ABSTRACT
Sinee the 1950s our pereeptions of medieval Franee have been radieallyehanged by a wealth of regional and loeal studies of Freneh society and polities in the Middle Ages. Social struetures are now seen as variable and eomplex rather than as simply hierarehieal, and there has been an emphasis on the role of regional and loeal rulers - the territorial prinees, eounts and eastellans - eounterbalaneing the earlier more eentralist perspeetives. Moreover, Freneh soeiety in the early Capetian period no longer appears as a clearlydefined feudal hierarehy on the lines put forward by Fulbert of Chartres and other eeclesiasties of the time and by innumerable historians sinee.
