Those of My Blood: Creating Noble Families in Medieval Francia

For those who ruled medieval society, the family was the crucial social unit, made up of those from whom property and authority were inherited and those to whom it passed. One's kin could be one's closest political and military allies or one's fiercest enemies. While the general term used to describe family members was consanguinei mei, "those of my blood," not all of those relations—parents, siblings, children, distant cousins, maternal relatives, paternal ancestors, and so on—counted as t...