New towns, religious change and the transformation of authority in the Marche : 1050-1215

Watkins, Jack (2024) New towns, religious change and the transformation of authority in the Marche : 1050-1215. PhD thesis, Birkbeck, University of London.

Abstract

This thesis argues for close interdependence between religious and economic change in medieval Europe by taking a material and spatial approach to the transformation of authority in the long twelfth century. These dynamics are clearly expressed when lords and communities commit to building new walled towns, often combining existing settlements around churches and fortifications. With a focus on social strategies and collective assemblies, the thesis evaluates the production and use of shared space within new towns in central Italy between 1050- 1215. It does so regional study consisting of case studies evaluating the formation of larger walled centres including Civitanova, Montecchio, Cingoli, Macerata, Montolmo, Sant’Elpidio and San Severino all located in the Marche region of central Italy, making particular use of documents kept by the Cistercian monastery of Chiaravalle di Fiastra. Chapter 1 considers disparate parish identities and the use and reception of canon law, concerning the ownership and maintenance of churches as preconditions for changes to rural kin groups and settlement. Building and funding for stone churches is the focus of Chapter 2, which uses two case studies from the Chienti valley to connect the high politics of reform with local political transformations. Mobility and peasant migration are the subject of Chapter 3, showing that both peasants and lords negotiated the foundation of larger rural settlements. The second half of the thesis explores the interaction of space and assembly in the later twelfth century. Chapter 4 focuses on disputing and Chapter 5 on the commercialisation of agriculture, both activities that contributed to the gradual demarcation of the civic piazza as a public sphere influenced by expression and competition in the built environment. The small-scale urbanism of the Marche illustrates how religious and commercial change influenced the production of social space and reconfigured political authority.

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