A comprehensive survey of recent work in Medieval Italian history and archaeology, set within a broader context of studies on major transitions in Europe from c.400 to c.1400CE. Each of the contributors also reflect on the contribution made to the field by Chris Wickham, whose own work spans the transition from Roman to medieval Europe.

• Italy and the Early Middle Ages: a Journey through Time and Space


• Chris - An Appreciation


• Lodare 'il Wickham'


• Part One - Lords and Peasants: Frames for the Middle Ages


• 1: Walter Pohl: Social Cohesion, Breaks and Transformations in Italy, 535-600


• 2: Ian Wood: The Roman Origins of the Northumbrian Kingdom


• 3: Patrick Geary: Langobardi in the Sixth Century without Paulus Diaconus


• 4: Wendy Davies: Boni homini in Northern Iberia: a Particularity that Raises some General Questions


• 5: Pauline Stafford: Gender and the Gift: the Giving and Receiving of Women in Early Medieval England


• 6: Susan Reynolds: Still Fussing about Feudalism


• 7: Laurent Feller: Travail, Salaire et Pauvreté au Moyen Âge


• 8: Peter Coss: Bastard Feudalism and the Framing of Thirteenth-Century England


• 9: Marco Valenti: Changing Rural Settlements in the Early Middle Ages in Central and northern Italy: Towards the Centralization of Rural Property


• 10: Maria Elena Cortese: Between the City and the Countryside: the Aristocracy in the March of Tuscia (late tenth - early twelfth centuries)


• 11: Alessandra Molinari: Riflessioni sulle Economie dei Secoli X e XI: Palermo e Roma a Confronto


• 12: Sandro Carocci: Reframing Norman Italy


• 13: Graham A. Loud: Labour Services and Peasant Obligations in Twelfth- and Thirteenth-Century Southern Italy


• Part Two - Texts and Memories


• 14: Cristina La Rocca: An Arena of Abuses and Competing Powers: Rome in Cassiodorus'


• 15: Lisa Fentress: Topographic Memory


• 16: Rosamond McKitterick: The Damnatio Memoriae of Pope Constantine II (767-768)


• 17: Antonio Sennis: Fame and its Vagaries in the Middle Ages


• 18: Marios Costambeys: Archives and Social Change in Italy, c.900-1100: the Evidence of Dispute Notices


• 19: Edward Coleman: Disputed Possession, Legal Process and Memory in Thirteenth-Century Lombardy: the case of Guastalla and Luzzara (1193-1227)


• 20: Paul Oldfield: 'To Destroy a City so Great and Remarkable': Lamentation, Panegyric and the Idea of the Medieval City


• Part Three - Economic Resources


• 21: Paul Fouracre: 'Framing' and Lighting: Another Angle on Transition


• 22: Joanna Story: Lands and Lights in Early Medieval Rome


• 23: Caroline Goodson: Garden Cities in Medieval Italy


• 24: Ross Balzaretti: Chestnuts in Charters: Evidence for Specialised Production in Tenth-Century Genoa and Milan


• 25: Rosemary Morris: The 'Life Aquatic' on Athos in the Tenth and Eleventh Centuries


• 26: Giovanna Bianchi: Public Powers, Private Powers and the Exploitation of Metals for Coinage: the Case of Medieval Tuscany


• 27: Eduardo Manzano Moreno: Coinage and the Tributary Mode of Production


• 28: Chris Callow: Comparing Medieval Iceland with Other Regions: Problems and Possibilities


• 29: Patricia Skinner: Early Medieval Wales and Calabria: a Mountain of Problems?


• Part Four - The Spiritual Economy


• 30: Paolo Delogu: Devozione longobarda


• 31: Julia Smith: Cursing and Curing, or The Practice of Christianity in Eighth-Century Rome


• 32: John Haldon: Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Views on Islam and on Jih?d, c.900 CE: a Papal Connection?


• 33: Mayke de Jong: The Two Republics: Ecclesia and the Public Domain in the Carolingian World


• 34: Julia Barrow: Developing Definitions of Reform in the Church in the Ninth and Tenth Centuries


• 35: Régine Le Jan: Memory, Gift and Politics: Matilda of Tuscany and her Donations to St Peter


• 36: Frances Andrews: Como and Padua

Ross Balzaretti is an Associate Professor and Head of History at the University of Nottingham. He completed his PhD at University College London and held a Rome Scholarship at the British School at Rome, for which he is now an ambassador. In 2015 he was elected Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries.
Julia Barrow is Professor of Medieval Studies at the University of Leeds. She previously worked at the universities of Birmingham - where she held a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellowship - and Nottingham. Her research interests lie chiefly in Church history in England and Western Europe to 1300.
Patricia Skinner holds a Personal Chair in History at Swansea University. She completed her PhD under Chris Wickham's supervision at Birmingham, and remained there holding a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellowship. She has published several books and numerous articles on Italian, gender and medical history.