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Notes on the Lands of the Roman Church in the Early Middle Ages

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 August 2013

Peter Partner
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Extract

The great landed wealth of the Roman Church both before and after the foundation of the papal state in the eighth century is well known. It is also well known that the Muslim invasions and the political breakdown which took place in Italy in the ninth and tenth centuries destroyed the ancient organisation of Roman Church lands, and that in the succeeding two centuries a new and partly feudal landowning organisation emerged in the Roman territory. But it is not at all clear what this decline of the Carolingian system meant in terms of the administration and extent of church property, and of the connected changes in the relations of the Roman Church with the local landowning nobility. The present short notes have been compiled in an attempt to shed a modest amount of light on this matter.

Our possession of the letters of Gregory the Great has given us some knowledge of the ancient organisation of the papal patrimonies. But even before the papal state came into being in the eighth century, there had already been two big changes since Gregory's time—the organisation of corn supply and charitable works in Rome through the Roman diaconates, and the re-organisation of many of the papal estates into larger aggregates known as domus cultae. Both these measures tended to centralise papal control over the economic life of Rome and the District, but it it with the second that I am mainly concerned here. My business, however, is with the decline and not with the growth of the new economic system, and to its earlier nature and development I refer only briefly.

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Research Article
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Papers of the British School at Rome , Volume 34 , November 1966 , pp. 68 - 78
Copyright
Copyright © British School at Rome 1966

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References

1 Best dealt with by Caspar, E., Geschichte des Papsttums (Tübingen, 1933), ii, pp. 323–30Google Scholar.

2 Bertolini, O., ‘Per la storia delle diaconie Romane nell' alto Medio Evo sino alia fine del secolo VIII,’ Archivio della Società Romana di Storia Patria (ASR), lxx (1947), pp. 1–145Google Scholar; idem, ‘La ricomparsa della sede episcopale di “Tres Tabernae” nella seconda metà del sec. VIII e l'istituzione delle “domuscultae”,’ ibid., lxxv (1952), pp. 102–9; idem, article ‘Patrimonio di San Pietro,’ in Enciclopedia Cattolica. Further information in Sjöqvist, E., ‘Studi archeologici e topografici intorno alia Piazza del Collegio Romano,’ Opuscul Archaeologica, vol. iv, edidit Institutum Romanum Regni Sueciae (Lund, 1946), pp. 47–156Google Scholar.

3 Tomassetti, G., La Campagna Romana (C.R.), i (Rome, 1910), p. 110–2Google Scholar, has a list, but the locations of some of the sites he names are uncertain.

4 Cf. Megaw, A. H. S. et al. , ‘The British Schools Abroad, 1962,’ Antiquity, xxxvii, 1963, pp. 38–9Google Scholar.

5 The sources are discussed below.

6 Kehr, P. F., Italia Pontificia (I.P.), ii (Berlin, 1907Google Scholar, reprint 1951), pp. 22, 28, thought that there were two domus cultae of Galeria, one on the Cornelia and the other on the Portuense, but Tomassetti's opinion that there was one huge estate (C.R., iii, pp. 36–47) seems preferable.

7 Tomassetti supposes the existence of a domus culta at Lunghezza near the ancient centre of Gabi, but his evidence is obscure.

8 Fedele showed that Formia near Gaeta and not Formia near Velletri was probably intended in Liber pontificalis, ed. Duchesne, , i, p. 435Google Scholar. Cf. Tabularium Casinense, Codex Diplomaticus Caietanus (Monte Cassino, 1887), i, pp. 31, 74–5Google Scholar.

9 Annales Regni Francorum (ed. Kurze, 1895), pp. 143, 161–2.

10 Tomassetti, , C.R., iii, p. 109Google Scholar.

11 Mansi, , Sacrorum conciliorum nova et amplissima collectio, xvii, p. 337Google Scholar, for the 877 Council of Ravenna at which this was notably denounced. Cf. Hartmann, L. M., Geschichte Italiens im Mittelalter (Gotha, 1903–1915), iv, pp. 49–63, 119–21Google Scholar.

