Recent studies of medieval preaching have tended to focus on sermon texts; this book is a study of preaching and its social context in 13th-century Italy. Thompson reconstructs the "Great Devotion: of 1233 and analyzes its devotional, social, political and legal elements. He seeks to show how the preachers of this revival crafted an image of divine authority that supported their intervention in factional disputes and facilitated their arbitration in social and political conflicts. They exploited forms from revived Roman law and developing city statutes to create flexible procedures for mediation, and ultimately were able to revise communal ordinances to enshrine their message of social harmony. This work should appeal to scholars and students of medieval European history, especially social, religious and political historians of Italy.