Reflections

The book closes by reflecting on a number of features of aristocratic society, beginning with lordship and clientage. The chapter then turns to the issue of space and to ‘landscapes of lordship’. Then there are the issues of centre and locality and public versus private. The chapter then turns to the communal dimension to aristocratic life. Collective action, however, was by no means antithetical to vertical ties; in fact they flourished together. Finally, we need to address the question of what prompted, or indeed governed, change within aristocratic society. There are three approaches here, looking to: changes that were intrinsic to the aristocratic world itself; developments within the societies which the aristocracy strove to dominate; and to exogenous factors. The separation of approaches is, however, an illusion. The reality was more complex, and few developments, if any, were totally monocausal. The attitudes and behavioural traits which have been emphasized in this book underpinned and conditioned how the aristocracies responded to the multiple stimuli.