Struggles for Power in the Kingdom of Italy

This book presents a detailed study of the Hucpoldings, an elite group in Carolingian and post-Carolingian Italy. Though the Hucpoldings have not received extensive treatment in previous anglophone scholarship, they had a key influence in much of what was happening in this period. Manarini’s groundbreaking study highlights the dramatic geopolitical changes surrounding this kinship group in the kingdom of Italy across three crucial centuries. The research reconstructs political events associated with every identifiable member of the kinship, as well as inquiring into their patrimony and their networks of relationships and patronage. Finally, it examines the distinctive characteristics of the group to gain a clearer picture of the nature of their power, their memory strategies and the shared perceptions and self-awareness of 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.