Cum anulo et baculo. Vescovi dell'Italia medievale dal protagonismo politico alla complementarietà istituzionale

In the IX-XI centuries the bishops, inserted in the Reichskirche, were able to combine the valorization of the city identities with the cultural, political and religious requests coming from the imperial court. Thus they constituted the main factor of homogenization of the Regnum Italiae, a polycentric institutional system in which pastoral functions and powers of government were in various ways but inextricably connected. The investiture contest marked the decline of this world in its ancient way and the bishops, increasingly influenced by the growing multidimensionality of the political space of the city and by the progress of pontifical centralization, from the 12th century saw their leading role resize, but experimented new forms of institutional complementarity in the cities and in the wider context of the ecclesiastical system.