12 Kehr, I., I.P., ii, p. 25Google Scholar; J.-L., n. 3535. Cf. Tomassetti, , C.R., iii, 126–8Google Scholar. The massa Cesana bordered on the west of the former domus culta of Capracorum and on the north of that of Galeria. It has nothing to do with the massa Ceserana on the Via Tiberina, which is probably the proper site of the property Tomassetti attributes to S. Paolo fuori le Mura in this area (cf. I.P., I, p. 168, n. 16; J.-L. + n. 5200; and cf. also Ashby, T., ‘The Classical Topography of the Roman Campagna,’ above, iii [1906], pp. 129, 148Google Scholar).

13 Cf. G. Arnaldi, article ‘Alberico di Roma,’ in Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani; idem, ‘Papato, arcivescovi e vescovi nel l'età post-carolinga,’ Vescovi e diocesi in Italia nel Medioevo (sec. IX-XIII) (Italia Sacra, v, Padua, 1964), pp. 27–53; Ferrari, G., Early Roman Monasteries (Rome, 1957), pp. 203–6, 257, 265Google Scholaret passim; Hamilton, B., ‘Monastic revival in tenth century Rome,’ Studia Monastica iv (1962), pp. 35–68Google Scholar; Antonelli, G., ‘L'opera di Odone di Cluny in Italia,’ Benedictina, iv (1950), pp. 19–40Google Scholar. Both Antonelli and Hamilton tend to take the view that Alberic's patronage was disinterested, though Antonelli recognises that there is another view.

14 Mabillon, , Acta Sanctorum ordinis S. Benedicti, saec. V (Paris, 1685), pp. 181–2Google Scholar. The topography of the whole area is discussed by Frederiksen, M. W. and Perkins, J. B. Ward, ‘The ancient road systems of the central and northern Ager Faliscus (Notes on Southern Etruria, 2),’ above, xxv (1957), pp. 67–209Google Scholar.

15 Lawrence, A. W., ‘Early medieval fortifications ne ar Rome,’ above, xxxii (1964), pp. 91–5, 99–100, 113–6Google Scholar. Paterno was one of the castra granted by Alberic to S. Silvestro in Capite (see n. 29 below).

16 Chronicon di Benedetto di S. Andrea, Zucchetti (Rome, 1920), p. 168Google Scholar. For Leo the Chamberlain see also ARS, xxii (1899Google Scholar), Liber Largitonus Monasterri Pharphensis, i, n. 280.

17 Marini, , I papiri diplomatin (Rome, 1805), P. 155Google Scholar; cf. Tomassetti, , C.R., iii, p. 120Google Scholar. Mazzano remained the property of S. Gregorio down to the early fourteenth century; cf. Annales Camaldulenses, v, app., cols. 342, 465.

18 Mabillon, Acta SS.OSB, saec. V, p. 159–60.

19 Both in Gregory, VII's bull, I.P., i, p. 168Google Scholar; J.-L. + n. 5200. Following Kehr, I accept this document as genuine, though interpolated. That St. Paul's was actually in possession of these lands a century earlier is no more than a possibility. The best edition is that of Trifone, B., ‘Le carte del monastero di S. Paolo,’ ASR, xxxi (1908), pp. 278–85Google Scholar.

20 Liutprand, Opera (ed. Becker), p. 164.

21 Bull quoted in n. 18 above; Tomassetti, , C.R., iii, p. 485Google Scholar.

22 Bull quoted above.

23 Morghen, R., ‘Le relazioni del monastero sublacense col papato, la feudalità e il comune nel l'alto medio evo,’ ASR, li (1928), pp. 181–262Google Scholar.

