Religion and Public Life in Late Medieval Italy c. 1250-c. 1450

The project investigated several thousand documents from cities in central and northern Italy. These were used to construct the first ever narrative of the employment of men professed in the religious life as office holders in the Italian cities. As well as the chronology, the project also established that there is a close link between the emergence of this phenomenon and 'guelf' political practices in Italy. In terms of the initial project questions, we also identified the key cities that were involved and those which cannot be documented employing 'viri religiosi'; established that transitions from lay to religious officials were often made for pragmatic rather than ideological reasons, but that identification with a political faction might play a part and, finally, that negotiation was continuous between city elites and religious superiors, or the members of their houses.