The Social World of the Abbey of Cava, Southern Italy, c. 1020-1300

Start date: 1 September 2017
End date: 31 August 2019
Funder: The Leverhulme Trust
Primary investigator: Prof Graham A. Loud

Description

This project will seek to make a wide-ranging analysis of the social history of the principality of Salerno, on the west coast of southern Italy, in the central Middle Ages, using as its main source the archive of the abbey of Holy Trinity, Cava.

The Benedictine abbey of Cava was founded c. 1020, a few kilometres to the north of the city of Salerno, became one of the wealthiest religious houses in southern Italy, and is still in existence today. It possesses the largest surviving medieval archive in southern Italy, with some 5000 original charters for the period 1020-1300, the greater part of which are still unpublished.