Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Dissenters, Religious – Italy – History'

This thesis explores the motivations behind the American and Foreign Christian Union’s missions to Italy during the American Civil War. The AFCU was a missionary organization founded in New York City in 1849 with the ambitious goal of ridding the world of Roman Catholicism. It was born during a time of nativist fervor when American Protestants saw Catholic immigrants as a threat to American democracy. The AFCU believed they could solve the problem of Catholic immigrants by converting the Catholic world to Protestantism, starting with Italy. The leaders of the AFCU believed the world was engaged in a struggle between Liberty and Tyranny. The war against the Confederacy and the fight to free Italians from the tyrannical Pope were different fronts of the same war. The AFCU entire unsuccessful as a missionary organization. They converted virtually no one. However, their publications were essential to helping American Protestants shape their identity.

Much has been written about the generation of Southern Irish Protestant intellectuals who played such a prominent role in Ireland's public life from the fall of Charles Stewart Parnell in the early 1890s until the rise of Eamon de Valera in the early 1930s. Very little indeed has been written about the generation of Southern Protestant intellectuals following them, those writers, journalists, academics and churchmen who were born around 1900 and who came of age in the decade following Irish Independence. Though few in number, these people represent an important facet of the young nation's cultural history and serve to refute the blanket assumption that the minority community had neither the will nor the ability to make a contribution to the new dispensation. As a particularly eloquent and stalwart member of this community, the Kilkenny man-of-letters Hubert Butler (1900-91) functions as the touchstone of this thesis, an individual worthy of attention in his own right but also compelling as a commentator on the challenges facing Southern Protestants generally during the period 1930-72. For in these years, Protestants confronted the delicate task of adapting to their changed position within Irish society without in the process forfeiting their distinct identity. As a nationalist eager to participate fully in the country's civic life but also as a Protestant fiercely committed to the rights of spiritual independence and intellectual dissent, Butler often struggled to balance the demands of community with those of autonomy. This thesis explores the various contexts in which he and his contemporaries challenged the normative terms of Irishness so that the criteria for belonging might better accommodate their minority values and experiences. In so doing, Southern Protestant intellectuals of this generation made a valuable contribution to the development of pluralistic values on the island.

This dissertation examines the cultural, intellectual and artistic contributions religious women made in the production of secular and religious books in fifteenth and sixteenth-century Italy. It presents the first comparative study of nuns' book production across Italy and introduces new manuscripts to the canon of nuns' bookwork. Though the scholarship of the last fifty years has increased our understanding of the institutional and individual lives of nuns, little research has been done on their production and exchange of texts. Nun-scribes and manuscript painters produced liturgical, devotional and administrative books for use in-house, as well as for secular and religious communities and individuals outside the walls of the convents. Evidence of their bookwork repositions them as active participants in a rich spiritual, intellectual and artistic life and broadens their sphere of activity and influence to include a wide community of secular and religious patrons, artistic collaborators, scholars, family members, and book-buying clientele. Through a close examination of the material evidence in their manuscripts, this study illustrates how nuns used the production and exchange of texts to further their individual and institutional goals. This dissertation makes an important contribution to the current understanding nuns' spiritual, artistic and intellectual life and practice and significantly reshapes the current understanding of women's education and learning in Renaissance and early modern Italy (1400-1650).

