Churchmen and urban government in late medieval Italy, c. 1200-c.1450 : cases and contexts

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. Cover Half-title Title Imprints Contents Figures Maps Contributors Acknowledgements Abbreviations Map A 1 Introduction Historiographical context 2 Bishop and commune in twelfth-century Cremona: the interface of secular and ecclesiastical power Part I Urban case studies 3 Ut inde melius fiat: the commune of Parma and its religious personnel 4 The employment of religious orders in Piacenza between the thirteenth and the fourteenth centuries 5 Cremona: a case study 6 Employment of religious in the administration of the Modena commune from the twelfth to the fifteenth century Introduction Profile of communal institutions Communal offices Statutes and inquisitorial activities Concluding remarks 7 Verona: a model case in the study of relationships between members of religious orders and the government of the city 8 The tasks assigned to the Humiliati by the commune of Bergamo (twelfth-fourteenth centuries) Supervision of public works Special envoys, excise men and public treasurers The employment of the Humiliati in the judiciary and the relationship with the rural communes Conclusions 9 Religious and public life: Lucca, a case study Conclusions 10 Pistoia: a case study 11 Religious in the service of the commune: the case of thirteenth- and fourteenth-century Perugia The statute of 1342 and the Penitents The silence of the statute of 1279 and the emergence of a `universe of brothers ́ The treasurers (massari) Points for further consideration 12 On the trail of religious in the medieval communes of Viterbo and Tuscia The camerarii Other offices Auditors of the Liber iurium Peacemaking Relations between the commune and the Inquisition Custodians of property Conclusions 13 Venetian exceptionalism? Lay and religious in Venetian communal governance Part II Ecclesiastical perspectives 14 Cistercians as administrators in the thirteenth-century Italian communes Monks and the cities: a deliberate relationship Similarities and differences The Cistercians and their administrative posts: a context Resistance and recompense 15 The Cistercian monk and the casting counter 16 Hermits for communes: the Camaldolese in the service of the communes of central and northern Italy in the thirteenth to fifteenth centuries Heremitic and urban practices The Camaldolese in the communes: a documentary journey through the registers of the priors general Virtuous exchanges: between `the mental and the material ́48 17 Cooperative intervention: sermons supporting the governing authority in fifteenth-century Italy Part III Comparisons beyond central and northern Italy 18 Religious in secular offices in late medieval southern Italy The reign of Frederick II (1198-1250): Cistercians in secular offices Members of the military orders in the service of the Crown Religious in the service of the Angevin kings of Naples (1265-1442): the rise of the Mendicant orders 19 Interactions between lay and ecclesiastical offices in Sardinia Sardinia in the age of the iudicati The final period of the iudicati, between the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries The case of the iudicatus of Arborea Conclusions 20 The abbot and public life in late medieval England 21 Epilogue Bibliography of printed works Index A major new study of secular office-holding by churchmen and the negotiation of power between secular and ecclesiastical communities in late medieval Italy. A team of leading historians explores why the city elites of thirteenth-century Italy, infamous in their desire for autonomy, turned to men bound to religious orders. Edited By Frances Andrews With Maria Agata Pincelli. Includes Bibliographical References (pages 358-401) And Index.