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Telling Tales
Clerics, Concubines, and an Inquisitor in Late Medieval Ferrara: a Primary Source Study
Jason Aaron Brown (Author), Roisin Cossar (Author)
9781487560676
Paperback / softback, published 9 December 2025
302 pages, 4 illustrations
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.7 cm, 0.44 kg
Telling Tales explores the lived experiences of Christian women, parish clerics, and church officials in Italy during the later Middle Ages through one previously unpublished historical source – a register prepared in 1421/1422 for a Dominican inquisitor in the northern Italian city of Ferrara that includes interrogations about the lives, work, and domestic arrangements of otherwise-obscure women. The book provides both a translation of the source from the original Latin and a critical examination of its content from two distinct analytical perspectives. Cossar and Brown also illuminate the workings of an inquisitorial investigation, with details about how the inquisitor gathered information and worked both with, and against, other local authorities. Telling Tales invites readers to explore the tools of the historian's craft, illustrating how different analytical approaches to the same historical source can yield rich – and sometimes contradictory – conclusions.
Preface Translator’s Introduction English Translation 1. Beginnings and Introductions Interlude: Theoretical Approaches to the Register Conclusion: What Really Happened? Glossary of Terms
2. Churches and Clergy in Ferrara
3. Reading along the Grain: the Inquisitor and the Women
4. Reading against the Grain: the Women