ABSTRACT
This chapter presents a good picture of where medieval conflict studies in the United States. Several of the essays suggest that central authority was able to have an impact on conflicts when it succeeded in engaging someone's self-interest – that is to say, when someone needed or wanted it to have an impact. What role do law and legal institutions play in our tapestry of conflict and power in the Middle Ages? Several of our contributors have focused specifically on law; they have been drawn to conflict in an effort to answer particular questions about legal history. The chapter shows that medieval "mental orders" were very different from modern ones in some important respects. Douglass C. North's essay on the cathedral in Arezzo describes a conflict that revolved around the division and control of man-made space. The problems posed by medieval maps or descriptions of space match those posed by medieval conflict narratives.
