Katherine L. Jansen

This study argues that the violence and civil disorder that afflicted the urban centers of central Italy in the later Middle Ages can be better understood if we also turn our attention to the study of local peace-making practices. As such, this study centerpieces notarial peace instruments, an important but little known source for the history of medieval peace-making. Envisioned as a socio-cultural history of peacemaking grounded in legal sources, this project shows how peace was imagined and pursued in late medieval Italy. Its contribution beyond the local and the medieval will be to add a new dimension and new source materials to the flourishing literature on dispute resolution.