The monetary reforms of Charlemagne and the circulation of money in early medieval Campania

The article examines the degree to which Charlemagne's conquest of Lombardy extended the domain of the Carolingian silver denarius into Italy, and argues that the changeover from gold to silver was markedly gradual and ultimately temporary in the south of Italy, especially in Campania. In the economic sphere at least, southern Italy was never fully integrated into the Carolingian sphere, but looked rather to the central and eastern Mediterranean.     

Contra damnationis filios: the Visconti in fourteenth-century papal diplomacy

This article seeks to reappraise the relationship between the Avignon papacy and the Visconti lords of Milan during the fourteenth century. Avignon popes generally viewed the Visconti as the major obstacle to papal temporal power in Italy and thus fashioned propaganda that demonised them. This mythic portrayal, that was re-framed by Florence to justify its own imperialistic ambitions in Tuscany, has been accepted uncritically by modern historiography. Documents from the Vatican archive reveal a more complicated diplomacy. Papal policy toward the Visconti was far from consistent, as the curia welcomed Visconti money and Avignonese popes regularly granted the Visconti papal vicariates. This article demonstrates that the papal-Visconti struggle was a key factor in the creation of the strategic alliance between Florence and the Visconti that made the War of Eight Saints possible and ended the Guelph alliance. This study further suggests that the political ambitions of Giangaleazzo Visconti were stoked in great measure by the Great Schism when partisans of both popes looked to him as the saviour of the Church and of Italy. Finally this article suggests that a re-evaluation of fourteenth-century diplomacy might accord closer scrutiny to the role played by the Church in destabilising Italy.     

Lawcourt proceedings in the Lombard kingdom before and after the Frankish conquest

The Frankish conquest of the Lombard kingdom in 774 is considered a basic event and even a turning point in the early medieval history of Italy. Lombard institutions are believed to have disappeared in favour of Frankish rules and customs. This article seeks to refute this view by demonstrating that there is a very great deal of continuity between the two periods for one of the most important judicial institutions, the trial. It will be shown that the different phases of court procedure remain nearly unaltered after the acquisition of Northern Italy by the Franks and that even the most striking difference between the Frankish and the Lombard trial, namely the distinction between judges and scabini, was not introduced in this part of the Carolingian Empire before 827. Even after that date the Frankish distinction was only applied in some trials, while the Lombard procedure remained the more common.     

The Austrian ‘occupation’ of Ferrara in 1847: its legal aspect between myth and reality

The so-called occupation of the papal town of Ferrara by Austrian troops in the late summer of 1847 became an important chapter in the history of the Risorgimento. It provoked strong anti-Austrian resentment in Italy, where Austria’s conduct was generally regarded as aggressive and illegal. As this article attempts to prove from an investigation of the legal aspect of the affair, the accusation that the Austrians had violated international law with their actions in Ferrara is nothing but another Risorgimento myth. The same accusation was also a way for the papal government to attempt to denigrate Austria, although the question of legality actually meant little for the pope who used the affair to increase his popularity among Italians. Consequently, Austria’s determined effort to settle the affair on a legal basis was anachronistic vis-à-vis the new political situation that arose in Italy and was thus doomed to failure in advance.     

A testimony of Carolingian rule? The Codex epistolaris carolinus,its historical context,and the meaning of imperium

In the preface to the Carolingian collection of papal letters, known as the Codex epistolaris carolinus, the word imperium is used in the context of describing what is in the collection. In this article, I shall argue that a reinterpretation of the preface's statement about what imperium refers to will shed a different light on the CC as a collection in its entirety. What imperium refers to exactly can be debated, yet studying the Codex carolinus as a Carolingian product of its time, in combination with a reappraisal of its preface, may help to understand the source's historical context and its value to the Carolingian court. As I hope to demonstrate, the CC was an essentially purposeful collection, which underlined the shared history of the Carolingian family and the papacy in Rome.     

Legislation and politics in late Carolingian Italy: the Ravenna constitutions

This article considers some overlooked evidence for royal legislation in the dying days of the Carolingian empire, a series of charters known as the Ravenna constitutions. These documents, which deal with the status of Italian freemen, are often analysed as sources for social history but rarely as texts in their own right. Reconstructing the context in which the charters were issued enables us to cast light on political events and royal self‐representation in early 880s Italy; and by drawing attention to the peculiarities of their form, we can use them to reflect more broadly on the nature of Carolingian capitulary legislation and the meaning of its disappearance at the end of the ninth century.     

The history of marriage and the myth of Friedelehe

The idea that Friedelehe and Muntehe constituted two distinct forms of Germanic marriage was based upon an attempt to reconstruct common Germanic culture with scraps of evidence from widely different times and places. A thorough re-examination of the sources for the institutions that were posited, based on this now outmoded methodology, reveals no evidence that transfer of Munt, or guardianship, distinguished between two different types of marriage, except perhaps in Lombard Italy, under the influence of Roman law. The idea that marriage with a dos is a different institution from marriage without one is not attested until the Carolingian period.     

