Farfa Back Into the Early Middle Ages

Marios Costambeys. Power and Patronage in Early Medieval Italy: Local Society, Italian Politics and the Abbey of Farfa, c.700-900. Cambrdige Studies in Medieval Life and Thought Series. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007. Tables, charts. xvi + 388 pp. $115.00, cloth, ISBN 978-0-521-87037-5. Reviewed by Tehmina Goskar Published on H-Italy (January, 2011) Commissioned by Monica Calabritto (Hunter College, CUNY) The Abbey of Farfa, nestled in the Sabine work with them, particularly Don Alfonso, to re‐ hills, and little known on the tourist trail, has sur‐ plant the garden and regain some of its former vived to this day with its community of Benedic‐ glory--the visible glee on Alfonso’s face when it all tine monks because it has constantly diversified started to bloom again was testament to the still its activities and reasons for existing. Today, the continuing importance of religious and lay people abbey is online, allowing you to take a virtual tour working together to retain the profound sense of of its beautiful interiors--what was once the prod‐ place a major religious center can give a locality. uct of patronage and the intimate relationship be‐ And so to Farfa in the early Middle Ages, a tween lay and monastic realms is now a museum. time during which cycles of exchange and negoti‐ [1] You can book yourself in for a retreat and en‐ ation established the abbey as a European politi‐ joy “un’esperienza monastica.” “La nuova Farfa” cal powerhouse and a considerable influence on is now a social enterprise running socially mind‐ the changes experienced in the region. Marios ed projects aimed at local young people. This Costambeys begins his detailed study of two hun‐ adaptation to social and cultural change has not dred years of the abbey’s early medieval history always been a dynamic that has come from with‐ by placing Farfa within its wider ecclesiastical in. In 2005, TV chef Jamie Oliver arrived at Farfa world. The issues Farfa had to face from the hoping to fnd inspiration in they abbey’s long- eighth to tenth centuries are crystallized in an ex‐ famed medieval herb garden, and expected the cerpt from a charter of the Carolingian emperor, monks to still be eating like kings. However, the Lothar I, from 840. As on previous occasions, the garden was nearly dead and the community was emperor confirmed the monastery’s rights over just about surviving on frozen vegetables and oth‐ certain territory in the Sabina as well as beyond, er processed food. The chef reminded them of in Rome’s buffer zone--regularly the cause of con‐ their great medieval culinary heritage and got to tention between the popes and other Italian H-Net Reviews rulers throughout the Middle Ages. This scenario Chapter 2 focuses on establishing the nature frames the author’s opening gambit which sug‐ of power emanating from the Lombard duchy of gests that, although appeals for support to the Spoleto, the abbey’s nearest secular peers. The in‐ highest secular powers (not just the Frankish em‐ crease in patronage in ecclesiastical, agricultural, perors) were a feature of Farfa’s strategy for self- and other property received from the Lombard determination, this relied on a fundamental un‐ dukes during the eighth century is analyzed in de‐ derstanding of reciprocity: secular leaders needed tail and bolsters the author’s contention that the the abbey’s support as much as the abbey needed distribution of landed power was much more theirs. This is the leitmotif of the book and is tack‐ complex than other narratives have suggested. led from many different angles in subsequent The abbey played an important role as a broker in chapters. It is a story of careful and sometimes disputes between lay powers. One assertion that delicate maneuvering and negotiation, courting some scholars may question, however, is that ear‐ patronage for the practical and spiritual support ly medieval society was one where “communica‐ that it could offer in return. tions were poor, administrative structures weak The author’s arrangement of the book is tradi‐ and political groupings fragmented” and that all tional and is based on themes familiar to early these factors underpinned a sense of insecurity medieval historians, including authority and when it came to the control of property (p. 94). rulership, legal and political structures, kinship, Such comments ought to be made relative to the power negotiation, foundations of ecclesiastical experience the protagonists of those communica‐ wealth, and so on. As such, it will appeal largely to tions and administration in any particular in‐ historians of early medieval Europe, particularly stance--something that the book does actually those interested in northern Italy. However, other make clear in the examples it provides. scholars of this region might also benefit from the Chapter 3 takes the book on a more oblique