Chris Wickham’s goals within Medieval Rome are twofold: first, to draw the narrative of the city in the pre-communal period away from a running account of the emergent papal monarchy and, second, to highlight the similarities between the political changes occurring in Rome during this period with those which resulted in the cities of northern and southern Italy. In contrast with the majority of other works, Wickham addresses the city as a whole. He incorporates a study of the popes (although only those who were able to reside in Rome), but places a considerably greater emphasis on the changing position of the laity and on the economic and political circumstances of the city and its extensive hinterland. He draws on a vast series of charter and narrative sources alongside architectural and archaeological evidence to support his wide-ranging research. This command of the primary sources is coupled with extensive use of secondary materials (significantly, many of the leading researchers in this field appear in Wickham’s lengthy acknowledgements section). Wickham uses these materials as the foundation for a strong argument that, while Rome was certainly a unique city, it held strong similarities with the cities of the south and, especially, the north of the peninsula. These similarities are generally ignored, but their existence, and Wickham’s work, is significant as the huge amount of documentary material produced in Rome during this period can provide an incredibly rich account of urban institutions in a period where this material is scarce for other cities. Looking at Rome in this manner can inform our understanding of pre-communal Italy as a whole.

The book opens with a consideration of the problems with current narratives of Rome in this period and identifies the difficulties inherent in the study of the city at this time in its history (Chapter 1). The remainder of this opening chapter provides a historiographical survey and an outline chronology for Rome c 900–1150. These two elements form a particularly useful introduction for those unfamiliar with Rome in this period or who have only encountered it through the history of the papacy. Wickham then devotes two chapters to a broad, and at times deep, survey of the economic landscape of Rome’s contado (Chapter 2) and the urban area (Chapter 3). By dissecting records of rent, sale and court cases, Wickham demonstrates that the economy of Rome and its environs was complex and advanced, incorporating regionalised agricultural specialities and an array of artisans, merchants and moneylenders. In doing so he shows that, while the city’s religious significance was a factor within its economics, it was not the only source of wealth and power. From this basis Wickham spends his next two chapters analysing Rome’s social and political composition. He identifies three tiers of society – the ‘Old Aristocracy’ and the ‘New Aristocracy’ (both considered in Chapter 4) and the ‘Medium Elite’ (Chapter 5) – and uses appearances within the charter record to conduct case studies of individual families and regions of the city showing the changing prominence of each of these groups. These are not full-blown genealogies and do not attempt to track every individual within Rome, but are nevertheless sufficient to produce a ‘sense’ of how the city functioned and to demonstrate the departure of the ‘Old Aristocracy’ to the countryside, their replacement by the ‘New Aristocracy’ and the increasing significance of the ‘Medium Elite’. Through this method, Wickham is also able to highlight fundamental differences in the structures appearing in the different regions of Rome, something not observed in other Italian cities during this period, but his next chapter (6) looks to underline the rituals and identity which served to keep the city together. Through a discussion of processional routes, Roman heritage, Roman law and other factors based on written and physical sources, he provides a tangential, but important, addition to the issues described in earlier chapters.

These chapters build to the main event (Chapter 7): a discussion of the crisis of 1050–1150, from the introduction of German Popes, through the Investiture Contest and civil war in Rome, up to the proclamation of the Roman Commune. Here Wickham presents a new history of this much-studied period, taken from the perspective of the city rather than the papacy. Returning to the charter sources, he shows the destruction of the political system dominated by the ‘Old Aristocracy’ followed by the development of a series of ad hoc measures developed to fill the vacuum of power which only ended in the 1140s as the Senate and Papal Curia emerged as separate legislators and sources of authority.

This work must be considered alongside another book from Wickham also published in 2015. Sleepwalking into a New World: the emergence of Italian city communes in the twelfth century (Wickham Reference Wickham2015) provides the breadth to Medieval Rome’s depth and compares Rome with Milan, Pisa and the other cities of northern Italy. Comparative elements are an important feature of Medieval Rome, appearing throughout the work, but it is only in Sleepwalking that they receive a full consideration. This is not a problem, but it does highlight the fundamental differences between the two works: Sleepwalking is an invaluable introduction to Wickham’s comparative history; Medieval Rome is more detailed and may necessitate a stronger initial grounding in pre-communal history.

The model Wickham presents for Roman society is convincing and he actively avoids the common mistake of assuming the existence of a recognised social structure, going to great lengths to demonstrate the likely organisation of society along his proposed lines. He acknowledges the limitations of his model, particularly with regard to the less well-defined and documented ‘Medium Elite’. This, however, is an area that I feel Wickham could have addressed in more detail. Despite his caution, his division of society feels more arbitrary than the sources allow.

Nevertheless, these are minor reservations: this work is coherent, exhaustively researched and ultimately deals with an issue of great importance. It demonstrates Wickham’s willingness to tackle structural history with the requisite level of detail. While the work is important for the challenge it poses to the narrative of Rome, it is even more relevant to the study of proto-communes and socio-political structures throughout Italy.