Power and Patronage in Early Medieval Italy
Local Society, Italian Politics and the Abbey of Farfa, c.700–900

Discusses the nature of political power in early medieval Italy.

Marios Costambeys (Author)

9780521870375, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 13 December 2007

410 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 2.7 cm, 0.786 kg

'… careful work of scholarship. Costambeys writes in a clear and engaging style while his arguments are based on sound methodological groundwork.' Journal of Ecclesiastical History

Founded around the beginning of the eighth century in the Sabine hills north of Rome, the abbey of Farfa was for centuries a barometer of social and political change in central Italy. Conventionally, the region's history in the early Middle Ages revolves around the rise of the papacy as a secular political power. But Farfa's avoidance of domination by the pope throughout its early medieval history, despite one pope's involvement in its early establishment, reveals that papal aggrandizement had strict limits. Other parties - local elites, as well as Lombard and then Carolingian rulers - were often more important in structuring power in the region. Many were also patrons of Farfa, and this book reveals how a major ecclesiastical institution operated in early medieval politics, as a conduit for others' interests, and a player in its own right.

1. Introduction
2. Patronage and Lombard rulers
3. Authority, rulership and the abbey
4. The Farfa monks and abbots: identities and affiliations
5. Sabine lands and landowners
6. Elite families in the Sabina
7. Farfa and Italian politics in the Lombard era
8. Farfa, Italian politics and the Carolingians.

Subject Areas: Church history [HRCC2], Early history: c 500 to c 1450/1500 [HBLC], European history [HBJD]