Bloch Response

Bloch in Feudal Society aims to answer several questions that act as the structure for this historiography: What is the social structure and how did it come about? What were its unifying principles? This in itself is a large endeavor to accomplish because of the broadness, but feel that he does so by expanding beyond Prescott’s “Great Man View of History”. Bloch does not just focus on the who is in power like Prescott did with Cortes and instead he provides a framework for the social structure for this medieval period of feudalism.

Instead, he tries to provide a complete insight into feudalism and how it functions within society between the 9^th and to about the 14^th century in this first volume. He does this at first by describing the environment of medieval Europe such as the invasions in the 9^th and 10^th century and then expands upon this by describing the conditions of life and the mentality of the time. Bloch attempts to tie in cultural influences that make this history, at least for me, reminiscent to anthropological workings that were happening at the time. After all, he is writing at the same time or after as social theorists such as Marx or Durkheim (who is also French and really influenced the social sciences).

I would also like to point out that I feel Bloch geared this book for other history workers already having some prior knowledge to this time period. As a result, this book could come across overwhelming for some not versed in this medieval period. Because of a medieval literature class that I had to take as a requirement, I feel that I had a firmer grasp on this book than others because I already had some familiarity with the time period. With that in mind, I would like to say that if anyone in our class is interested in this time period that they should take a medieval literature class with Amelia Rutledge because she really gets into the nuts and bolts of medieval societies and how this can be seen in the literature produced at the time.