Conclusion

Abstract

This concluding chapter argues that a variety of factors contributed to the phenomenon of disputed saints in northern and central Italy. As the members of nascent signorial governments gradually defined themselves as communities, partly through conflict and their complicated relationship with the papacy, new local saints emerged as symbols of communal identity. Many of these saints became the focus of a cult precisely because they were believed to have assisted the city in an important battle, assuming the role of protectors in the midst of strife alongside saints connected to their foundation myths. A significant aspect of late medieval sanctity that emerges from this study is that both popes and communities used saints as political weapons. The disputed saint was not just a manifestation of a gap between local and papal interests, nor simply a disjunction between popular and official concepts of the holy. Emerging out of the hubs of political unrest in northern and central Italy, disputed saints became central to communities' efforts to achieve religious and political autonomy. Communities used the creation of cults and the canonization process, among other tools available, in a grassroots effort to get things done and cement an independent identity.