Power and Patronage in Early Medieval Italy

Founded around the beginning of the eighth century in the Sabine hills north of Rome, the abbey of Farfa was for centuries a barometer of social and political change in central Italy. Conventionally, the region''s history in the early Middle Ages revolves around the rise of the papacy as a secular political power. But Farfa''s avoidance of domination by the pope throughout its early medieval histo...