A marriage,a battle,an honour: the career of Boniface of the Hucpoldings during Rudolf II's Italian reign, 924–26

This article investigates the events of Rudolf II's military campaign in Italy (922) and considers the political ramification of this, both immediately thereafter and subsequently during the rule of Rudolf. Particular attention is paid to the career of Boniface of the Hucpoldings: an Italian aristocrat who attained prominence thanks to his close relationship with Rudolf. The Hucpoldings belonged to the aristocratic elite of the Carolingian empire, came to Italy under Lothar I (c.847) and tried to settle there. Until now, scholars have underestimated their role in the wider context of the early medieval Italian kingdom. This study will stress how Boniface's career was a turning point in the lineage's development, and how his political achievements were essential for his kinship's further hegemony.     

Archaeological carved slabs of the Langobard art in churches of Peligna Valley and Spoleto (Italy): provenance of the stones

In this study we investigate the provenance of the limestone and marble used to made carved slabs today placed in three churches located in Raiano and Vittorito (Peligna Valley, Abruzzo, Italy) and in Spoleto (Umbria, Italy). The slabs, representative examples of the Langobard art (Middle Ages), are dated approximately from 8th to 9th centuries A.D. and have the same pattern in terms of decoration, suggesting a progressive expansion of Langobards in central and southern Italy, after the foundation of the Pavia Kingdom.     

Landholding in the Loire valley and the late Carolingian economy (c.840–c.1000)

This article builds on recent work on the Carolingian economy by giving an overview of landholding patterns and associated economic activity in the Loire valley in the ninth and tenth centuries. It demonstrates that only individuals and institutions with access to patronage from the royal fisc possessed large, unified estates; the majority of land was held as small, fragmented farmsteads. Moreover, these small parcels of land changed hands on a regular basis through grants and leases, allowing investment, agricultural development, and social and material returns for their owners. The article suggests that these small-scale property transactions were the basis for growth and dynamism in the late Carolingian economy.     

Louis the Pious and the contours of empire

When the southern Iberian city of Mérida revolted against Umayyad control, the Carolingian emperor Louis the Pious (814–40) sought to gain recognition there of his own political authority, probably in early 830. Motivated by a desire to project Frankish power after Umayyad intervention in Catalonia, the move was also in keeping with larger patterns of Carolingian expansion in the Iberian frontier zone. The incident is further revealing of Louis the Pious's wider imperial ambitions in the 820s, which early medieval conceptions of space allowed to be expressed over surprisingly long distances, well beyond the frontiers of the Frankish kingdoms.     

The bishoprics of Saxony in the first century after Christianization

The eighth and ninth centuries witnessed the foundation of many new bishoprics in the territories on the fringes of the Carolingian Empire. Saxony was one such region. This article seeks to understand the political status of these new bishoprics during the first century of their existence, from their foundation to the end of Carolingian rule in east Francia (805–911). The religious history of the Saxon province, and the Carolingians' lack of interest in this region after its forcible conversion, had a significant effect on the status of its bishoprics during the ninth and early tenth centuries. This study assesses the evidence for both the land-holdings of this new episcopal church and the activities of its bishops, and concludes by arguing for the distinctive position of the Saxon bishoprics within the Frankish and east Frankish churches of this period.     

Weapons,words, politics: the three seasons of the post-unification exile of the Bourbon Monarchy (1860–1866)

ABSTRACT

This article reconstructs the ‘three seasons’ of the exile of the Bourbon rulers of southern Italy after 1860. Unlike the previous periods of exile suffered by the dynasty (in 1799 and between 1806 and 1815), the Bourbon exile after Unification took the form of a ‘hierarchical’ emigration government, ruler and diplomatic corps, and numerous foreign volunteers ready to fight for the monarchy. Between 1860 and 1866 this ‘control centre’ organized armed expeditions against the Kingdom of Italy, while deploying a variety of political strategies that through propaganda offered the promise of modernization in the shape of the concession of a constitution for the Mezzogiorno and the ‘nationalization’ of southern Italy. This propaganda campaign was combined with diplomatic pressures on the European powers. Sicily played a crucial role in these projects and became the principal Mediterranean platform for the attempts to restore the Bourbon monarchy. But although the war of 1866 between Italy and Austria brought these strategies to an end, many of the arguments set out by the Bourbons in exile would later be absorbed into the debates on the ‘Southern Question’.     

The image of authority in Carolingian coinage: the image of a ruler and Roman imperial tradition

This article examines the influence of Roman imperial symbols of authority on Carolingian coinage. During the brief period of a specific &1squo;renewal' in Carolingian coinage in the 810s, there was an evident turn to the Roman tradition of demonstrating authority. As a result, the image of a peace-making emperor on Roman coins during the late third to early fourth century was employed on Carolingian coins for the purpose of legitimizing the new imperial authority of the Carolingians. This image, however, was not long-lived and gradually disappeared in the 820s to 830s.     

