Assembly politics in western Europe from the eighth century to the twelfth

Abstract

The 'assembly politics' is deliberately ambiguous: it refers both to politics conducted through assemblies and to politics conducted at assemblies. Assemblies were the places for promulgating legislation or sub-legislative instructions. The decline in importance of legislation across most of Western Europe in the post-Carolingian era meant the decline of the aspect of assembly functionality. From the eighth through to the twelfth centuries, European rulers met face to face infrequently, though when they did so this was normally at assemblies. Rather, they defined membership of their exclusive club by their repeated participation in exchanges: of brides, of gifts, of ambassadors. 'Polities' and 'politics' are merely neutral signifiers for past human activities to which one would probably apply similar terms in their own societies. It is clear that the Anglo-Saxon and Anglo-Norman polities, though showing many similarities with their continental analogues, were subtly different.

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