This book is a dense and difficult read that desperately needed a good editor. The introduction begins well by putting Farfa in its historical context and discusses the sources for writing the history of the monastery in the early Middle Ages but then meanders from one thing to another for more than fifty pages. First Costambeys discusses the chronicle of Gregory of Catino—called “Farfa's great high medieval historian” twice on pages 7 and 8—then he switches to a description of Farfa's geographical setting on the slope of Monte Acuziano, in which we are told that “English travelers in the nineteenth century also noted that the slopes of the hill were heavily wooded” (9). We also learn that the Farfa River, which gives the monastery its name, was recognized for the quality of its waters since antiquity. Costambeys's evidence is a quote from Virgil's Aeneid (7.715) that says nothing of the sort. Then we leave geography and return to Gregory of Catino. His reliability is explored; a short excursus is made on sources outside the scope of the book's chronological framework; and Gregory's collection of canon law is discussed for two pages. The author avers that Gregory compiled the collection to “defend Farfa's patrimony against the specific threat to it from irresponsible abbots and from the pope,” accepting Boynton's conclusions about the collection's purpose. Half the collection does deal with rights and property, and I believe that the editor of the collection, Theo Kölzer, came to a much more balanced conclusion about Gregory's purpose that is far more convincing—“Schwerpunkt der Collectio Farensis ist der Schultz des Kirchengutes in weitesten Sinn” (Collectio canonum Regesto Farfensi inserta, Monumenta iuris canonici, Series B, 5 [Città del Vaticano: Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, 1982], 74). But why are we reading about a twelfth-century canonical collection in a book that treats the period 700–900?

Costambeys then turns to the subject of how documents were produced in early medieval Italy (19–48). Costambeys poses an impossible question: what was Gregory's methodology for selecting documents to include in his work? We then move on to the scribes, their “authorial voices” (35), the arengae of the documents, and, finally, the “highly speculative” (45) idea that the arengae are taken in part from liturgical texts. This discussion is important for diplomatics but should not have occupied a large swath in a book on Farfa. The introduction grinds to a halt with another excursus on theories of monastic patronage that are now current among early medievalists.

There have been a number of good books on Farfa. Perhaps that is why Costambeys never gives the reader a coherent description of the monastery's founding in about 700 and its early history. If one already knows the story, there are brief references to Thomas of Maurienne scattered throughout the book but nothing more. Instead, the first sentence of chapter 2 announces that the author will “examine the operation of political power claimed by the rulers of Sabina up to the mid-ninth century” (62). The result is an examination of twenty-eight charters dating between 724 and 787. We do not receive, however, a detailed discussion of the charters or their contents. Only the donors and their purposes are listed in Costambeys's text. I found it particularly frustrating that the crucial terms in the charters are not defined but consistently left in Latin. A term like “gualdus” can be equivocal. Nonetheless, the author has a responsibility to report to his readers what he and earlier scholars have concluded about the meaning(s) of the term. After all, the term has been discussed for a long time (see Leo Wiener, Commentary to the Germanic Laws [1915], 84–88, or Heinrich Tiefenbach's Studien zu Wörtern volkssprachiger Herkunft in karolingischen Königsurkunden [1973], 62) and most recently by Chris Wickham.

Chapter 3 treats the relationship between the various other powers surrounding Farfa. Here Costambeys gives a much more satisfactory accounting of the documentary evidence. His discussion of a court case involving the bishops of Rieti and Farfa in 776 is particularly illuminating. Chapter 4 examines the prosopography of the monks and abbots of Farfa, chapter 5 looks at the landowners in the Sabina, the area surrounding Farfa, and chapter 6 deals with the leading families in the Sabina.

Chapter 7 focuses, finally, on Farfa. Costambeys begins this chapter with the same text with which he began chapter 1. His interpretation of the text is problematic; his analysis underlines a theme that runs unchecked through the book: power. There is almost nothing in the book about Farfa as an ecclesiastical institution. The document reports a very interesting court case that Gregory of Catino included in his history, in which Lothar I reported on an earlier hearing in Rome between Farfa and Pope Paschal I. Property of Farfa had been despoiled. Sergius, papal lawyer (advocatus) and bibliothecarius, unsuccessfully tried to justify “ius et dominatio” over Farfa. The abbot of Farfa, Ingoald, countered with documents from Lombard kings and Charlemagne. The gathering, including Paschal, was convinced by Ingoald's arguments and evidence. Costambeys translates the denouement:

The Latin text reads:

A key sentence is mistranslated: it should be rendered “which the officer (Potestas) of Paschal's predecessors unjustly plundered by his command.” “Potestas” does not mean power in this sentence, but office holder. “Ipsius” refers back to “potestas,” not to Paschal's predecessors. Otherwise it would have been “ipsorum.” Even more basically, Costambeys does not analyze the legal situation. The “Potestas” had dispossessed persons from property claimed by Farfa. The monastery brought suit to vindicate their rights. The “Potestas” was no longer in office (potestas antecessorum eiusdem) and was not present when the case was heard in Rome. The text does not state that previous popes had ordered the “Potestas” to confiscate property of Farfa. Costambeys assumes they did. The text attributes the command to confiscate properties only to the “Potestas” (iussio ipsius). From the ease with which Paschal capitulated, we may infer, but cannot be certain, that the pope did not view the actions of the “Potestas” as exercising papal rights. This evidence does not demonstrate that the early ninth-century papacy focused on Farfa as a plum to be picked. Nor does it prove that the abbots of Farfa struggled constantly, in the words of the author, “to stave off the threat of papal domination” (1). His generalization may be true but cannot be proven on the basis of the evidence of this court case—an ex parte report at that—that he highlights in two chapters. The major theme of this book centers on outsiders claiming authority over Farfa and the abbots defending their rights. The claims of lords, patrons, and prelates are, I admit, an element present in the history of almost every European monastery in the Middle Ages. But there is more to the story in the early Middle Ages.

The final chapter in the book deals with Farfa under the Carolingians. Costambeys argues that Farfa was more important during this time than generally recognized because the Liber pontificalis “is still … under-problematized” (273), not a particularly helpful observation. Our other main source, The Regestrum Farfense, has a missing folio that covered the years 773–775. Since these years are those in which Charlemagne deposed the Lombard king Desiderius, Costambeys regrets their absence, with good reason. The chapter focuses on this key period before and after Carolingian replaced Lombard rule in Central Italy. In large part Costambeys's analysis in this chapter is a long gloss on Thomas F. X. Noble's The Republic of St. Peter (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1984). His disagreements with Noble are primarily ones of emphasis and, unless one is thoroughly familiar with Noble's work, hardly noticeable. The only time his opinion comes through clearly is on the penultimate page of the book when he writes that “it is hard to conceive of the papacy as running a ‘state’ in any meaningful sense in this period” (351), with no reference to Noble. His exposition makes for irenic and elegant scholarly debate, but I think that key issues will be completely lost on all but the most informed readers.