Border Raids and Reivers

A historical account of sustained cross‑border raiding that examines economic hardship, agricultural insecurity, and lingering memories of invasion as causes of endemic lawlessness. It recounts how raids were organized, the retaliatory cycles and cruelties they produced, and the impact on monasteries, settlements, and everyday life. The work details the offices and duties of border wardens, the institutions created to manage offenders—monthly truce meetings, bonds, and trials—and the informal practices of pledges, hand‑fasting, and feuding that sustained violence when central authority proved weak.