Rome

This chapter examines the development of the city commune in Rome during the period 1050–1150. Rome does not occupy a central place in accounts of early Italian city communes. The city has seemed too “papal,” and the grand narratives of its history in the years 1050–1150 have concentrated on the story-line of papal “reform.” The urban elite that were most prominent in Rome in this century were not at all hostile to this reform. The chapter first provides an overview of the Tuscolano papacy between 1012 and 1044, a period of stable government in Rome, before discussing the city's particularities. In particular, it considers the roles played by families from the aristocracy and from the “medium elite” in city politics. It also explores the differences between aristocrats and other elite in Milan, Pisa, and Rome.

Papal Bulls as Instruments of Reform: The Reception of the Protection Bulls of Gregory VII in the Dioceses of Liège and Thérouanne (1074–1077)

In research concerning the spread of eleventh-century ecclesiastical reform ideas, papal protection bulls have been somewhat overlooked as scholarship has privileged more obvious instruments of papal politics, such as legates, councils, canon law, papal letters, and friendship networks. This is not surprising considering the fact that the only documents preserved are very often the bulls themselves, making it virtually impossible to reconstruct the impact that they had on the local churches. Therefore, the availability of several narrative sources discussing the reception of the bulls Gregory VII issued in favor of the Benedictine abbey of Saint Hubert in the diocese of Liège in 1074 and of the priory of regular canons in Watten in the diocese of Thérouanne in 1077 is truly unique. While these accounts are heavily biased, they permit us to catch a rare glimpse of how bulls were received at the grassroots level. As becomes clear from their stormy reception, the charters prompted discussion in the episcopal entourage about questions of ecclesiastical hierarchy, procedure, papal obedience, and episcopal authority. They cleverly rooted the papal reform program in the midst of far-off but politically important dioceses and forced bishop and clergy to take a stance in the reform debate.

The Papal Reform Project of 1344/5 and Its Protagonists

This chapter focuses on the first serious effort made within the medieval Latin Church to correct the calculation of Easter by legislative means. This effort took place at the court of Pope Clement VI in Avignon, who invited skilled astronomers such as Jean des Murs and Firmin de Beauval to assist him in a planned reform of the Golden Number. The chapter explores the background to this papal initiative and the contributions made by its various protagonists, focusing in particular on a recently discovered Expositio kalendarii novi written by the monk Johannes de Termis in 1345. It also takes a closer look at the parallel discussions that took place in the Byzantine East, where the prospect of a calendar reform was first raised by Nicephorus Gregoras in 1324.

Women and Reform in the Central Middle Ages

This essay considers women's involvement in the various reform movements of the central Middle Ages: papal reform, monastic revival, and the general movement for spiritual renewal that inspired laywomen and laymen to adopt a religious life within the world. Recent scholarship has constructed reform as having either opposed women (associating all women with threats to priestly chastity and unleashing a powerful clerical misogyny) or largely ignored them (concerning itself primarily with masculinity). Drawing important insights from both approaches, this article combines considerations of women's experience within reform with men's perceptions of women and sexuality. Women were not absent from reform, nor were they necessarily opposed by it; rather, they were omnipresent as reformers themselves, as supporters of reform, as its opponents, and as its objects. They were also omnipresent in the rhetoric of reform, which adopted the language of sexuality and pollution to express reforming goals and define perceived opponents.