A house divided: San Pietro in Ciel d'Oro in Pavia and the politics of Pope John XXII

In 1327, Pope John XXII issued a bull granting the Hermits of St Augustine shared possession of San Pietro in Ciel d'Oro in Pavia, a church that had been controlled solely by the Canons Regular for over 100 years. The ostensible purpose of the bull was to ‘reunite’ the Hermits with their putative founder, St Augustine, whose relics had been brought to the church by the Lombard king Liutprand. This article traces the process by which the Hermits' long and mutually rewarding relationship with the papacy shaped the order's distinctive theological focus on papal supremacy, that, in part, explains John XXII's apparent generosity regarding San Pietro in Ciel d'Oro. I propose that this unprecedented bull was part of a carefully crafted policy of political action and retribution by the Pope in his battle with the Visconti and the Empire for temporal control of northern Italy. The role of the city of Pavia as the epicentre in the struggle between the papacy and the Empire is elucidated as is the overtly political acitivity of both religious orders at San Pietro in Ciel d'Oro, the Canons Regular allied with the Empire, the Hermits, with the papacy.     

‘Bound from Either Side’: The Limits of Power in Carolingian Marriage Disputes, 840–870

The article discusses four marriage disputes in ninth‐century Francia which involved noblemen: Count Stephen of the Auvergne, Count Boso of Italy, Baldwin of Flanders and the royal vassal Falcric. All these men were affected by Carolingian reforming measures on consanguineous marriage, divorce and raptus (abduction). The article examines how gender and social status affected the forms of power and the strategies used by different parties in the cases: archbishops and popes, kings, the women involved and the noblemen themselves. A paradoxical situation is revealed: despite the patriarchal basis of Carolingian society, the power even of elite men over women and marriage was often highly contingent. Yet such restrictions on power did not imperil the gender order: the masculinity of the men involved in these marriage disputes was not questioned.     

Between borders: Franks,Danes, and Abodrites in the trans‐Elben world up to 827

This article examines the 804 decision by Charlemagne to cede territory beyond the Elbe to the Slavic confederacy known as the Abodrites. In so doing Charlemagne attempted to create a stable buffer along the Carolingian empire's northern border, in large part as security against the growing power of the Danes. Using textual and archaeological evidence this article demonstrates the ways in which the Abodrite buffer between the Franks and Danes influenced the political and cultural development of the Slavs and set the stage for a series of major political showdowns in the first three decades of the ninth century.     

Blaming the southern victim: Cancer and the Italian ‘Southern Question’ in Terra dei fuochi and Taranto

In this article, the author addresses two critical environmental situations in southern Italy: the Terra dei fuochi (Land of fires) near Naples, characterized by a history of illegal disposal of toxic waste, and Taranto, where the Ilva steel plants have a record of exceeding the legal emission limits for several pollutants. Despite a recognition of these situations, public political discourse in Italy still tends to link the higher than average incidence of cancer in the two areas to lifestyles rather than to environmental factors. The author locates this phenomenon within the larger context of the ‘Southern Question’ – the historical stigmatization of southern Italy as backwards and uncivilized. She argues that this same stereotype not only stigmatizes a geographical region, but also facilitates the stigmatization of the people who become ill in Taranto and Terra dei fuochi as the result of lifestyle rather than environmental factors. Furthermore, this same stereotype also stigmatizes social movements against the pollution as irrational and uncivilized. Previous studies have linked situations of environmental injustice to the Global South or to specific areas with racialized stereotypes; here it is argued that the whole southern half of Italy can be considered a new geographic scale in which phenomena of environmental injustice, denial of environmental causes of disease, and geographic stigmas, intersect.     

Franks,Greeks, and Saracens: violence,empire, and religion in early medieval southern Italy

This paper examines the violence between Carolingians, Saracens, and Byzantines in southern Italy during the second half of the ninth century. Traditionally these conflicts have been viewed as violence between Muslims and Christians. This paper argues that contemporary southern Italians did not perceive this violence to be religiously motivated, because they did not understand Saracens to be Muslims. Instead, these tensions were about local and foreign claims to political authority and control of territory.     

Politics,prophecy and satire: Atto of Vercelli's Polipticum quod appellatur Perpendiculum

This article presents a new interpretation of Atto of Vercelli's Perpendiculum: this cryptic work, composed between 953 and 960, is a peroration that adopts the structural model of the classical oratio, identifying usurpations as the cause of the political problems of post‐Carolingian Europe. The text's aim is to denounce the usurpation that later led Otto I to definitively deprive Berengar II of his throne. The author's political discourse is a prophetic warning based on an eschatological reading of the political history of the Italian kingdom in the first half of the tenth century, analysed in depth by Atto. The crimes of the powerful are condemned in the cryptic and allusive style of classical satirical poets, within a work of considerable cultural ambition. The source adds significantly to our knowledge of the history of the Italian kingdom and conveys the author's specific assertion of the political role of the episcopate.