Religious dissent in Scotland in the years before 1550 is best categorised as evangelical: the two characteristics which mark dissenting activity are the doct[r]ine of justification by faith alone, and the reading of the Bible in the vernacular. Dissent can be found in the southwest from lay preacher Quintin Folkhyrde in 1410 to a small but identifiable group of Lollards in Ayrshire who were tried in 1494 for group Bible reading, eschewing rituals, and challenging the authority of the ecclesiastical hierarchy. These 'Lollards of Kyle' were associated with the notary public Murdoch Nisbet, whose transcription of a Lollard New Testament into Scots was augmented in 1538 by the further transcription of textual aids from Miles Coverdale's edition. The Lollard group seems to have adopted the solafideism in this material, apart from their continued aversion to swearing. In the east, Luther's ideas were debated at St Andrews University in the 1520s, where Patrick Hamilton adhered to them and was burned in 1528; however, the same message of solafideist theology, Scripture reading, and perseverance in persecution was reiterated by his fellow-students John Gau and John Johnsone, in printed works which they sent home from exile. One of the primary concerns of ecclesiastical and state authorities was the availability of the New Testament in English, or other works reflecting Lutheran theology; they legislated against both owning and discussing such works. Sporadic heresy trials in the 1530s and 1540s reveal heretical belief and practice which is connected to the doctrine of justification by faith alone. In the late 1530s, a group of known evangelicals were at the court of James V: Captain John Borthwick tried to convince the king to follow the lead of Henry VIII and lay claim to church lands; Sir David Lindsay of the Mount probably wrote a play exhorting the king to enact reforms; Henry Balnaves was active after James's death in trying to forge a marriage treaty with England, which might have resulted in Henrician reforms. The governor Arran initially supported the court evangelicals, even backing a parliamentary Act allowing the reading, but not discussion, of the Bible in the vernacular. However, he reversed his policy and Balnaves, along with others, was imprisoned in Rouen, where he wrote a lengthy treatise about justification by faith alone, its effects on Christian society, and its help in times of persecution. George Wishart returned to his homeland in 1543, and began a preaching tour which took him from Angus to Kyle to East Lothian. Probably not having been guilty of the Radical beliefs laid to his charge in Bristol, Wishart held a developed Reformed theology, in addition to traditional evangelical concerns calling for a purified church guided by the Scripture principle, and drawing a sharp distinction between true and false churches. After Wishart was executed, John Knox proclaimed the Mass to be idolatrous before being imprisoned. The first Scot who appears to have moved from his basic evangelical beliefs to a functional Protestantism is Adam Wallace, a thorough sacramentarian who had baptised his own child. Upon his return in 1555, Knox took it upon him to convince the evangelicals that attendance at Mass was idolatrous, and he began administering Protestant communions. The central tenets of evangelical faith, however, continued to shape the incipient Protestant kirk.

xiv, 934 p. A print copy of this thesis is available through the UO Libraries. Search the library catalog for the location and call number.
The dissertation focuses on Protestants in the Soviet Ukraine from the end of the Second World War to the collapse of the USSR. It has two major aims. The first is to elucidate the evolution of Soviet policy toward Protestant denominations, using archival evidence that was not available to previous students of this subject. The second is to reconstruct the internal life of Protestant congregations as marginalized social groups. The dissertation is thus a case study both of religious persecution under state-sponsored atheism and of the efforts of individual believers and their communities to survive without compromising their religious principles. The opportunity to function legally came at a cost to Protestant communities in Ukraine and elsewhere in the USSR. In the 1940s-1980s, Protestant communities lived within a tight encirclement of numerous governmental restrictions designed to contain and, ultimately, reduce all manifestations of religiosity in the republic both quantitatively and qualitatively. The Soviet state specifically focused on interrupting the generational continuity of religious tradition by driving a wedge between believing parents and their children. Aware of these technologies of containment and their purpose, Protestants devised a variety of survival strategies that allowed them, when possible, to circumvent the stifling effects of containment and ensure the preservation and transmission of religious traditions to the next generation. The dissertation investigates how the Soviet government exploited the state institutions and ecclesiastic structures in its effort to transform communities of believers into malleable societies of timid and nominal Christians and how the diverse Protestant communities responded to this challenge. Faced with serious ethical choices--to collaborate with the government or resist its persistent interference in the internal affairs of their communities-- many Ukrainian Evangelicals joined the vocal opposition movement that contributed to an increased international pressure on the Soviet government and subsequent evolution of the Soviet policy from confrontation to co-existence with religion. The dissertation examines both theoretical and practical aspects of the Soviet secularization project and advances a number of arguments that help account for religion's survival in the Soviet Union during the 1940-1980s.
Committee in charge: Julie Hessler, Chairperson, History; R Alan Kimball, Member, History; Jack Maddex, Member, History; William Husband, Member, Not from U of O Caleb Southworth, Outside Member, Sociology

Mid-seventeenth-century England saw numerous religious sects come into existence, one of which was the Calvinistic Baptist group. During the upheaveal of the revolutionary years this group was often accused of heresy by their orthodox/reformed contemporaries. At that time Hanserd Knollys, one of their London pastors, was personally charged with holding heterodox beliefs, in particular, Antinomianism, Anabaptism and Fifth Monarchism. In addition, Knollys has been accused of hyper-Calvinism. This version of Calvinism was held by some eighteenth-century English Calvinistic Baptists. Some Baptist historians have suspected Knollys of holding this teaching in the seventeenth-century, or at least they have felt it necessary to defend him against it. All of these charges are serious, and consequently bring into question Knollys' orthodoxy. This thesis will systematically examine each charge made against Knollys in its context, and comprehensively from Knollys' writings seek to determine if they were valid. Furthermore, this thesis will elucidate Knollys theology, particularly his soteriology, ecclesiology and eschatology.

