This book presents a detailed study which focuses upon the Hucpoldings, an elite group in Carolingian and post-Carolingian Italy. Though the Hucpoldings have not received extensive treatment in previous Anglophone scholarship, they are a key clan in this period. Manarini’s ground-breaking study uses this kinship group to highlight and pinpoint the dramatic geopolitical changes in the kingdom of Italy across three crucial centuries. The research deals with the reconstruction of the political events of every identifiable member of the kinship, as well as the inquiry into their patrimony and their networks of relations and patronage throughout the kingdom of Italy. Finally, it examines the particular elements of the group, from which emerges a clearer picture of the nature of their power, their memory strategies and the shared perceptions and self-awareness among the group members.

Edoardo Manarini is currently a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Turin. His research revolves around Western European medieval political institutions, focusing on Italy’s elite kindreds and their interconnection with regnal power, the links between kings and abbeys in Lombard and Carolingian Italy, the dynamics of memory and monastic production of written strategies.

Acknowledgement
List of Abbreviations
Introduction
Documentary Evidence: Properties Dispersal, Archival Geography
Narrative sources
Part 1 – Kinship and Political Relations
1. The Hucpoldings Involvement in the Political Struggles of the Kingdom of Italy (847-945)
Hucpold, Count Palatine of Louis II
Faction and Endeavour: Hubald I
The Aristocratic Career of Boniface dux et marchio between Rudolf II and Hugh of Arles
2. Family Patterns and Political Affirmation (945-1012)
The Duchy of Spoleto and Tuscany
Eastern Emilia and the Exarchate of Ravenna
The March of Tuscany
3. The Local Basis of Power in a Wide Political Network (1012-1116)
Hugh II and his Lineage in Bologna and Ferrara
The Ties that Bind: Boniface of Canossa and Kinship Networks across the Apennines
The Counts of Romena-Panico
Part 2 – Properties and patronage
4. The Exarchate
Land Possession and Relations in the Ninth Century
The Troubled Years, c. 960-c.1000
Persistence in the comitatus Faentinus and the 1034 pact
5. The March of Tuscany
The Family Group Estates in the Ninth Century
Marchisal Fisc and Monastic Foundations
Centres of Power, Patronage Networks
6. Ruling on the Border: Landed Possessions from the Po Valley to the Apennines in Bononia’s Diocese
Acquisitions, Exchanges, Organisation of Lands in the Tenth Century
Landed Wealth and Hegemony
Lands, Men and Castles (tenth-twelfth centuries)
Estates Management: between Territorial Consolidation and Dispersal
Part 3 – Power, Relations, Memory
7. Kinship, Self-awareness, and Memory
Onomastic Choices
The lex Ribuaria profession
The Role of Monastic Foundations: Family Memory, Politics and Identity
Kinship Representations between Perceptions and Self-awareness
Evolution and Hierarchy of Kinship Cohesion
8. Features and Practices of Power: from Officials to Lords
First Steps at Court: Offices and Responsibilities in the Kingdom of Italy
The Marchisal Achievement and the Gaining of Ecclesiastical Offices
Development of a Seigneurial Rule in a Border Region
9. Discontinuity Between Public Powers and Private Seigneurial Rule
Genealogical Tables
Bibliography
Index