Cities of God: The Religion of the Italian Communes, 1125-1325 (review)

Cities of God, Augustine Thompson proposes a reorientation to the study of religious and civic culture in medieval Italy. The commune, a form of representational government that flourished in northern and central Italy between the twelfth and fourteenth centuries, typically has been studied as a political institution leading toward the presumably secular city-state. Meanwhile, the study of religion has focused primarily on the influence of the ecclesiastical hierarchy and mendicant orders, as well as on extraordinary examples of female mystics and heretics. These groups are set aside and the secular presumption challenged in his study. Thompson instead argues for the symbiotic relationship between politics and religion in medieval civic life. He draws upon a rich body of sources ranging from legislation and tithe lists to devotional literature and material culture in order to examine the lived experiences of ordinary laypersons. By focusing on what these people did, Thompson contends that communal religion must be understood as fundamentally orthodox in practice. Detailed examples illustrate the central role played by the cathedral and adjacent baptistery, its clergy and dependent churches, and above all, the liturgy in structuring daily life in the communes. The result is an important study that the American Catholic Historical Association awarded the 2005 Howard R. Marraro Prize for the best book in Italian History. Not surprisingly, it already is redefining the ways medieval scholars talk about religion in medieval Italy.

The first part of Cities of God maps the sacred geography of the communes in order to demonstrate how they were "simultaneously political and religious entities" (3). Individual chapters examine how ecclesiastical institutions impacted civic life, the presence of penitential groups, the sacralization of lay government, the role of ritual in defining civic identity, and the phenomenon of lay saints. His basic point about the particular character of communal religion is that "[it] was a practical religion best expressed in common worship, processions, and civic rites by which the city expressed its order and identity. Orthodoxy, like citizenship, meant participation in them" (140). Thompson thus describes how the cathedral and its rites served as a focus of civic pride for the laity as well as the clergy. The "mother church" and its network of neighborhood chapels also provided the foundational structure for communal government. Until the mid-thirteenth century, cathedrals were home to both sacred and civic functions. Communal councils met within their walls. Their statutes borrowed directly from ecclesiastical language and imagery. Public rituals such as processions and candle lighting drew upon religious ceremonies to express civic order and identity. These and other examples demonstrate how communal government appropriated religious forms to gain sacred authority. Lay confraternities and other neighborhood associations further contributed to the communal model of civic participation and democratic organization. Lay saints, whose holiness was expressed through personal asceticism, acts of devotion such as visiting local shrines, and especially in charity to their neighbors, further shaped the religious landscape of the communes. These chapters effectively illustrate the sacred character of civic institutions and lay the groundwork for the second part of the book which examines how participation in these entities linked orthodoxy and citizenship.

The later chapters focus on the experience of communal religion. Thompson begins by examining the liturgy of the Divine Office and the major feasts from the perspective of the laity. He challenges the idea that lay audiences were passive listeners to the Mass. Contemporary devotional literature assumes active engagement, for example in kneeling or prostrating oneself during the Eucharist. He presents evidence that the laity would sing responses to the litany and chant along with the choir. They would say prayers in Latin and generally seem to have understood the rituals. Thompson also argues that the...