Fiefs and Vassals - The Medieval Evidence Reinterpreted

Fiefs and Vassals is a book that will change our view of the medieval world. Offering a fundamental challenge to orthodox conceptions of feudalism, Susan Reynolds argues that the concepts of fiefs and vassalage that have been central to the understanding of medieval society for hundreds of years are in fact based on a misunderstanding of the primary sources.

It was Freidenberg's special genius that anticipated the structural and semiotic approaches to myth and literatue. Image and Concept develops the notion that with the transition from mythological thinking to formal-logical concepts came the appearance of literature. Inherited mythological forms were reinterpreted conceptually: causalized, ethicized, generalized, and abstracted.