This dissertation reconstructs the original form and sixteenth-century decoration of the lost Venetian church of Santa Maria Assunta dei Crociferi, destroyed after the suppression of the Crociferi in 1656 to make way for the present church of the Gesuiti. The destruction of the church, the scattering of its contents, and the almost total lack of documentation of the religious order for which the space was built, has obscured our understanding of the many works of art it once contained, produced by some of the most important Venetian artists of the sixteenth century. This project seeks to correct scholarly neglect of this important church, and to restore context and meaning to these objects by reconstructing their original placement in the interest of a collective interpretation. Various types, patterns and phases of patronage at the church—monastic, private and corporate—are discussed to reveal interconnections between these groups, and to highlight to role of the Crociferi as architects of a sophisticated decorative programme that was designed to respond to the latest artistic trends, and to visually demonstrate their adherence to orthodoxy at a moment of religious upheaval and reform.

This thesis examines six factors that helped to shape beliefs and expectations about death among evangelical Nonconformists in England from 1830 down to 1880: the literary conventions associated with the denominational magazine obituaries that were used as primary source material, theology, social background, denominational variations, Romanticism and the last words and experiences of the dying. The research is based on an analysis of 1,200 obituaries divided evenly among four evangelical Nonconformist denominations: the Wesleyan Methodists, the Primitive Methodists, the Congregationalists and the Baptists. The study is distinctive in four respects. First, the statistical analysis according to three time periods (the 1830s, 1850s and 1870s), close reading and categorisation of a sample this large are unprecedented and make it possible to observe trends among Nonconformists in mid-nineteenth-century England. Second, it evaluates the literary construct of the obituaries as a four-fold formula consisting of early life, conversion, the living out of the faith and the death narrative as a tool for understanding them as authentic windows into evangelical Nonconformist experience. Third, the study traces two movements that inform the changing Nonconformist experience of death: the social shift towards middle-class respectability and the intellectual shift towards a broader Evangelicalism. Finally, the thesis considers how the varying experiences of the dying person and the observers and recorders of the death provide different perspectives. These features inform the primary argument of the thesis, which is that expectations concerning death and the afterlife among evangelical Nonconformists in England from 1830 down to 1880 changed as reflections of larger shifts in Nonconformity towards middle-class respectability and a broader Evangelicalism. This transformation was found to be clearly revealed when considering the tension in Nonconformist allegiance to both worldly and spiritual matters. While the last words of the dying pointed to a timeless experience that placed hope in the life to come, the obituaries as compiled by the observers of the death and by the obituary authors and editors reflected changing attitudes towards death and the afterlife among nineteenth-century evangelical Nonconformists that looked increasingly to earthly existence for the fulfilment of hopes.

