The Seigneurial Transformation: Power Structures and Political Communication in the Countryside of Central and Northern Italy, 1080-1130 0198825749, 9780198825746

Citation preview

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 13/02/20, SPi

OX F O R D S T U D I E S I N M E D I EVA L E U R O P E A N H I ST O RY General Editors pat ri ck j. geary   amy re m e n sn y de r and Joh n Wat ts

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 13/02/20, SPi

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 13/02/20, SPi

The Seigneurial Transformation Power Structures and Political Communication in the Countryside of Central and Northern Italy, 1080–1130 A L E S SIO F IO R E Translated by

SE R G IO K N I P E

1

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 13/02/20, SPi

1 Great Clarendon Street, Oxford, OX2 6DP, United Kingdom Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries © Alessio Fiore 2020 The moral rights of the author have been asserted First Edition published in 2020 Impression: 1 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, by licence or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics rights organization. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above You must not circulate this work in any other form and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press 198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016, United States of America British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Data available Library of Congress Control Number: 2020932454 ISBN 978–0–19–882574–6 DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198825746.001.0001 Printed and bound in Great Britain by Clays Ltd, Elcograf S.p.A. Links to third party websites are provided by Oxford in good faith and for information only. Oxford disclaims any responsibility for the materials contained in any third party website referenced in this work.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 13/02/20, SPi

One can only see what one observes, and one observes only things which are already in the mind. (Alphonse Bertillon) The summer grasses For many brave warriors The aftermath of dreams. (Basho) The resilient resists shocks and stays the same; the antifragile benefits from shocks. Such things thrive and grow when exposed to volatility, randomness, disorder, and stressors, and love adventure, risk, and uncertainty. (Nassim Taleb)

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 13/02/20, SPi

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 13/02/20, SPi

Acknowledgements This book is an important stage of the research trajectory I embarked upon ten years ago, and which initially focused on an analysis of the system of political languages in the kingdom of Italy between the late eleventh and early twelfth cen­ tury. As my research developed, the break with the previous period became increasingly clear to me, and this led me to rethink the whole project. On the one hand, I chose to broaden my agenda to include political, social, and economic issues, in such a way as to better elucidate the overall features of this trans­for­ma­ tion; on the other hand, I came to focus my attention precisely on the decades around 1100, which struck me as the crucial moment to fully understand this complex process of transformation. As the research progressed, certain parts of the present book (esp. Chapters 6, 9, and 10) were anticipated through various articles and contributions to conference proceedings, although almost always in very different forms from the ones they take here. Every research project, especially such a long and complex one as this, can only be accomplished through other people’s help. For their suggestions, stimuli, and material and intellectual help, I wish to thank Giovanna Bianchi, Simone Collavini, Maria Elena Cortese, Gianmarco De Angelis, Paola Guglielmotti, Tiziana Lazzari, Vito Loré, Piero Majocchi, Thomas Köhl, Alma Poloni, Giuseppe Sergi, Paolo Tomei, and Gian Maria Varanini (no doubt in the rush of the moment I will be forgetting someone, for which I apologize in advance). As regards the book itself, I am especially indebted to Sandro Carocci, Gigi Provero and Chris Wickham, who have discussed the full manuscript with me, and to Andrea Gamberini and Jean-Claude Maire Vigueur, who have offered feedback on spe­ cific sections. To all of these people go my heartfelt thanks, for their criticism, (many) valuable suggestions, and encouragement. Finally, I should note that the text of this book is largely the same as that of ‘Il mutamento signorile. Assetti di potere e comunicazione politica nelle campagne dell’Italia centro-settentrionale’ (c. 1080–1130), published in Italian by Firenze University Press in 2017; I have only made a few changes and additions to the English version. I would like to thank Sergio Knipe, my cordial translator, for pro­ viding the translation, and Chris Wickham (another time) for supporting from the very beginning the translation of this book, and Stephanie Ireland and Cathryn Steele of OUP for their help. I dedicate this book to my family, exemplar of patience.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 13/02/20, SPi

