Mit dem Evangelium und dem Schild. Anmerkungen zur Rolle der Vögte im Hochmittelalterlichen Italien

The first part of the paper analyses the distinctive Italian historiographical tradition on advocacy. It focusses particularly on the fact that this historiographical theme was for long considered marginal in both the study of the development of ecclesiastical lordship and of the Italian city commune. This neglect persisted despite the fact that as early as the mid-eighteenth century the noted Modenese scholar, Ludovico Antonio Muratori, had clearly demonstrated the importance of bishop advocates in medieval Italian life. Taking the ideas of Muratori and some other, more recent, studies as its springboard, the second part of the paper examines the role of ecclesiastical advocacy in the Regnum Italicum. I draw heavily on some dispositions recorded in the “Italic” Carolingian capitularies rediscovered in the middle of the tenth century, when the legal role of ecclesiastical advocates was revived in the aftermath of a crisis in the systems previously in common use, such as the inquisitio and, above all, the oath. It was in this context that the ecclesiastical advocates began to defend the rights of bishops and abbots not only with the might of the law, but also through force – in juridical duels – thus steadily gaining prominence in the civic life of the communal age, as is also evidenced by the hereditary nature of their position and the fact that sometimes the title became a family name (Avvocati, Avogadri etc.).