À la fin du Moyen Âge, les paroisses urbaines traversèrent une période de crise, qui se traduisit par une profonde déprise, temporelle et spirituelle, des cadres paroissiaux sur les fidèles. Cette recherche entend considérer un ensemble de paroisses urbaines dans les derniers siècles du Moyen Âge afin d’observer, « de l’intérieur », les conditions, les enjeux et les conséquences de l’évolution des interactions entre les paroisses et leurs communautés paroissiales. Venise, du fait de la richesse de ses archives paroissiales, a été retenue pour mener cette enquête. Dans un premier temps de l'étude, une vue d’ensemble des cadres paroissiaux vénitiens est proposée dans une confrontation constante avec le droit canonique médiéval : les territoires, les clergés et la liturgie sont ainsi examinés. Alors que le droit canonique juxtaposait ces trois cadres, la réalité paroissiale vénitienne en souligne au contraire les interactions. On en vient ensuite à envisager les évolutions à l'œuvre, qu’il s’agisse de l’affirmation du juspatronat laïc, de l’élaboration d’une nouvelle économie paroissiale et des transformations des pratiques dévotionnelles. Enfin, la thèse s’attache à mesurer les effets de ces mutations, qui se reflétaient dans la concurrence exercée par les autres établissements religieux, concurrence qui porta à une désagrégation des droits coutumiers paroissiaux. Aussi, l’ordinaire vénitien entreprit-il à la fin du XVe siècle de réformer les paroisses et d’en unifier les coutumes, donnant ainsi naissance à une institution paroissiale vénitienne qui se maintint jusqu’à la chute de la République
In the late Middle Ages, urban parishes went through a period of crisis, which resulted in a profound abandonment by the parochial structures of whole sections of faithfuls'life, both temporal and spiritual. The aim of this research involves the study, through the analysis of their own archives, of a collection of urban parishes in the last centuries of the Middle Ages in order to observe, "from within" conditions, issues and consequences of changing interactions between parishes and their faithful communities. Because of its vast parish records, Venice has been chosen as the particular object of this investigation. The first part provides an initial overview of the Venetian parochial structures, comparing them to medieval canon law, therefore the territories, the clergy and the liturgy are discussed. In fact, while canon law juxtaposed these three frameworks, the reality of the Venetian parochial organisations instead emphasized the existing interactions between these three levels. The second part is therefore considering the various developments : like the assertion of secular juspatronat, the rise of a new parish economy or changes in devotional practices. Finally, a third part attempts to measure the effects of these mutations, which were reflected in the competition from other religious bodies. A competition that led to disintegration of customary parochial rights. So, to solve these difficulties, the Venetian episcopate began, in the late fifteenth century, to reform its parishes and to unify their specific customs, by thus giving birth to the Venetian parochial institution that will continue until the fall of the Republic

By combining research methods from the cultural history of the politic with a comparative perspective, my dissertation covers the celebrations of the Napoleonic era that took place between 1799 and 1814 in the Republic (later, Empire) of France, in the Republic (later, Kingdom) of Italy, and in the Kingdom of Spain. My comparative perspective aims to show the existence of a model of Napoleonic celebration that was fairly uniform across the three geographical contexts I studied, especially in its basic principles, fundamental concepts and values conveyed. My study centres on the concepts of sovereignty, legitimacy and sacrality, and aims to shed light on their interplay and their significance in the context of Napoleonic-era civic festivities, especially in terms of the forms of symbolic, visual and discursive representation that were used. My analysis of these forms of representation will allow the reader to better understand not only the manifestations of Napoleonic power, but also its ideological underpinnings, characteristics, and evolution over time.

