Richard Barton

Education

Ph.D. History, University of California, Santa Barbara
M.A. History, University of California, Santa Barbara
B.A. History, Williams College

Courses Taught

• HIS 221: The Medieval Legacy
• HIS 310: Women in the Middle Ages
• HIS 311: The Viking Age
• HIS 312: The Crusades
• HIS 391: Historical Skills and Methods
• HIS 393: Medieval Church and State
• HIS 442/542: Violence in the Middle Ages
• HIS 442/542: Emotions in the middle Ages
• HIS 442/542: Civil War and Rebellion in Europe, c.1100-1700
• HIS 510: Historiography
• HIS 705: Colloquium in European History to 1800
• HIS 716 (co-taught): Colloquium in World History

Research

Richard Barton’s research program investigates the structures and nature of power in the aristocratic society of western France between c.900 and c.1250. For medieval aristocrats, power may have seemed a relatively uncomplicated concept: it was literally the ability to dominate lesser men and women. Yet his work broadens the concepts of power, domination, and lordship to include interpersonal dynamics, gender constraints, emotional display and convention, collectively held beliefs and identities, and affective notions of right. This means that he combines in his conception of medieval aristocratic power two notions: a practical understanding of power as the ability to constrain and a more theoretical understanding of power as the confluence of intangible qualities of affect, honor, and/or “charisma.”

His research is focused on Western France – including Maine, Anjou, the Touraine, the Vendômois, western Brittany, and Normandy – between c.900-1200 (he has also done some work on the early history of Norman England, but this is not a true research specialty). He makes use of chronicles, letters, saints’ lives, and early chansons de geste, but most of his work involves the analysis of charters (or diplomas, “acta,” or “notices”), chronicles, and legal records.