The crowd in the early Middle Ages / Shane Bobrycki.

Cover
Contents
Preface
Acknowledgments
Abbreviations
Introduction
The Early Middle Ages: A World without Crowds?
The Crowd as Historical Subject
The Crowd Regime of the Early Middle Ages
Sources and Structure
1. The Roman Legacy
Crowds in Roman Antiquity
The Crowd from the Republic to the Principate (c. 400 BCE-300 CE)
The Crowd in Late Antiquity (c. 300-600)
Scale
Functions
Ambivalence
The End of the Roman Crowd Regime in the West
The Legacy of Roman Crowds
2. Numbers
Number and Scale

Early Medieval Demography: Evidence, Causes, Trends
Regional Heterogeneity
Population Pools and Carrying Capacities
Sizes of Gatherings
Numbers and Crowds
3. Peasants and Other Non-Elites: Repertory and Resistance
The Problem of Non-Elite Crowds
Peasants: Far from the Madding Crowd?
Horizontal and Vertical Coordination
Spirituality and Recreation
Resistance
Repertory and Resistance
4. The Closed Crowd: Elite Venues and Occasions for Gathering
Predictability, Hierarchy, Unity
Religious Gatherings
Gatherings in ""Public"" Life

Intra-Elite Competition and Conflict: The Case of Tours
The Solemn Assembly
Ramifications of the Closed Crowd
5. Words
Semantic History
Crowds across Languages
Blurring Distinctions: Populus
Christianization: Contio
Erosion of Negative Connotations: Turba
Crowd Words Transformed
6. Representations
Patterns of Representation
Topoi, Type Scenes, and Their Sources
Qualities of the Crowd in Early Medieval Discourse
Crowds and Sanctity
The Crowd as Witness
Bad Crowds
Epilogue: Into the Eleventh Century
Conclusion

The Crowd in the Early Middle Ages
Ramifications
Notes
Index