Telling Tales

Clerics, Concubines, and an Inquisitor in Late Medieval Ferrara : a primary source study

Cossar, Roisin
Brown, Jason Aaron

Telling Tales takes readers on a guided tour through the lives of women and clergy who were investigated by an inquisitor in the city of Ferrara, Italy during the late Middle Ages.
Telling Tales explores the lived experiences of Christian women, parish clerics, and church officials in Italy during the later Middle Ages through one previously unpublished historical source – a register prepared in 1421/1422 for a Dominican inquisitor in the northern Italian city of Ferrara that includes interrogations about the lives, work, and domestic arrangements of otherwise-obscure women.
The book provides both a translation of the source from the original Latin and a critical examination of its content from two distinct analytical perspectives. Cossar and Brown also illuminate the workings of an inquisitorial investigation, with details about how the inquisitor gathered information and worked both with, and against, other local authorities.
Telling Tales invites readers to explore the tools of the historian's craft, illustrating how different analytical approaches to the same historical source can yield rich – and sometimes contradictory – conclusions.