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thoroughly atomized.
    It is worth noting that scholars have recently begun to question whether the received orthodoxy is accurate. The
mutationiste
model, it has been argued, depends on an interpretation of ninth-and tenth-century developments which is both too neat, in that it posits an unrealistically clear distinction between public and private institutions, and too negative, since it consigns the later Carolingians (the last one to be king in France died in 987) to powerless inertia sooner than the evidence warrants. It is also clear that the social and economic status of those who worked the land was very varied. Some sank into serfdom under the pressure of overbearing lords, but others clung on to their landed rights and relative independence. Nor was the fate of the princes uniform: some, such as the dukes of Normandy and Aquitaine and the counts of Flanders and Barcelona, fought back hard against the petty castellans. The transformation of around 1000 may even be an optical illusion. Charters, the records of transfers of lands and rights which are among our most important sources, become noticeably less formulaic and more discursive as the eleventh century progresses. This apparent rejection of tradition is usually interpreted as a symptom of a shift from public and systematic to private and ad hoc judicial organization, a process with wide social and political repercussions. But if the change in the documents can be explained by other factors—perhaps the old-style charters had been masking social changes for decades and were finally considered too inappropriate for an expanding and more complex world—then the
mutationiste
thesis stands in need of modification. Overall, it is clear that the study of the period immediately before the crusades is entering a period of change. In recent years historians who work on the ninth and tenth centuries have generally been bolder than their eleventh-century colleagues in daring to rethink their basic assumptions and reinterpret their evidence. The effect is rather like that of a rising river pressing on a dam.
    It is too soon to predict how thoroughly new interpretations will influence our understanding of the First Crusade’s origins. Even when every allowance is made for the desirability of revision, however, it remains tolerably certain that historians need not abandon their traditional interest in one fundamental aspectof eleventh-century society: the dominance of the knightly élite. The terminology of chronicles and charters is instructive in this regard. By the eleventh century the warrior was coming to be called
miles
(plural
milites
). In classical Latin the core meaning of
miles
had been the footsoldier who was the backbone of the Roman legions, but in a significant shift of association the word now became applied exclusively to those who fought on horseback. In the process miles also acquired new social connotations, since it implied the ability to meet the great expense of obtaining mounts, armour, and weapons by exploiting the surplus produce of extensive landed resources or by entering the honourable service of a rich lord. In a related development, the techniques of mounted warfare also changed. By the time of the First Crusade it was common for knights to carry a heavy lance which was couched under the arm and extended well beyond the horse’s head. This weapon was significant in a number of ways. It enabled ranks of horsemen to deliver a charge which exploited the full momentum of rider and mount. Its effective deployment depended on rigorous training and co-operation, which promoted group solidarity. And it had symbolic value: the heavy lance was not the knight’s only arm, but as the one most obviously and exclusively suited to mounted combat it served to proclaim its bearer’s distinctiveness. Heavy cavalry’s dominance on the battlefield was thus both a cause and a consequence of its broader social and economic status.
    Two qualifying observations are