24 Vehse, O., ‘Die päpstliche Herrschaft in der Sabina bis zur Mitte des 12. Jahrhunderts,’ Quellen und Forschungen aus italienischen Archiven und Bibliotheken,’ xxi (1929/1930), pp. 120–75Google Scholar; Schuster, I., L'Imperiale Abbazia di Farfa (Rome, 1921Google Scholar). The marquis Theobald, king Rudolph's nephew by his sister Waldrada and son of Boniface of Spoleto, acted with John XII in policing Sabina, and, on the death of the Roman nominee Adam, placed his own brother Hubert in charge of the monastery. Cf. Reg. Farf., iii, no. 354; destructio monasterii Farfensis (Fonti per la storia d'Italia, xxxiii), pp. 42, 44. Vehse, p. 133 and Schuster, p. 102 do not understand Theobald's identity. The eastern possessions had fallen under the rule of the Burgundian Sarlio, for whom see Hofmeister, A., ‘Markgraften und Markgraftschaften im Italischen Königreich,’ Mittheilungen des Instituts für österreichische Geschichtsforschung, Ergbd. vii (1906), 210, 422Google Scholar.

25 Chron. Farfen., i, 66, 312–3; Reg. Farf., iii, n. 372; Liber Largitorius, i, n. 221; cf. Vehse, p. 130. Sala means a centre for stock farming, and Tomassetti claims to have found early medieval farm buildings when he excavated at Boechignano (C.R., i, p. 113).

26 Falco, G., ‘L'amministrazione papale nella Campagna e nella Marittima,’ ASR, xxxviii (1915), pp. 684–5, 705–7Google Scholar; Fedele, P., ‘Carte del monastero dei SS. Cosma e Damiano in “Mica Aurea”,’ ASR, xxi (1898), pp. 474–80Google Scholar; see also Gregory VII's bull for S. Paolo fuori, in ASR, xxxi (1908), at pp. 282–3, totam massam Cesanam (see n. 12 above) … sicuto Benedictus Campaninus monasterio tuo dedit, quando effectus est ibidem monachus. Cf. also I.P., i, p. 130; J.-L., n. 3944.

27 Ferrari, Early Roman Monasteries, p. 203. We have no detailed knowledge of what the endowment of this monastery was.

28 Cf. Cavazzi, L., La diaconia di S. Maria in Via Lata e il Monastero di S. Ciriaco (Rome, 1908), pp. 243–322Google Scholar; Hartmann, L. M., Tabularium Ecclesiae S. Mariae in Via Lata (Vienna, 1895–1901Google Scholar).

29 Federici, V., ‘Regesto del monastero di San Silvestro de Capite,’ ASR, xxii (1899), pp. 265–92Google Scholar. The massa Ortana or Maiana, pp. 281–3. There were also important lands in Sabina and also in the territory of Collinense west of the Via Flaminia (pp. 284–5). Some of these sites have been identified (e.g. Baccaricia = Vaccareccia near Riano, , C.R., iii, p. 281Google Scholar) but many not. The Fosso di San Silvestro near Grotta Porciosa may be one of them: cf. Frederiksen and Ward Perkins, above, xxv (1957), pp. 173–4 et passim. The lands possessed by the monastery south of Rome included one or two sites which were fortified later (e.g. Castel de' Paoli between Marino and Castel Gandolfo) but it is not known if they were fortified at this time. It is doubtful if Civitella in the grant is identical with the important castle of Borghetto, , as was once thought. C.R., iv, 332Google Scholar. For Paterno see p. 71 above.

30 I cannot agree with Hamilton, Studia Monastica, (1962), p. 63, that Alberic's donations to Roman monasteries were ‘from his private estates’—or not without qualifying the opinion by adding that these private estates were largely based on church property.

31 Federici, pp. 286–7. The church of Ravenna retained into the eleventh century a fairly elaborate system of rectors to oversee its patrimonies: G. Buzzi, ‘La curia arcivescovile e la curia cittadina di Ravenna dall' 850 al 1118,’ Bullettino dell' Istituto Storico Italiano per il Media Evo, no. 35 (1915), pp. 10–21. The financial administration at Ravenna was in the hands of noble families—as probably also at Rome.

32 Lestocquoy, L., ‘Administration de Rome et diaconies du VIe au IXe siècle,’ Rivista di Archeologia Cristiana, vii (1930), pp. 261–295, at pp. 277–280Google Scholar. I owe a correction about this inscription to Professor D. A. Bullough. Lestocquoy's reading of ‘David’ as the brother of Eustathius does not seem to me satisfactory.

