More orderly assemblies and fewer riots occurred during the early Middle Ages when compared to the rowdy masses that gathered in Roman amphitheatres. According to Shane Bobrycki’s book, The Crowd in the Early Middle Ages, the decrease in population density of most early medieval cities made urban crowds less prone to stage mass revolts than during Roman antiquity. Plus, those who rose up to act collectively against their oppressors were typically quashed with overwhelming vehemence. The book argues that the early Middle Ages remained socially constrained by stable hierarchies.
The crowd serves as a highly useful lens for Bobrycki to ponder a comparatively calm era in urban history, since he observes that most early medieval throngs gathered at the behest of authorities who, by exerting control over popular activities, sought acclaim from organized, tidy assemblies. Admitting that sources may have filtered out news of mob violence, Bobrycki carefully tackles such big topics as the legitimizing power of large congregations and the ritual function of religious rites with wide participation. Bobrycki deploys methods from the study of archaeology, architecture, art, demography, economics, hagiography, literature, philology, rhetoric, environmental studies and the history of ideas, all interwoven with skill. Neither the Nika rebellion against Justinian nor the popular distaste for Emperor Phocas in Constantinople receive extensive discussion in the account, because this book focuses upon the West. The book seems particularly embedded in the Latin sources pertaining to Merovingian, Frankish, Carolingian and early medieval papal authorities. Bobrycki consistently teases out nuance from his deep plunge into Carolingian sources. The book has crowd appeal.
Bobrycki found a few reports of early medieval farm labourers who staged revolts; yet these rebellions appeared more orderly than revolutionary. Biased sources may have failed to recount the victories of the rabble rousers. Still, Bobrycki observes that popular groundswells petered out in the face of cruel oppression. Further, the dependence of non-elites on those with elevated status rendered the masses less apt to act out in public. As Bobrycki recounts, epistemological shifts in the connotations of turba, the Latin term for ‘crowd’, evolved from signifying an uproarious ancient horde to designating an early medieval congregation arranged by category and rank to please the elites, although there were some exceptions. The story is not simply that the storming crowds became calm – Bobrycki traces the changes in mentality.
Bobrycki observes that the early medieval crowd lost the power to topple rulers or others in charge. Instead, sombre liturgies and predictable scenarios at orchestrated events lent favourable overtones to early medieval gatherings. While urban unrest certainly did not go away entirely, early medieval crowds gained positive valence that differed significantly from the negative connotations held by ancient uproars. This was meaningful, Bobrycki argues, because social cohesion became prized for mirroring the perceived heavenly order. To be sure, elite textual sources do not necessarily reveal the messy reality, as Bobrycki admits. Indeed, he points toward non-participation as a major path to resistance.
Pushback also occurred ‘slantwise’ during the early Middle Ages. By ‘slantwise’, Bobrycki references group actions that unwittingly countered the directives of authorities or remained under the spell of unsanctioned superstition. ‘Slanted’ assemblies were those in which people apparently complied with social norms and hardly ever instigated resistance, yet the authorities nevertheless identified these crowds as obstreperous.
The positive rhetoric on gatherings fostered the commonplace of a ‘witness crowd’ that granted permission through tacit observation. Indeed, Bobrycki identifies what he calls a ‘bad crowd’ that was miraculously transformed into a benevolent one when Saint Amator of Auxerre healed a child before an assembly of tree-worshipers. This ‘bad crowd’, dedicated to the tree cult, apparently turned away from paganism and embraced the ‘good’ after witnessing the Christian spiritual cure.
Not all early medieval crowds kept the peace. There was a report from Agnellus that Archbishop Damian of Ravenna proposed a ritual response to an annual mock battle gone awry after the crowd embarked upon a mass-murdering frenzy. In response, Damian orchestrated a liturgical procession over the course of three days to enact public contrition. Bobrycki identifies evidence in the reports that the violence was hardly spontaneous, since the tale hints at a premeditated plot to kill off rivals. This substantiates a claim that ‘closed’ rituals prevailed during the early Middle Ages. ‘Closed’ in this context references the restrictions on mass behaviour, including the tumult at Ravenna, where a premeditated murderous plan actually kept the crowd’s wildest impulses in check. Likewise, the outdoor ritual granting penance to Ravenna’s citizens was ‘closed’, since Agnellus claimed that the procession was orderly and thereby restored calm.
Bobrycki capably sets forth historical contexts in clever ways that make this book appealing to non-specialists. Addressing social psychologists, Bobrycki identifies that there is no predetermined crowd mentality. Rather, the radical shifts in crowd behaviour require that today’s readers cast away preconceptions of unruly masses by reflecting on the relatively quiet assemblies of the early Middle Ages.
