The status of lord represented one of the most original solutions to the political and social transitions of the Medieval period. Questions still remain unanswered and require further investigation, thus many scholars have collaborated to produce this collection which offers a synthesis of the most recent scholarship. This book relates the workings of seigneurial systems in different areas of Europe, from the Baltic to the Mediterranean, from Castile to Pontus. In this way, the perspective remains the same, institutional and material. This book emphasises both the institutional and informal forms of lordship identified and crystallised by social and political actors (for example, communities, sovereigns, nobles, bishops, and abbots). It offers a general framework for those approaching the subject for the first time and a useful in-depth tool with numerous regional cases for long-term scholars.

Antonio Antonetti (1989) is a post-PhD fellow at the University of San Marino. His main research interest is the Church in late-medieval southern Italy, particularly the evolution of the ecclesiastical institutions (dioceses) and the role of the bishops in the Italian society.

Riccardo Berardi (1988) is a post-PhD fellow at the University of Calabria, Italy, and a research fellow at the École française de Rome and the Deutsche Historische Institut in Rom. His research interests concern the history of the lordships of southern Italy, with particular attention to Calabria during the 11th-16th centuries.