Italy in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages – serie

This collection of essays from both established and emerging scholars analyses the dynamic connections between conflict and violence in medieval Italy. The contributors present a new critique of power that sustained both kingship and locally based elite networks throughout the Italian peninsula. A broad temporal range, covering the sixth to the twelfth centuries, allows this book to cross a number of 'traditional' fault-lines in Italian historiography – 774, 888, 962 and 1025. The essays provide wide-ranging analyses of the role of conflict in the period, the operation of power and the development of communal consciousness and collective action by individuals and groups. It is thus essential reading for scholars, students and general readers who wish to understand the situation in medieval Italy.

This book considers for the first time the relationship between the river environment and the economic and political structures of northern Italy in the post-Roman period. Through the study of the relationship between river and society over time, it shows how the Carolingian conquest and other major political events in northern Italy did not seem to introduce radical changes in the daily life or broad economic systems. In fact, ecological circuits, local networks, family strategies and monastic policies seem to have been equal factors that shaped the relationship between river and society. This monograph offers an innovative approach to the study of the early Middle Ages, integrating social sciences, historical records, archaeological and geoenvironmental data analyses to overcome the lack of written and material sources. These new integrated perspectives on the post-Roman world shed light on the relationship between humans and their environment and on the social complexity of the riverscape, topics not yet fully investigated in the historiographical debate.

This book presents a detailed study of the Hucpoldings, an elite group in Carolingian and post-Carolingian Italy. Though the Hucpoldings have not received extensive treatment in previous anglophone scholarship, they had a key influence in much of what was happening in this period. Manarini’s groundbreaking study highlights the dramatic geopolitical changes surrounding this kinship group in the kingdom of Italy across three crucial centuries. The research reconstructs political events associated with every identifiable member of the kinship, as well as inquiring into their patrimony and their networks of relationships and patronage. Finally, it examines the distinctive characteristics of the group to gain a clearer picture of the nature of their power, their memory strategies and the shared perceptions and self-awareness of group members.

Between the sixth and twentieth centuries, the Benedictine Abbey of Monte Cassino (est. 529) experienced a cycle of atrocities which forever transformed its identity. This book examines how such a tumultuous history has been constructed, remembered, and represented from the Middle Ages to the present day. It uses this singular and pivotal case to analyse the historical process of remembering and its impact on modern representations of the past. Exactly how Monte Cassino is remembered is distinctive and diagnostic. The abbey is recognizable today as a beacon of western civilization, culture, and learning precisely because of its 'destruction tradition' over fourteen centuries. The Destruction and Recovery of Monte Cassino, 529.1964 asks how the abbey’s fragmented past has been ideologically, politically, and culturally constituted and preserved; how its experience with destruction and suffering, and recovery and rebirth, has become incorporated into a modern narrative of progress and triumph.

This book considers for the first time the relationship between the river environment and the economic and political structures of northern Italy in the post-Roman period. Through the study of the relationship between river and society over time, it shows how the Carolingian conquest and other major political events in northern Italy did not seem to introduce radical changes in the daily life or broad economic systems. In fact, ecological circuits, local networks, family strategies and monastic policies seem to have been equal factors that shaped the relationship between river and society. This monograph offers an innovative approach to the study of the early Middle Ages, integrating social sciences, historical records, archaeological and geoenvironmental data analyses to overcome the lack of written and material sources. These new integrated perspectives on the post-Roman world shed light on the relationship between humans and their environment and on the social complexity of the riverscape, topics not yet fully investigated in the historiographical debate.

This book represents the culmination of a comprehensive reconsideration of the historical sources and available archaeological evidence, offering a new framework for analysis and insights into the transformations that took place from the late Empire into the Middle Ages.

Entangled Semantics of Power between Byzantium and the Italian Peninsula sheds new light on the dynamics of mutual influence and cultural cross-pollination between Byzantium and Italy from the 8th to the 12th century. Interdisciplinary in scope, it offers a fresh perspective on the medieval Mediterranean by taking a concrete look at the social and political dynamics that underpinned cultural exchange.Traditionally, the history of the interactions between Italy and Byzantium has been studied primarily as a history of diplomatic relations among political powers. As a result, historians have tended to focus on the political and economic outcomes of such contacts, rather than their social and cultural impact. The book moves beyond this framework and offers a deeper understanding of the social and political dynamics that drove cultural cross-pollination between Byzantium and Italy.Particularly suited for those interested in interdisciplinary approaches to historical analysis and the impact of cross-cultural interactions on institutional practices, this book is a valuable reference for researchers in the field of medieval history, Byzantine studies, and Mediterranean cultural exchange.

This collection of essays from both established and emerging scholars analyses the dynamic connections between conflict and violence in medieval Italy. The contributors present a new critique of power that sustained both kingship and locally based elite networks throughout the Italian peninsula.

This book seeks to reconstruct the cultural history of the theft of relics in the specific context of Italy, from Late Antiquity to the Central Middle Ages, availing itself of an interdisciplinary perspective.

This book presents a detailed study of the Hucpoldings, an elite group in Carolingian and post-Carolingian Italy.