Notes on Classes, Domination and Social Conflicts in the High Middle Ages

Abstract

Except for a History that is mobilized, nowadays, much more by the supposedly continuities than the changes, the periods of major transitions continue to demand interpretative effort from specialists. It is long the list of those who have been dedicated to the transitional problem between the Antiquity and the Middle Ages, focused on a period of poor and unequally distributed sources, trying to shed light and establish various interpretative means for this phenomenon. Albeit having overcome some of the catastrophic perspectives hindering the pioneer analyses within this context, the current approaches have also eliminated the recognition of both the contradictory manifestations and the social struggles acting as central and fundamental engines of the social transformations within the discussed context. When supported by an adequate theoretical background, documents from the period lead us to a process resulting from contradictions and a scenario of actions and reactions that eventually materialized the conflicts and moved History forward. The transition from the Antiquity to the Middle Ages was encompassed by diverse social antagonist manifestations, which allows us to consider that the arena of disputes were, therefore, that of the society itself