“COGLIERE L’ANIMA DEL TEMPO”. GABRIELLA ROSSETTI STORICA DEL MATRIMONIO DEL CLERO NELLA SOCIETÀ ALTOMEDIEVALE

This article reinterprets Gabriella Rossetti’s essay *Il matrimonio del clero nella società altomedievale* (1977) as a foundational moment in her methodological and historiographical reflection. By situating that work within the context of the Violante school and the debate between ‘social’ medieval studies and the history of Christianity, the author demonstrates how Rossetti shifted the analysis of clerical marriage from an exclusively canon law perrspective to that of social, economic and institutional history. Through the systematic use of private deeds, in particular documentation from Lucca, the scholar reconstructed the norm of married clergy prior to the 11th century and assessed its concrete consequences for the structure of the Church and the management of ecclesiastical property. What emerges is an interpretation of the 11th-century reform as the outcome of a systemic crisis rather than a mere moral correction, in line with the idea of a ‘global’ history capable of capturing, in the sources, the ‘spirit of the age’.