Yay! And great essay! Susan Reynolds is one of my heroes and I have spent my career talking about the socio-economic-political system of medieval Western Europe (at least a lot of it--there was a lot that had totally different systems, of course) as a molecule more than a pyramid--a stupidly simplistic mental image that I have spent so much time debunking. Molecules are composites that are not linear; they rely on a series of interlocking and reciprocal relationships in which they exchange electrons in order to remain stable. In my work, this describes the medieval socio-political-economic system quite accurately. But it is fiendishly difficult to model in a simple way, which is what my students disliked about it. Nevertheless, I--and they--persisted . . .
Yay! And great essay! Susan Reynolds is one of my heroes and I have spent my career talking about the socio-economic-political system of medieval Western Europe (at least a lot of it--there was a lot that had totally different systems, of course) as a molecule more than a pyramid--a stupidly simplistic mental image that I have spent so much time debunking. Molecules are composites that are not linear; they rely on a series of interlocking and reciprocal relationships in which they exchange electrons in order to remain stable. In my work, this describes the medieval socio-political-economic system quite accurately. But it is fiendishly difficult to model in a simple way, which is what my students disliked about it. Nevertheless, I--and they--persisted . . .