33 Liber pontificalis, i, pp. 501, 506.

34 I.P., ii, p. 25; J.-L., n. 4075. Castellum in integrum, quod appellatur Dalmachia, Balneo, Stabla, Massa Juliana, vel si quis aliis vocabulis nuncupantur … (in the territory of Nepi, 20 miles from Rome) … ab uno latere via, que est inter militiam de turre de Crapacorio, et terram de pastoritia s. petri, ab alio latere terra de monte Arsitio, et Focazan. quod vocatur Columella, et terra de turre de Crapacorio, que appellatur Matera, et a quarto latere terra S. Laurentii, que appellatur Salicara, et rivus qui pergit per Bussetum, et Maclan. (Madulan, , in I.P., ii, p. 26Google Scholar, J.-L., n. 4110, which is the document of 1037.)

35 I.P., i, p. 147; J.-L., n. 4293 (24 March 1053). I.P., i, p. 139; J.-L., n. 4294 (1 April 1053): castrum Capracorum cum terris vineis … et molaria sua cum ecclesia sancti Johannis que dicitur de Latregia … positam territorio Vegetano miliario ab urbe Rome plus minus vicesimo septimo, immo etiam fundum qui vocatur Agellum, positum in supradicto territorio Vegetano. Agellum was one of the fundi in the Vlllth century donation of dux Eustathius and his brother George (above). The link between Capracorum and a site on the Treia is made more probable by a tenth-century source which associates a church of St. John with the river Treia, Chron. di Benedetto di S. Andrea, p. 26. This is probably the same church of St. John as in Leo IX's bull, and as in those of Hadrian IV, Urban III and Innocent III, which mention castrum Capracorum … cum ecclesia sancti Johannis diruta (I.P., i, pp. 142, 143; J.-L., n. 10387, 15632; Potthast, n. 2592). Later relevant documents are Innocent III's bull concerning the monastery at Castel S. Elia (Potthast, n. 4354) and the bulls of Gregory IX (Potthast, nn. 8213–4, 10217, 10683; L. Auvray, Régistres de Gregoire IX, nn. 4480–1, 4647, 4650). Tomassetti cites Coppi's edition of Gregory, IX's bull of 1238 (Diss. dell' Acc. Rom. Pont, di Arch., xv, 1864, p. 243Google Scholar), but this is a very poor text indeed, and Auvray is here to be followed. The bull (14 June 1238) records the transfer to SS. Cosma and Damiano of the ecclesiam S. Cornelii prope insulam que vocatur castrum Sancti Petri in loco qui dicitur Maceranus by the monastery of S. Maria de Farneta near Cortona. How this monastery came into possession of the property is unknown, but it was in possession of it by 1188 and perhaps by 1180. I.P., iii, p. 192, no. 7, dated 20 May 1188 and printed in Gött. Nachr., 1902 (not 1903, as quoted by Kehr), pp. 543–5, no. 27. The bull refers to the monasterium sancti Cornelii cum ecclesiis suis, immediately before going on to list the churches held by S. Maria de Farneta in Rome. The fundum Maceranum positum iuxta ecclesiam sancti Cornelii is mentioned in Gregory VII's bull for S. Paolo fuori, quoted in n. 26 above.

36 Printed by Fedele, in ASR, xxii (1899), n. xlv, p. 79Google Scholar, 2 April 1041. Other documents relating to S. Cornelio on pp. 94, 424. For Leo the nomenculator, the brother of Peter ‘caput longa,’ see p. 32, ibid., where Leo is already dead by 1011, and p. 72.

37 G. Marini, I papiri diplomatici, p. 166. Cf. C.R., iii, pp. 354–5.

38 Trifone, , ‘Le carte di S. Paolo,’ ASR, xxxi (1908), pp. 288 ffGoogle Scholar. Cf. C.R., iii, pp. 112–4.

39 I.P., i, p. 130; J.-L., n. 3944. Cf. Perkins, J. B. Ward, ‘Veil,’ above, xxix (1961), pp. 75–82Google Scholar.

40 Chron. Farfen., i, p. 67. The remark is made by Giovanni Crescenzo about the castle of Tribuco: quoquo pacto ego teneam terrain alicujus ecclesiae per triginta annos absque pensionis redditione, mea postea erit proprietas. Cf. Calisse, C., ‘Le condizioni della proprietà territoriale ecc. nella provincia Romana nei secoli VIII–X,’ ASR, vii (1884), pp. 336–7Google Scholar.

