In this provocative account, Maureen Miller challenges traditional explanations of the process that changed the nature of religious institutions—and religious life itself—in the diocese of Verona during the early and central Middle Ages. Building on substantial archival research, she shows how demographic expansion, economic development, and political change helped transform religious ideals and ecclesiastical institutions into a recognizably "medieval" church.

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In a well-argued and researched study, Maureen Miller has reexamined traditional interpretations of the medieval church in the period from 950 to 1150 through an analysis of the charters of the diocese of Verona, and she has found those interpretations inadequate.