the reader to use
and broadens its scope to deal with other aspects of the controversy and other protagonists. Angelo da Clareno is treated here in some detail, and
Burr engages in good-tempered and informative discussion of the works of Lydia von Auw, the modern authority on da Clareno. Hugh of Dinge is characterized as a man "venerated and cultivated for his occasional diatributes, the sort of man whose eloquence wins him not persecution by dinner invitations"
(p. 188).
Burr introduces a useful distinction between the
poverty dispute in Italy and southern France: in Italy the issue was at first restricted to practice, and in
France the dispute focused on the nature of the vow.
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