Telling Tales : Clerics, Concubines, and an Inquisitor in Late Medieval Ferrara: a Primary Source Study

Brown, Jason Aaron/ Cossar, Roisin

University of Toronto Press（2025/12発売）

• 製本 Paperback:紙装版/ペーパーバック版／ページ数 302 p.
• 言語 ENG
• 商品コード 9781487560676
• DDC分類 945.04

Full Description

Telling Tales explores the lived experiences of Christian women, parish clerics, and church officials in Italy during the later Middle Ages through one previously unpublished historical source - a register prepared in 1421/1422 for a Dominican inquisitor in the northern Italian city of Ferrara that includes interrogations about the lives, work, and domestic arrangements of otherwise-obscure women.

The book provides both a translation of the source from the original Latin and a critical examination of its content from two distinct analytical perspectives. Cossar and Brown also illuminate the workings of an inquisitorial investigation, with details about how the inquisitor gathered information and worked both with, and against, other local authorities.

Telling Tales invites readers to explore the tools of the historian's craft, illustrating how different analytical approaches to the same historical source can yield rich - and sometimes contradictory - conclusions.

Contents

Preface

Translator's Introduction

English Translation

1. Beginnings and Introductions

2. Churches and Clergy in Ferrara

Interlude: Theoretical Approaches to the Register

3. Reading along the Grain: the Inquisitor and the Women

4. Reading against the Grain: the Women

Conclusion: What Really Happened?

Glossary of Terms