context it provides. Scholars unfamiliar with Far‐ course and addresses big themes that will be fa and its region may struggle with the lack of more familiar to early medieval historians than to background description of the place and its land‐ others. Entitled “Authority, Rulership and the scape, and there are no pictorial illustrations in Abbey,” the chapter is concerned with shaping the book to help in this regard. definitions. It is very often an impossible task to Chapter 1 comprises the lengthy introduction delineate precisely what people meant when they and presents the book’s principal ideas. Most of used particular terms in charters, and this chap‐ the chapter is composed of a very detailed de‐ ter raises many of the problems that historians scription of its archival sources, including an come up against when fguring out the roles and analysis of the production of these documents, il‐ statuses of such people described as “actor,” and lustrated with charts and tables. The introduction what was meant precisely by “potestas” (defined ends with a taster of what is to come by setting by the author as the “power to act and to control” out how the author perceives monastic patronage [p. 95]). What the author succeeds in doing is to in a European context, and provides an orienta‐ use the practical examples of the charters to tion of its geo-historical situation between three demonstrate process. By doing so, the reader gets major secular power cultures: the Franks, the a fairly clear idea that, in spite of the ambiguities Lombards, and the papacy (not quite the good, the and partial survival, the paper trail left by the bad, and the ugly), a theme that returns in the last abbey and its peers provides a compelling insight two chapters of the book. into the vagaries of the situations in which they found themselves. 2 H-Net Reviews Chapter 4 focuses on the Farfa communities The second half of chapter 5 provides readers themselves and how individual cultural affinities with an opportunity to pause and reflect on the influenced the business of the abbey. This chapter detail of land-based relationships presented thus begins to make more sense of the political back‐ far. Here, the author explicitly tackles how we are ground that was sketched out in the previous to understand the full spectrum of land structures chapters and for the frst time we meet the pro‐ described in the sources, and how they were man‐ tagonists at the center of the narrative. The au‐ aged, from patterns of landholding; to the organi‐ thor acknowledges the fundamental importance zation of labor; and ultimately, to the mechanics of understanding the community makeup by say‐ of how wealth was generated for landowners, ing, “here we can redress an imbalance in the his‐ such as the abbey and its lay peers. Two very brief toriography, for while it has been noted that some sections on family property and the role of mar‐ Farfa monks hailed from beyond the Sabina, the riage and women in the region expand the dimen‐ extent and importance of the abbey’s recruitment sions of this chapter somewhat, but some readers, within the Sabina has rarely been appreciated” particularly social and gender historians, might (p. 133). The chapter explores how, from the be left wanting more. shady view we get, individuals fostered a corpo‐ Chapter 6 on the elite families of the Sabina is rate identity and most important, how the local very short in comparison to others in the book lay elite fostered intimate links with the abbey, and extends the interesting discussion of kinship particularly through oblation. Here are fascinat‐ and family identities presented at the end of the ing stories of how small “p” politics informed the previous chapter. It is of particular interest for bigger society of the abbey, and for me, these ex‐ demonstrating the permeability of lay and ecclesi‐ amples provide the most tangible understanding astical realms and how this comes through in the of how early medieval ecclesiastical institutions documentary evidence. While frst impressions were able to function at the most fundamental might suggest that old families faded from view in level. the abbey archives, the author demonstrates Chapter 5, on Sabine lands and landowner‐ beautifully that this was not the case, rather it ship, is the densest of all the chapters in the book, was the way in which their exchanges with the but probably also the most important. It demon‐ abbey were documented that changed. strates patronage in action and colors the picture From the detail and personalities of the previ‐ of how the abbey used social and political reci‐ ous chapters, chapters 7 and 8 take us back to the procity to broker its own power strategies, and bigger picture, the frst focusing on the Lombard how a balance of control in the abbey’s environs period, the second on the Carolingians.

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