Katharina Anna Groß, Visualisierte Gegenseitigkeit: Prekarien und Teilurkunden in Lotharingien im 10. und 11. Jahrhundert (Trier, Metz, Toul, Verdun, Lüttich). (Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Schriften 69.) Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2014. Pp. lxiv, 388; 40 color figures, 6 graphs, 1 map, and 22 tables. €55. ISBN: 978-3-447-10161-5

Katharina Anna Groß,. (Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Schriften 69.) Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2014. Pp. lxiv, 388; 40 color figures, 6 graphs, 1 map, and 22 tables. €55. ISBN: 978-3-447-10161-5.

For well over a century, specialists in the field of diplomatics, particularly in the German and French traditions, have offered detailed analyses of both the form and arrangement of documents and the ways in which developments in documentary types can illuminate a range of historical questions. Katharina Anna Groß continues this tradition in her analysis of the development and use of the range of property exchanges denoted by the broad term precarium, and the use of a particular type of documentary form, namely the chyrograph (German Teilurkunde), to record these property exchanges. Groß focuses her attention on property exchanges and documentary production by bishoprics and monasteries in the region of Lotharingia in the period from the early tenth to the mid-eleventh century.

As Groß makes clear, a precarial property agreement was one in which the grantor gave usufruct of property but not ownership to a recipient for a specific length of time, often the lifetime of the recipient. A chyrograph was a type of document in which the terms of the agreement that bound the two sides were written out on a single piece of parchment. This parchment was then divided into two parts, with each participant receiving the part that enunciated the obligations incumbent on that participant. Before this partition, however, the document was provided with distinctive written features, such as signatures, which were cut in half as the document was divided. Groß's main purpose in this study is to identify the reasons why ecclesiastical institutions granted precaria, and how the use of chyrographs to record these property agreements illuminates the nature of the relationships between the ecclesiastical institutions and private landowners that were established through these precaria.

The volume is organized in five parts: "Introduction," "Systematic Treatment of the Topic," "Synthesis," "Conclusion," and "Appendices." The introduction consists of two chapters, the first of which provides an introduction to the history of the terms precarium and chyrographum. Chapter 2 is divided into three sections that consider, in turn, the historiography treating private documents produced during the tenth and eleventh centuries, the sources that are available for Groß's study in Lotharingia, and finally a discussion of the scholarly traditions treating the social contexts of property exchange.

Section 2 is divided into three lengthy chapters (3–5). Chapter 3 provides an overview of the writing offices and personnel of the bishoprics and monasteries treated in this study. Chapter 4 includes a survey of the use of precarial arrangements from the early ninth to the early twelfth century and examines the economic rationale for ecclesiastical institutions as well as private landowners to make such agreements. The final substantive chapter in this section focuses on the origin of the chyrograph form in Lotharingia, and the variety of types of chyrographs that were used to record precarial grants. Chapter 6 offers a brief synopsis of main points that were treated in chapters 3–5.

The third section of the text also is divided into four chapters (7–10). Chapter 7 examines the ways in which the use of precarial agreements that used a chyrograph form can be understood to illuminate relationships among ecclesiastical institutions and aristocratic landowners. Chapter 8 considers the use of precarial agreements by ecclesiastical institutions to develop economic and political connections with counts and "knights" (German Ritter) against the background of "feudalism" (German Lehnswesen). It is notable that Groß, although listing Susan Reynold's Fiefs and Vassals in her bibliography, has not assimilated this scholar's findings regarding "feudalism's" lack of even heuristic value for understanding medieval affairs. In chapter 9, Groß discusses the petering out of the use of precarial arrangements during the mid-eleventh century as they gave way to different types of property agreements that focused on rents and leases. Chapter 10 considers the use of chyrographs to record lease agreements in the era of the investiture controversy during the early twelfth century.

In the conclusion, Groß provides an overview of the main points that were developed throughout the volume, and a restatement of the author's view that the chyrograph was particularly suited to precarial arrangements because it illuminated in a ritual manner the two-sided nature of the agreement and highlighted the reciprocity inherent in property exchanges with ecclesiastical institutions. The three appendices include editions of two previously unpublished chyrographs, a catalog of chyrographs produced by the ecclesiastical institutions treated in this volume, and a table of precarial agreements made by these institutions.

The volume is equipped with a considerable scholarly apparatus of notes, a bibliography of sources and scholarly works, seven charts dealing with the production and distribution of precarial documents, and forty beautifully executed images of chyrographs. The text is rounded out with a register of names and a register of documents that were considered in the text.

Overall, this volume represents a valuable introduction both to the history of the chyrograph as a documentary form and to the specific types of chyrographs that were produced by ecclesiastical institutions in Lotharingia in the tenth and eleventh century. In short, it succeeds as a study of diplomatics. However, from the perspective of illuminating historical questions relating to the use of precarial property agreements, the study is significantly less successful. First, Groß has missed the exceptionally important article by Giles Constable on precaria published in Speculum in 1960, which details the use of precarial arrangements during the Carolingian period, and particularly the central role played by the royal government in imposing such precaria on ecclesiastical institutions as a means of supporting men in royal service. As a result, Groß incorrectly asserts that the so-called precaria data, which were direct grants of land by ecclesiastical institutions without a previous donation to the institution by the recipient of the precarium, were unknown during the Carolingian period. In fact, they were very common, but were granted at royal rather than ecclesiastical initiative. It is notable that Groß recognizes that precaria data were granted by ecclesiastical institutions during the mid- to late eleventh century due to pressure from secular rulers (89).

Groß's misstep with regard to assimilating Constable's insights, and her disregard for the role played by governmental authorities under both the Carolingians and Ottonians in requiring ecclesiastical institutions to issue precaria, illuminates the broader problem of attempting to study precarial arrangements in the tenth and eleventh century solely on the basis of documents produced by ecclesiastical institutions themselves. For example, in the period examined by Groß, there are seven royal charters issued by Kings Otto I, Otto II, and Otto III that illuminate precarial arrangements made by the monastery of St. Maximin at Trier. These texts represent a 50 percent increase over the fifteen precaria issued by St. Maximin that were identified by Groß on the basis of the monastery's own documents (100). Notably, these precarial agreements were imposed on St. Maximin by the Ottonian kings to support their men in the same manner identified by Constable with regard to Carolingian rulers in the ninth century. On a more positive note, Groß makes a good case that the chyrograph served an important role in demonstrating in a visual manner the reciprocal relationship between the two parties engaged in a precarial agreement.