Appréhender la foi des laïcs napolitains au XVIe siècle est une entreprise ardue tant en raison des difficultés matérielles d’accès aux sources, que de leur discontinuité temporelle, qui rendent difficile toute reconstruction historique systématique fondée sur la longue durée, ou l’étude de séries homogènes de sources. Malgré cette réalité, les difficultés matérielles ont été contournées par des dépouillements systématiques de fonds d’une grande diversité, tant des archives archidiocésaines ou d’État de Naples,que de la Curie généralice de la Compagnie de Jésus, et que celles du Saint-Siège, tout en recourant à une méthodologie qualitative.Les caractères singuliers d’une piété laïque et urbaine ont d’abord été privilégiés, puis l’analyse s’est attachée, dans la capitale du vice-royaume d’Espagne, aux relations entre laïcs et ecclésiastiques avant et après le concile de Trente. En effet, l’approche diachronique choisie se concentre sur le “siècle de transition” de l’histoire de l’Église catholique moderne, celui du XVIe siècle.Émergent de cette thèse la reconstruction de multiples identités religieuses de laïcs et d’ecclésiastiques napolitains, comme leur manière d’appréhender la religion et l’Église catholique, grâce aux précieux éléments fournis par l’examen des visites pastorales tridentines, ou de celui plus ou moins répressif des procès-verbaux des tribunaux archidiocésains et de “l’Inquisition napolitaine” du Saint Office. Les Napolitains sont ainsi peu enclins à l’application des normes tridentines, alimentant un contexte de tension sociale grandissant, et de criminalisation religieuse. En témoignent également des sources singulières pour l’histoire de la sensibilité religieuse, en l'occurence les procès-verbaux des veilles d’exécutions capitales de laïcs, dressés par les “greffiers” de la Compagnie des Bianchi della Giustizia.Face à cette situation, des stratégies sont mises en œuvre par la Curie généralice et les responsables du Collège jésuite napolitain, afin de réformer la vie religieuse, très contrastée au regard également des sources de la Curie de l’archidiocèse. Enfin, laïcs et clercs font bien souvent cause commune face aux tentatives de réformes romaines, ce qui ne diffère guère d’une grande partie des villes de l’Europe catholique.Le tableau présenté dans cette thèse fait apparaître une religion citadine encore “très médiévale”, -selon toute vraisemblance enracinée dans un héritage byzantin-, témoignant des fortes résistances locales laïques et ecclésiastiques, rendant très laborieuse l’introduction du nouveau modèle de vie chrétienne dans la capitale du royaume de Naples jusqu’à la réforme de 1598 du cardinal et archevêque Alfonso Gesualdo
Understanding Neapolitan lay people’s faith in the sixteenth century is an arduous undertaking, both because of the material difficulties of accessing sources and because of their temporal discontinuity, which makes it difficult to carry out any historical systematic reconstruction based on the long term, orto study homogeneous series of sources. In spite of this reality, material difficulties have been overcome by systematically examining a wide variety of collections, both from the archdiocesan and state archivesof Naples, the General Curia (Curia Generalice) of the Society of Jesus, and the Holy See, using aqualitative methodology.The particular characteristics of a lay and urban piety were first privileged, then the analysis focused on the relations between laymen and ecclesiastics in the capital of the vice-kingdom of Spain before and after the Council of Trent. In fact, the diachronic approach chosen focuses on the "transitional century"of the history of the modern Catholic Church, that of the 16th century.From this thesis emerges the reconstruction of multiple religious identities of Neapolitan laymen and clergymen, as well as their way of apprehending religion and the Catholic Church, thanks to the precious elements provided by the examination of the Tridentine pastoral visits, or of the more or less repressive one of the minutes of the archdiocesan tribunals and of the "Neapolitan Inquisition" of the Holy Office.Thus, Neapolitans were reluctant to apply the Tridentine norms, increasing a context of growing social tension and religious criminalisation. This is also demonstrated by the essential sources for the historyof religious sensitivity, in this case the minutes of the vigil of capital executions of laymen, drawn up by the "clerks" of the Company of the Bianchi della Giustizia. Faced with this situation, strategies were implemented by the General Curia and those in charge of the Neapolitan Jesuit College, in order toreform religious life, which was very contrasted according to the sources of the Curia of the archdiocesetoo. Finally, laymen and clerics often made common cause in the face of attempts at Roman reform,which was not that different from most Catholic European cities.This thesis shows a city religion that is still "very medieval", - in all likelihood rooted in a Byzantine heritage -, testifying to strong local lay and ecclesiastical resistance, making the introduction of the new model of Christian life very laborious in the capital of the Kingdom of Naples until the 1598’s reformof Cardinal and Archbishop Alfonso Gesualdo

