For our second meeting (Wednesday, September 27), read and analyze one of the three documents of late medieval rural society, which have been posted to Blackboard and the HIST 441 course website. These documents are:

1) Ordinance of the Commune of Ingenried (1549)
2) Mediation between the Abbey of Weingarten and its Peasant Subjects (1432)
3) Grievances against the Imperial Abbey of Kempten (1492)

Each of you will be assigned one of these. Between now and Wednesday, go over your document carefully, and try to formulate answers to the following questions:

1) What sort of document is it (e.g., a letter, a treaty, a contract, etc.)? To whom is the document addressed? How do these distinctions cause you to read the document—for example, would you read a letter differently from a contract?

2) Does your document describe any sort of social interaction? How would you characterize that interaction? Is it a negotiation, for example, or a protest of some sort?

3) Who are the participants in the interaction? Can you tell what each participant is seeking to achieve? What is the evidence for your conclusions?

4) What power relations are described in your document? Is there a “level playing field,” as we like to say nowadays? Or is it uneven? If uneven, to who’s advantage or disadvantage?

5) What values and norms, if any, are encoded in your document? What is your evidence?

6) What do your answers to all of these questions tell you about the structure of late medieval society in Europe? Was it a highly conflictual society, for example? Or did late medieval Europeans inhabit a peaceable world?

Write your answers down, bring them to class, and be prepared to discuss your answers with the others.