Episcopal Power and Ecclesiastical Reform in the German Empire Tithes, Lordship, and Community, 950–1150

Focusing on the way bishops in the eleventh century used the ecclesiastical tithe - church taxes - to develop or re-order ties of loyalty and dependence within their dioceses, this book offers a new perspective on episcopacy in medieval Germany and Italy. Using three broad case studies from the dioceses of Mainz, Salzburg and Lucca in Tuscany, John Eldevik places the social dynamics of collecting the church tithe within current debates about religious reform, social change and the so-called 'feudal revolution' in the eleventh century, and analyses a key economic institution, the medieval tithe, as a social and political phenomenon. By examining episcopal churches and their possessions not in institutional terms, but as social networks which bishops were obliged to negotiate and construct over time using legal, historiographical and interpersonal means, this comparative study casts fresh light on the history of early medieval society.

Introduction: bishops, power and medieval society: a comparative approach; 1. The social worlds of the ecclesiastical tithe; 2. Tithes, bishops and society in Frankish Europe; 3. Landscapes of episcopal authority: Lucca, Mainz and Salzburg; 4. Diabolic contracts: the leasing of Pievi and perceptions of order and power in early medieval Italy; 5. Piety, power and memory: bishops and tithes in the diocese of Salzburg; 6. The struggle for tithes in an age of transition; Conclusion; Bibliography.

John Eldevik is Assistant Professor of History at Hamilton College in Clinton, New York. In addition to articles and reviews in a range of international journals, he is the author of Medieval Germany: Research and Resources (2006), a reference guide to medieval German history published by the German Historical Institute in Washington, DC.