Churchmen and Urban Government in Late Medieval Italy, c.1200–c.1450
Cases and Contexts

Major new study of secular-religious boundaries and the role of the clergy in the administration of Italy's late medieval city-states.

Frances Andrews (Edited by), Agata Pincelli (With)

9781107044265, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 28 November 2013

426 pages, 10 b/w illus. 2 maps
23.5 x 15.7 x 3.2 cm, 0.76 kg

Why, when so driven by the impetus for autonomy, did the city elites of thirteenth-century Italy turn to men bound to religious orders whose purpose and reach stretched far beyond the boundaries of their often disputed territories? Churchmen and Urban Government in Late Medieval Italy, c.1200–c.1450 brings together a team of international contributors to provide the first comparative response to this pivotal question. Presenting a series of urban cases and contexts, the book explores the secular-religious boundaries of the period and evaluates the role of the clergy in the administration and government of Italy's city-states. With an extensive introduction and epilogue, it exposes for consideration the beginnings of the phenomenon, the varying responses of churchmen, the reasons why practices changed and how politics and religious identity relate to each other. This important new study has significant implications for our understanding of power, negotiation, bureaucracy and religious identity.

1. Introduction Frances Andrews
2. Bishop and commune in twelfth-century Cremona: the interface of secular and ecclesiastical power Edward Coleman
Part I. Urban Case Studies: 3. Ut inde melius fiat: the commune of Parma and its religious personnel Frances Andrews
4. The employment of religious orders in Piacenza between the thirteenth and the fourteenth century Caterina Bruschi
5. Cremona: a case study Christoph Friedrich Weber
6. Employment of religious in the administration of the Modena commune from the twelfth to the fifteenth century Pierpaolo Bonacini
7. Verona: a model case in the study of relationships between members of religious orders and the government of the city Maria Agata Pincelli
8. The tasks assigned to the Humiliati by the commune of Bergamo (twelfth–fourteenth centuries) Maria Teresa Brolis and Andrea Beneggi
9. Religious and public life: Lucca, a case study Ignazio del Punta
10. Pistoia: a case study Sarah Tiboni
11. Religious in the service of the commune: the case of thirteenth- and fourteenth-century Perugia Giovanna Casagrande
12. On the trail of religious in the medieval communes of Viterbo and Tuscia Eleonora Rava
13. Venetian exceptionalism? Lay and religious in Venetian communal governance Dennis Romano
Part II. Ecclesiastial Perspectives: 14. Cistercians as administrators in the thirteenth-century Italian communes Paolo Grillo
15. The Cistercian monk and the casting counter William R. Day, Jr
16. Hermits for communes: the Camaldolese in the service of the communes of central and northern Italy in the thirteenth to fifteenth centuries Cécile Caby
17. Cooperative intervention: sermons supporting the governing authority in fifteenth-century Italy Stefan Visnjevac
Part III. Comparisons beyond Central and Northern Italy: 18. Religious in secular offices in late medieval southern Italy Hubert Houben
19. Interactions between lay and ecclesiastical offices in Sardinia Andrea Puglia
20. The abbot and public life in late medieval England Martin Heale
21. Epilogue Frances Andrews.

Subject Areas: Christianity [HRC], Medieval history [HBLC1], European history [HBJD]