6 Cities ofGod
much attention to the economic and political development of Italian bishop-
rics.^23 We have much on church territory and jurisdiction, much on diocesan
administration, but little on the people’s identification with the church of the
city.^24 I hope to go beyond these investigations and present bishops, cathe-
drals, clergy, and parish organization as the context for the religious world
of the citizens. I am especially interested in the ways in which they provided
the backdrop for the creation and development of the early communes, polit-
ically, culturally, and spiritually.
The rise of the communes presupposed the formation of voluntary associ-
ations, in particular the religious associations that grew up in the penance
culture populated by theconversi—lay penitents, often married—who sponta-
neously took up a life of moderate asceticism while remaining in the world.
Chapter 2 treats this movement and its forms. The chapter is founded on
the well-known work of Fr. Giles Ge ́rard Meersseman,^25 adding new items
from manuscript sources only occasionally. Conversi had already begun to
coalesce into groups half a century before they received a ‘‘rule’’ in 1210.
Their societies and confraternities provided a model for other voluntary as-
sociations, especially those that would form the corporations known as the
Popolo (people) in the golden age of communal democracy.
The third chapter focuses on the popular commune itself and its religious
self-understanding. The precocious democracy of the Italian communes is
too well known to require much comment. Recently, scholars have reevalu-
ated the ideology of the medieval republics and discovered a political theory
of great sophistication, in comparison to which Renaissance ‘‘civic human-
ism’’ looks rather restricted and oligarchic. But even the most evocative ap-
preciations of communal political theory obscure its Christian character.^26
Ecclesiastical and civic institutions formed a single communal organism, and
this chapter is meant as a complement, not a contrast, to my first chapter.
Communal lay governments themselves magnified their ‘‘sacred’’ aspects,
associating their cities with patron saints and, especially in the age of the
Popolo, adopting wholesale religious language, rituals, and forms.^27 Bishop
and commune, clergy and laity, feuded occasionally, but they inhabited the
same space and shared the same culture.
Chapter 4 evaluates how the cities used ritual to form and ‘‘imagine’’
- See Cinzio Violante, ‘‘Sistemi organizzativi della cura d’anime in Italia tra Medioevo e Rinasci-
mento: Discorso introduttivo,’’Pievi e parrocchie in Italia nel basso Medioevo (sec.xiii–xv),ed. A. Erba et al.
(Rome: Herder, 1984 ), 1 : 36 , on tithing studies. - Antonio Rigon, ‘‘Congregazioni del clero cittadino e storia della parrocchia nell’Italia settentrio-
nale: Il problema delle fonti,’’La parrocchia nel Medio Evo, economia, scambi, solidarieta`,ed. Agostino Paravicini
Bagliani and Ve ́ronique Pache, Italia Sacra 53 (Rome: Herder, 1995 ), 4 ; on diocesan administration, see
Brentano,Two Churches. - See hisDossierandOrdo.
- E.g., John Hine Mundy, ‘‘In Praise of Italy: The Italian Republics,’’Speculum 64 ( 1989 ): 815 – 35.
- See Paolo Golinelli,Citta`e culto dei santi nel Medioevo italiano, 2 d ed. (Bologna: CLUEB, 1996 ),
67 – 68 , on the political aspects of patronal cults.