L’esercito italiano e la conquista della Catalogna (1808-1811) Uno studio di Military Effectiveness nell’Europa napoleonica Settori scientifico-disciplinari SPS/03 – M-STO/02 La ricerca ha lo scopo di ricostruire e valutare l’effettività militare dell’esercito italiano al servizio di Napoleone I. In primo luogo attraverso un’analisi statistica e strategica della costruzione, e del successivo impiego, dell’istituzione militare del Regno d’Italia durante gli anni della sua esistenza (1805-14); successivamente, è stato scelto un caso di studi particolarmente significativo, come la campagna di Catalogna (1808-11, nel contesto della guerra di Indipendenza spagnola), per poter valutare il contributo operazionale e tattico dei corpi inviati dal governo di Milano e la loro integrazione con l’apparato militare complessivo del Primo Impero. La tesi ha voluto rispondere alla mancanza di studi sul comportamento in guerra dell’esercito italiano e, allo stesso tempo, introdurre nella storiografia militare italiana la metodologia di studi, d’origine anglosassone e ormai di tradizione trentennale, di Military Effectiveness. La ricerca si è primariamente basata, oltre che sulla copiosa memorialistica a stampa italiana e francese, sulla documentazione d’archivio della Secrétairerie d’état impériale (Archives Nationales di Pierrefitte-sur-Seine, Parigi), del Ministère de la Guerre francese (Service historique de la Défence, di Vincennes, Parigi) e del Ministero della Guerra del Regno d’Italia (Archivio di Stato di Milano). Dal punto di vista dei risultati è stato possibile verificare come l’esercito italiano abbia rappresentato, per Bonaparte, uno strumento duttile e di facile impiego, pur in un contesto di sostanziale marginalità numerica complessiva di fronte alle altre (e cospicue) forze messe in campo da parte dell’Impero e dei suoi altri Stati satellite e alleati. Per quanto riguarda la campagna di conquista della Catalogna è stato invece possibile appurare il fondamentale contributo dato dal contingente italiano, sotto i punti di vista operazionale e tattico, per la buona riuscita dell’invasione; questo primariamente grazie alle elevate caratteristiche generali mostrate dallo stesso, ma anche per peculiarità disciplinari e organizzative che resero i corpi italiani adatti a operazioni particolarmente aggressive.
The Italian Army and the Conquest of Catalonia (1808-1811) A Study of Military Effectiveness in Napoleonic Europe Academic Fields and Disciplines SPS/03 – M-STO/02 The research has the purpose of reconstruct and evaluate the military effectiveness of the Italian Army existed under the reign of Napoleon I. Firstly through a statistic and strategic analysis of the development, and the following deployment, of the military institution of the Kingdom of Italy in the years of its existence (1805-14). Afterwards, a particularly significant case study was chosen, as the campaign of Catalonia (1808-11, in the context of the Peninsular War), in order to assess the operational and tactical contribution of the regiments sent by the Government of Milan and their integration in the overall military apparatus of the First Empire. The thesis wanted to respond to the lack of studies on the Italian army’s behavior in war and, at the same time, to introduce the methodology of the Military Effectiveness Studies (of British and American origin and, by now, enriched by a thirty-year old tradition) in the Italian historiography. The research is primarily based, besides the numerous memoirs of the Italian and French veterans, on the archive documentation of the Secrétairerie d’état impériale (Archives Nationales of Pierrefitte-sur-Seine, Paris), of the French Ministère de la Guerre (Service historique de la Défence, of Vincennes, Paris) and of the Italian Ministero della Guerra (Archivio di Stato di Milano). About the results, it has been verified how the Italian army has become a flexible and suitable instrument for Bonaparte, albeit in a context of substantial overall numerical marginality in comparison to the heterogeneous forces available to the Empire and its others satellites and allied states. Regarding the campaign of Catalonia, instead, it was possible to ascertain the fundamental contribution of the Italian regiments, in an operational and tactical perspective, for the success of the invasion. This was primarily due to the excellent general characteristics shown by the expeditionary force, but also to disciplinary and organizational peculiarities that have made the Italian corps suitable for particularly aggressive operations.

This dissertation examines how clerics in the Lombard and Carolingian Kingdom of Italy prosecuted disputes with each other. It argues for and explores two core features of the clerical legal culture of the kingdom. The first regards the judicial institutions that clerics exploited. While the late eleventh and twelfth centuries would see the elaboration of a coherent system of ecclesiastical justice centered on the papal court, distinct from secular judicial institutions, the situation in the early Middle Ages was radically different. Early medieval Italian clerics made recourse to a wide variety of judicial forums, including both "secular" ones such as the public courts and properly "ecclesiastical" ones such as church synods. The dissertation explores these judicial pathways--some of them well-trodden and enduring ones, others more ad hoc--and the ways clerics navigated between them. Second, this study demonstrates that many early medieval Italian clerics displayed considerable skill and sophistication in crafting and delivering legal arguments against each other. Those arguments frequently hinged on substantive appeal to canon law. This finding presents a challenge to a prevailing view in legal-historical scholarship which downplays or ignores practical legal expertise in the early Middle Ages and often dismisses the period itself as an "age without jurists." This dissertation instead argues for an early medieval clerical legal culture that scholars must take seriously as a prehistory to the well-known legal and judicial developments of the eleventh and twelfth centuries. This is the first study to explore in depth the diversity of judicial pathways exploited by clerics in early medieval Italy and the legal arguments they constructed. Proceeding on the basis of case studies, it traces the threads of ecclesiastical legal culture through several genres of sources: in addition to diplomatic sources such as judicial notices, papal bulls, imperial diplomas, and private charters, it also examines the evidence to be found in works of poetry, hagiography, and historiography, and in legal compilations. Among the ecclesiastical disputes that receive extended discussion are those between the bishops of Arezzo and Siena, between the patriarchs of Aquileia and Grado, between the abbots of Nonantola and neighboring bishops, and those within the diocese of Lucca.