This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts covered by the collection of original sources in the book. The towns of later medieval Italy were one of the high points of urban society and culture in Europe before the industrial revolution. They also produced huge amounts of written material, which is exceptional in quality and quantity for the Middle Ages. The book focuses on the buildings and their decoration, and urban 'social services'. It then addresses Italian civic religion, and deals with social groups and social tensions. The book explores production and commerce: the effects of monetary affluence, the guilds and markets, government interventions to stimulate production, to regulate exchange, and to control the city's population. It examines the great variety of political regimes in late-medieval Italy.

The chapter provides an annotated translation of the Chronica Adfonsi Imperatoris, or Chronicle of the Emperor Alfonso (CAI). It is a panegyric in prose and verse devoted to the deeds of Alfonso VII of Leon-Castile. This Chronicle is of the period from his accession to the throne in 1126 till the campaign to conquer the port city of Almeria in 1147. To all appearances a contemporary (or near-contemporary) witness to the events it describes, the CAI furnishes the principal narrative account of the political and military affairs of the Leonese monarchy during the period in question. In an Iberian context, the CAI is a strikingly original piece of historiography. Quite apart from the very large number of Biblical phrases that were incorporated wholesale into the narrative of the CAI, the influence of the Vulgate is everywhere conspicuous in the author's style, syntax and vocabulary.

This chapter explores divisions of opinion over the Lives of Thomas Becket.

This chapter explores the conflict between archbishop Thomas Becket and King Henry II.

This chapter explores the life of Thomas Becket during his time in Canterbury.

This chapter presents an annotated translation of The Book of Bishop Bonizo of Sutri which is entitled ‘To a Friend', perhaps the best known of the polemics of the Investiture Contest.

This introduction presents an overview of Thomas Becket's life, background to the Lives of St Thomas and his biographers. The book tells the story of Thomas Becket's turbulent life, violent death and extraordinary posthumous acclaim in the words of his contemporaries. Both medieval and modern commentators have tended to take more interest in Thomas of Canterbury than in Thomas of London. Thomas's rift with his former friend the king, and the progress of the dispute which led to public confrontation and prolonged exile, was keenly followed all over the Christian world. Martyrdom is a willingly-undertaken sacrifice, and throughout, Thomas is shown to have known of his death, and to have embraced it. Thomas and his biographers claimed that he was advancing the cause of the Church, but this was a multifaceted phenomenon with overlapping and some-times conflicting components.

The chapter provides an annotated translation of the Chronicon Regum Legionensium, or Chronicle of the Kings of Leon, attributed to Bishop Pelayo of Oviedo. It is a brief history of the Leonese monarchy from the accession of Vermudo II in 982 to the death of Alfonso VI in 1109. The Chronicon forms part of a compilation of historical works, the Liber Chronicorum, which was put together in the scriptorium of Oviedo cathedral some time before 1132. The Liber Chronicorum itself belongs within the voluminous collection of writings that was assembled under Bishop Pelayo's supervision, today known as the Corpus Pelagianum.

This chapter explores the murder of Thomas Becket and his subsequent martyrdom.