Men and women who belonged to an estate unique to medieval Germany, the ministerials occupied a social position summarized by the oxymoron "noble bondsmen." While they retained the legal status of serfs, by the thirteenth century the ministerials included the warriors and administrators who formed the de facto nobility of the region.

With this monumental work of social history, John B. Freed documents the network of marriage practices among ministerials in the archdiocese of Salzburg. In the process he reconstructs an important and previously unexplored chapter in the rise of the German principalities and provides the most comprehensive account of any elite group in northern Europe during the High Middle Ages.

Although the ministerials' choice of spouses was subjected to the same restrictions that governed the marriage of serfs, Freed shows how the ministerials successfully employed marriage to acquire wealth, forge links with other families, and enhance their prestige.

He describes the status of women in High Medieval Germany in unprecedented detail as he examines the ministerials' strategies of family alliance, the evolution of their marriage payment system, and the manipulation of ministerials' marriages by archbishops aiming to expand the boundaries of the ecclesiastical principality.

Turning to representations of ministerials in the Rodenegg frescoes and in Ulrich of Liechtenstein's Frauendienst, Freed also probes the ministerials' own perception of the ambiguities of their social position.