评《中世纪领主权》——托马斯·N.比森的领主权研究

Comments on “Medieval Lordship”——Lordship Studies of Professor Thomas N.Bisson

本文是对托马斯·比森的《中世纪领主权》一文的介绍与评论。本文认为,比森的文章应该置于美国封建主义研究的史学史中来理解,它标志着相关研究进入新阶段。比森的文章描述和分析了中世纪领主权兴起与发展的历程,突显了领主权的普遍性特征。比森极其强调领主权重要性,主张领主权不是政府而是权力。比森的研究突破了封建主义研究的困局,推动了中世纪政治社会史的新发展。自比森文章发表以来,西方学界的领主权研究已渐成气候,有取代封建主义研究的趋势。于此,比森的领主权研究值得国内学界特别关注。

This brief review is going to give some introductions and comments for 'Medieval Lordship', the paper of Thomas Bisson. It suggests that the essay of Professor Bisson should be read and understood carefully under the context of American historiography of feudalism studies. Through the whole paper, Professor Bisson has clearly described and profoundly analyzed the experience that the rise, the growth and the crisis of lordship had happened successively in medieval Europe. Due to the lordship's ubiquity that his research has represented, Professor Bisson would strongly invite medievalists to turn more attention to lordship. This review holds a view that Professor Bisson has greatly contributed to medieval studies, especially to fedualism studies, because of his heralding paper and revolutional theory.