Bachrach, Bernard S. “Animals and Warfare in Early Medieval Europe.” Settimane di studio del
Centro Italiano di Studi Sull’Alto Medioevo 31 (1985):707–64.
——. “‘Caballus et Caballarius’ in Medieval Warfare.” In The Study of Chivalry, Resources and
Approaches, ed. Howell Chickering and Thomas H.Seiter. Kalamazoo: Medieval Institute,
1988, pp. 173–211.
“Charlemagne’s Cavalry: Myth and Reality.” Military Affairs 47:181–87.
. “Charles Martel, Mounted Shock Combat, the Stirrup and Feudalism.” Studies in Medieval and
Renaissance History 7 (1970):49–75.
. Merovingian Military Organization, 481–751. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1972.
CENS
. Fixed sum paid annually by a tenant in recognition of an ultimate right or
proprietorship. In practice, the cens (Lat. census) constituted a small, unchanging rent. In
the 9th century, it was collected primarily from nondomainal property, such as vineyards,
fields, and newly cleared land. By the 12th and 13th centuries, it had become a type of
tenure known as the censive and distinguished from feudal tenure, for which service was
required, and allodial tenure, which was free from both rent and service. All kinds of
urban as well as rural property could be held for cens.
Since the cens was fixed and hereditable, the inflationary environment of the high
Middle Ages often made it profitable for tenants to sublease their censives at higher rents,
while landlords attempted to limit the duration of tenure (e.g., to one or two lifetimes)
and to tax transfers beyond the original tenant family. Transfer taxes in effect
compensated for the fixed low rate of the cens. Landlords with large numbers of cens-
paying tenants often compiled rent books, called censiers.
Theodore Evergates
Fossier, Robert. Polyptyques et censiers. Turnhout: Brepols, 1978.
Fourquin, Guy. “Le temps de la croissance.” In Histoire de la France rural, ed. Georges Duby and
Armand Wallon. Paris: Seuil, 1975, Vol. 1: La formation des campagnes françaises des origines
au XIVe siècle, pp. 165–68.
——. Lordship and Feudalism in the Middle Ages, trans. Iris and A.L.Lytton Sells. New York:
Pica, 1976.
CENT BALLADES, LES
. Composed at the end of the 14th century by Jean de Saint-Pierre, the seneschal of Eu, in
collaboration with Philippe d’Artois, count of Eu, Boucicaut le Jeune, and Jean de
Crésecque, the Cent ballades is a variation on the poetic love debate. In the first fifty
ballades, an old knight gives advice to a young man on how to make war and how to love
by avoiding Fausseté and seeking out Loyauté. Later, the young man encounters a
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