Defining the aspects that characterized the kinship group as a whole means taking into consideration all those elements both intrinsic and extrinsic to the documentation that can contribute to outlining particular features of the group, such as self-awareness and -memory. We shall also examine the organization of the power enjoyed by the Hucpoldings, their qualities, their relationships and the strategies they adopted to build their seigneurial hegemony in the local communities affected by their presence. Finally, from this perspective we will observe the peculiarity of their lordship, achieved in a way that is eminently different from the evolution of other kindred groups of the Italian aristocracy. After having dealt with the genealogical and patrimonial enquiry, this third part seeks to go beyond the classic model of family history. It considers instead the various facets of the kinship evolution, placing each one into both a unitary and comprehensive diachronic vision.

The analysis will focus predominantly on the characters and developments of kinship cohesion which might go beyond solely the practical element of transmitting landed patrimony. Each chapter deals with a specific aspect that characterized and bonded various Hucpolding individuals. Elements considered include: the sense of belonging to the Reichsadel and the Königsnähe; the onomastic uses; the practice of the lex Ripuaria; the role of the monastic foundations; and finally, kinship self-awareness and the variety of perceptions that peers reported about members of the group. This approach makes clear a comparison between the Italian historiographic model, elaborated primarily by Cinzio Violante, and the results attained by French historiography for some time now committed to a programmatic dialogue with anthropological conceptions of horizontal kinship groups and extended families. These differing starting models, antithetic and therefore mutually corrective, have permitted an analysis that aims to be free from over-interpretation. The tangibility given by the real element of landownership has been combined with an attention to that symbolic capital of family honour and group prestige that is present, but often hidden, in our sources. The purpose is to gain as full as possible an image of all those elements and characteristics that the early medieval Italian aristocracies preserved, cultivated and transmitted to all their members.