41 Tomassetti, , C.R., iii, pp. 35–7Google Scholar. For the counts of Galeria see also W. Kölmel, Rom und der Kirchenstaat im 10. und 11. Jahrhundert bis in die Anfänge der Reform (Berlin, 1935), pp. 159–60Google Scholar.

42 Tomassetti, , C.R., ii, pp. 492–5Google Scholar, where he revokes his earlier opinion that this site was located between Vaianica, Tor and di Mare, Pratica (ASR, xix, 1896, pp. 327–8Google Scholar). Cf. I.P., ii, p. 5.

43 For this area, stretching from Cervetri (Cere) to Corneto, see C.R., ii, pp. 515–20; Calisse, C., Storia di Civitavecchia (Florence, 1898Google Scholar); Lauer, P., in Mélanges d'Archéologie et d'histoire, xx (1900), pp. 147–53CrossRefGoogle Scholar. I have not yet managed to see Toti, O., La città medioevale di Centocelle (Allumiere, 1958Google Scholar). For Corneto, Dilcher's article in Quellen und Forschungen, xlii–xliii (1963), pp. 1–12Google Scholar is not entirely satisfactory or complete; e.g. it makes no mention of the document printed by P. Egidi in Bullettino dell'Istituto Storico Italiano, no. 34 (1914), pp. 1–6. Reference to destruction by Arabs, near Centocelle, I.P., i, p. 130, no. 3Google Scholar.

44 C.R., iii, pp. 239–42. It is possible that the inhabitants of the domus culta were displaced in part to Malborghetto, ibid., pp. 262–3.

45 C.R., ii, pp. 139–59.

46 Cf. Galieti, A., ‘Il castello di Civita Lavinia,’ ASR, xxxii (1909), pp. 173–283Google Scholar; idem, ‘La rinascita medievale di Lanuvio e i monaci Benedettini,’ ibid., xli (1919), pp. 231–67; idem, ‘Massa Neviana patrimonio Appiae,’ Boll, della Commissions Archelogica Comunale di Roma, lxxii (1946–8), pp. 119–25; Bendinelli, G., ‘Monumenta Lanuvina,’ R. Accademia dei Lincei, Monumenti Antichi, xxvii (1921), pp. 294–370Google Scholar.

47 The centre on account of the sulphur springs became known as Solforata. C.R., ii, p. 438–40. Cf. I.P., i, p. 28 = J.-L., n. 9906. For the later history see Potthast n. 16774, bull of 11 March 1257 and Coppi, , Diss. della Pont. Acc. Rom. di Arch., xv (1864), pp. 244–6, 277Google Scholar.

48 Liber largitorius Mon. Pharph., i, no. s 545, 564, 611, 624, 686, 709, 754, 760–1, 766, 769, 773–4. tenebamus partem tertiam et alias duas nostri libellarii, Chron Farf., i, 65. For this obligation to improve and cultivate the holdings of the monastery, see Zuchetti, ‘Il “Liber largitorius”,’ etc., BISI, no. 44 (1927), pp. 74–7.

49 Quoted above, nn. 12 and 33.

50 A. Serafini, Musignano e la rocca al ponte (Rome, 1920). Cf. also C. De Cupis, Vicende dell'agricoltura e della pastorizia nell'Agro Romano (Rome, 1911); Partner, The papal state under Martin V (London, 1958), pp. 118–22.

51 Cf. J. B. Ward Perkins, Landscape and History in Central Italy (Oxford, n.d.).

52 Rossi, L. and Egidi, P., ‘Orchia nel Patrimonio,’ ASR, xxxi (1908), pp. 447–77.Google Scholar

53 Frederiksen and Ward Perkins, above, xxv (1957), pp. 193–5, where there is also a comment on the forest.

54 C.R., ii, pp. 487–90; Tomassetti, in ASR, xxiii (1900), pp. 129–70.Google Scholar