Disputes and courts in Lombard and Carolingian central Italy

This study examines the relationship between judicial courts and the societies in which they operated as revealed by the documents of the abbey of Farfa in the duchy of Spoleto. In a series of case studies it is shown that disputants and judges could draw on a wide range of norms that enabled them to manipulate the settlement process and to tailor it to their own social advantage. Unlike many studies of disputes in central and northern Italy of the early Middle Ages, here weight is given to those aspects of disputing that took place outside the court. It is an approach that casts fresh light on the transition from Lombard to Carolingian rule in central and northern Italy. It also challenges the binary line between the ‘private’ and the ‘public’ in dispute settlement. This, in turn, has implications for how we view the so‐called ‘feudal transformation’ in which the public was supposedly eclipsed by the private. ¹ 1 The following abbreviations occur throughout: Manaresi =I placiti del regnum Italiae, ed. C. Manaresi, 3 vols (Rome, 1955–60), vol. I; CDL=Codice diplomatico longobardo, vols I and II, ed. L. Schiaparelli (Rome, 1929–33), vol. III, ed. C. Brühl (Rome, 1973), vol. IV/1, ed. C. Brühl (Rome, 1981), vol. V, ed. H. Zielinski (Rome, 1986), cited with document no.; ER = Edictus Rothari, LGrim. = Grimoaldi Leges, LLiut. = Liutprandi Leges, LRat. = Ratchisi Leges, LAist. = Ahistulfi Leges, all in Leges Langobardorum (643–866), ed. F. Beyerle, Die Gesetze der Langobarden, Germanenrechte. Neue Folge, Westgermanisches Recht, 2nd edn (Witzenhausen, 1963); RF= Gregory of Catino, Regestum Farfense, ed. I. Giorgi and U. Balzani, Il Regesto di Farfa, 5 vols (Rome, 1879–1914), cited with vol. and document no.; CF=Il Chronicon Farfense di Gregorio di Catino, ed. U. Balzani, 2 vols (Rome, 1903).
     

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.     

Law and the peasant: rural society and justice in Carolingian Italy

Comparative analysis of the most important Carolingian‐period Italian placiti dealing with the defence of freedom allows us to reconstruct the approach taken by various large monasteries as they attempted to transform their landholding into coercive power over people, by converting dependent freemen into slaves. Similarly, it reveals the strenuous defence mounted by the freemen who were thus threatened, who were clearly perfectly aware that a downgrading of their legal status would be far more serious for them than an economic downgrading. It also permits an analysis of placiti as sites for the representation of public power, in which the ideological model of the king as ‘protector of the weak’ was often scuppered by the ability of many potentes to use for their own advantage either the presence of royal officials, or those very legal processes which were supposed to guarantee protection of the pauperes.     

Metamorphoses of the early medieval signum of a ruler in the Carolingian world

This article uses the approach of diplomatic semiotics to explore early medieval signs of authority in charters and on coins, especially the monogram and the sign of the cross used as an individual ‘signature’. Coins and charters used these signs communicating royal or imperial authority differently, addressing diverse regional and social audiences. From the fifth through the ninth centuries, the early medieval signum of a ruler gradually transformed from the individualizing sign of a particular monarch, designed to differentiate him symbolically from other rulers, to the generalizing sign of the king by the grace of God, which as a visual attribute of authority could be shared by several rulers. This transformation signified the inauguration of a new ‘medieval’ tradition in the communication of authority in late Carolingian times.     

The remains of the saints: the evidence of early medieval relic collections

This article explores the materiality of early medieval devotion to the saints. It argues that, even though most of the material objects themselves no longer survive, there is nevertheless much to be gleaned from surviving caches of relic labels about what churches believed they possessed. It exploits the same evidence to explore how types of relic‐objects changed over time, track evidence for the importance of oral tradition in their formation, and identify pathways of circulation. In demonstrating how churches curated the relics in their care, it pinpoints the active participation of scribes and relic custodians in interpreting and re‐interpreting them.     

. . . in die festivitatis: gift‐giving,power and the calendar in the Carolingian kingdoms*

The reckoning of time and the composing of calendars became an important part of cultural practice in the early Middle Ages. This paper asks how important were works on the reckoning of time for those who used the calendar in everyday life. It considers whether monks and scholars may have influenced royal officials in the reckoning of time. The social symbolism of calendric knowledge is also examined in the context of gift‐giving and exchange that permeated Frankish society. Representations and uses of time reckoning are actually seen to be similar in the royal court and local contexts, but were rather different from what some scholars have imagined.     

Coins and trade in early medieval Italy

This paper is an analysis of monetary circulation in early medieval Italy in the period c.600–900. Using a dual comparison – first, of the level of currency use as against ceramics within Italy, and second, of the pattern of Italian coin use, and economic activity more generally, with that north of the Alps – this paper presents examples that shed light on patterns of change and discontinuity.     

