Cities of God: The Religion of the Italian Communes 1125-1325

Chapter Four

Ordering Families,

Neighborhoods, and Cities



As political entities, the communes lacked the ancient roots and dignity that

made for civil legitimacy.^1 They invoked their new patron saints as a replace-

ment for the emperor. They organized their corporations using religious

forms and so borrowed a sacred authority. In ceremonies the community

experienced itself as a corporate reality. Through its rituals, the city came

alive, claimed a place in the world, and united its citizens into an ordered

society. By their rituals, medieval Italian cities created an integrated religious

geography for those who lived in them. Through participation in public

rituals, individuals created families, families created neighborhoods, and

neighborhoods created the city.

MakingFamilies

Near the beginning of the communal period, the French bishop Hildebert

of Lavardin said to the bishops assembled for the Council of Chartres: ‘‘In

the city of God there are three sacraments that precede all the others by the

time of their institution and that are the most important for the redemption

of the children of God: baptism, the Eucharist, and marriage. Of these three

the first is marriage.’’^2 Although he lived in France, Hildebert spoke for the

Italians of the age of the communes. Marriage was not only a sacramental

act, it was a civic act, which created the smallest unit of society, the family.^3

1. As noted by Trexler,Public Life, 43 , and Thompson,Revival Preachers, 1 – 9. See also Quentin Skinner,
   The Foundations of Modern Political Thought, 1 : The Renaissance(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
   1978 ), 3 – 22 , on the communes’ de facto, but not de jure, freedom from imperial rule.


2. Council of Chartres ( 1124 ), Mansi 21 : 307 ; on this text, see Francesco Chiovaro, ‘‘Le mariage chre ́t-
   ien en occident,’’Histoire ve ́cue du peuple chre ́tien(Toulouse: Pivat, 1979 ), 1 : 245.


3. On marriage in the communal period, see Gabriella Airaldi, ‘‘Il matrimonio nell’Italia medievale,’’
   Atti dell’Accademia ligure di scienze e lettere 34 ( 1977 ): esp. 228 – 35. On the medieval period generally, see
   Chiovaro, ‘‘Mariage,’’ 225 – 55. Christopher Brooke,The Medieval Idea of Marriage(Oxford: Oxford Univer-
   sity Press, 1991 ), has an excellent bibliography, pp. 287 – 312.