Clerical "concubines" in northern Italy during the fourteenth century

This essay reconstructs the lives of a neglected group of women in the Christian church during the later Middle Ages. So-called clerical “concubines” were well-known in their communities, but their lived experience has been largely ignored by modern historians. Yet studying clerical concubines sheds light not only on the women themselves, but also on the social organization of the medieval Christian church. Drawing on information gathered from notarial acts across the northern Italian peninsula, I argue that concubines were not a unitary group. Their experiences varied instead according to their status and the regions they inhabited. For instance, while laywomen who became priests’ concubines moved into their lovers’ homes, nuns retained cells in their religious houses during these relationships. Furthermore, concubines in cities such as Treviso could openly live with their lovers and share their property, while in other places, such as Bergamo, severe legal restrictions on concubines made them a particularly vulnerable group.     

Friendship and love in the lives of two twelfth-century English saints

For twelfth-century religious the vow of chastity did not mean renouncing a rich affective life. Along with the love of God, Aelred of Rievaulx and Christina of Markyate both found room in their lives for profound emotional relationships with several individuals. These relationships were not carnal but to call them ‘friendship’ underestimates their strength and passion. The modern distinction between passionate sexual love and passionless asexual friendship is inappropriate here. ‘Spiritual love’ best describes these relationships: deep and exclusive without being carnal, involving the passions of the soul rather than those of the body. Vitae survive for both Christina and Aelred, and Aelred also wrote several treatises on the subject of love and friendship. The biographers and Aelred himself followed in a medieval tradition of using the language of erotic love to describe spiritual relationships. These spiritual love relationships did not fit the monastic ideal of love (caritas) towards all; they were particular and exclusive (in each person's life, the several relationships were sequetial, not simultaneous). But they do indicate that twelfth-century monasticism provided a channel for the emotions we today connect with erotic love, without the rupture of vows of chastity or virginity.     

Charlemagne's involvement in central and southern Italy: power and the limits of authority

This article is an overview of political developments in southern Italy during Charlemagne's reign. Traditionally the historiography has approached this topic from a Carolingian or papal perspective. Without denying the reality of both papal and Carolingian influence, the article argues that neither of these institutions exercised predominant influence in southern Italy in this period, much as they may have wished to. Rather the pattern of political (and to an extent ideological) development in the area was determined by a series of compromises dictated by self-interest and the limits of power. This article therefore deals in turn with the evidence concerning the main protagonists in the south: the abbey of Farfa, the dukes of Spoleto, the monasteries of Monte Cassino and San Vincenzo al Volturno and the princes of Benevento. The article goes on to argue that the activities of these institutions are driven by self-interest. Finally the paper concludes that in the 790s there is a change in the way Carolingian government worked, at least in Spoleto.     

Admirable and delectable gardens: uiridaria in early medieval Italy

This article will chart the usage of a rare term, uiridarium, in the documents of early medieval Italy in order to explore the history of decorative or pleasure gardens between c.600–c.1000. Property documents and placita, alongside a small body of archaeobotanical evidence, suggest a significant change in the planting of cultivated spaces in Italian cities during the early Middle Ages. A few charters refer to enclosed gardens called uiridaria attached to houses of the highest‐status people in Italy: dukes, kings, emperors, and bishops. We have a glimpse of how they were used and this article makes the case that decorative gardens played a role in the urban performance of the highest echelons of power.     

The Dilemmas of the Pious Biographer: Missionary Islam and the Oceanic Hagiography

As Islam was transformed into a missionary religion in the modern sense around the turn of the twentieth century, three questions were faced by almost all writers called on to publicise the deeds of the new breed of mobile Muslim pietists: How can a biographer turn the often tedious chores of the missionary into exciting reading? How can the humdrum tasks of founding mosques and schools be turned into the narrative trappings of a Muslim hero? And how can a modern Muslim be portrayed as a saint without recourse to “superstitious” miracle stories? The essay addresses these questions through an examination of an Urdu biography written to publicise the deeds of an Indian Muslim missionary to South Africa. In view of the revival of interest in biography, through inspecting one such missionary organisation's understanding of the life of its founder, the essay explores the necessary compromises involved in writing a life at any given moment in history.     

Margherita of Cortona: Women,Preaching, and the Writing of Hagiography

Abstract

This article examines Margherita of Cortona (1247–97), who took a penitent habit in the late 1270s. In 1290 Margherita was granted permission to rebuild the church of San Basilio near her cell and a secular priest became her confessor. After her death in 1297, her former confessor, the Franciscan Giunta Bevegnati, composed Margherita's Legenda, which provides an account of her life, conversion and penitence, her conversations with Christ, and her charitable works. In addition to the Legenda, there is also an altarpiece, portraying Margherita and scenes from her life, and the seventeenth-century watercolour paintings that reproduce the frescos which once decorated the church of Santa Margherita, the former San Basilio. Following a short introduction to Margherita's life, and a brief examination of preaching for women in the Middle Ages and its prohibitions, the article examines how the biographer, Giunta Bevegnati, represents the relationship of Margherita to preaching and sermons, in particular focusing on passages in Margherita's Legenda, where her efficacious speech or performance has a clear impact on an audience and her biographer does not use the term 'preach' for her utterances. Finally, the extent to which Margherita's biographer uses hagiography for homiletic purposes is discussed.