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 13/02/20, SPi

Table of Contents Maps 1.  Cities (c. 1100) 2.  Rural localities (c. 1100) A Note on Names Introduction

xi xii xiii xv

PA RT 1 .   N EW F R A M EWO R K S O F L O C A L P OW E R 1. Civil Wars: Collapse and Rebuilding of Political Structures 1.1 The structure of the kingdom around the mid-eleventh century 1.2 The civil wars and the breakdown of political order 1.3 From fragmentation to recomposition 1.4 On the apparent irrationality of dynastic strategies: political plans and family tensions

3 3 7 12

2. Imperial Power: Crisis and Transformation 2.1 Henry III: realizing the limits of imperial power 2.2 Henry IV: a creative destruction 2.3 Henry V: the plan for a permanent royal infrastructure

37 39 40 43

3. Territorial Lordship: Rise and Spread of a Model of Power 3.1 Power in the countryside before 1050: land and public rights 3.2 The new forms of local power 3.3 Archaeology of power: castles in the light of the written sources and material evidence 3.4 Seigneurial ‘central places’ and their role

50 50 52

4. Inside the Lordship: Reshaping Local Societies 4.1 Village elites and their militarization 4.2 Peasantries: a differential society

74 75 87

5. Collective Powers: Political Actions of Urban and Rural Autonomous Communities 5 .1 Urban proto-communes 5.2 Autonomous rural communities

27

58 67

101 101 125

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 13/02/20, SPi

x  Table of Contents

PA RT 2 .   A C U LT U R E O F P OW E R : T H E D OM I NAT U S LO C I B E T W E E N P R AC T IC E S A N D D I S C OU R SE S 6. Royal Legitimation and its Crisis 6.1 Royal power as a source of legitimacy 6.2 The crisis and its consequences

141 144 149

7. Fidelity: A Pervasive Language 7.1 Fidelities in the ‘aristocratic’ world 7.2 Subjects’ fidelity

154 155 169

8. Pacts: The Foundations of a New Legitimacy 8.1 Pacts between lords 8.2 The idea of reciprocity in the relation between subjects and lords

178 180 187

9. Custom: Rituals of Memory 199 9.1 Chronologies and contexts 200 9.2 The jurors between lord and community 208 9.3 Time, memory, and custom 211 9.4 Custom and franchises: complementarity and overlaps 215 9.5 When custom turns bad: the malus usus220 10. Violence: A Pragmatic Language 10.1 Violent practices in the documentary evidence 10.2 Urban communities and violence: differences and similarities 10.3 Violence among lords 10.4 Violence from the lords’ perspective Conclusions: A Seigneurial Revolution (and More) Abbreviation for Primary Sources and Journals Index 

226 227 235 238 242 248 265 289

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 13/02/20, SPi

Maps

Belluno Como Novara Milan Turin

Boundaries of kingdom Cites

Vicenza Treviso

Bergamo

Papal territories

Brescia Verona Venice Lodi Mantua Padua Pavia Cremona Piacenza Reggio Tortona Ferrara Parma Modena Genoa Bologna Ravenna

Vercelli Asti

Alba Savona

Pisa

Lucca

Florence Osimo

Volterra

Arezzo

Siena 0

Perugia

100 Km Rome

Map 1.  Cities (c. 1100)

Fermo

Ascoli

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 13/02/20, SPi

Bassano Gorizia Montebelluna

Chiavenna Isola comacina Calusco Marzana Inzago Crema Cerea Biandrate Sacco Soncino

Cannobio + San Michele della Chusa Priocca

San Dalmazzo Diano

Guastalla

Loreto Molassana

Tenda Ceriana

Lavagna

VENETIAN TERRITORY

Argenta

Nonantola

Sambuca Modigliana Moriana

San Casciano

Empoli Montegrossoli

Montecerro

Poggibonsi Antignano Stablamone Civitanova 0

100 Km

Agello Offida + Farfa Subiaco

+

Tusculum

Map 2.  Rural localities (c. 1100)

Castle/village Seigneurial central place + Rural abbey

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 13/02/20, SPi

A Note on Names Almost all personal names mentioned in this book are rendered into modern Italian from Latin, thus Bonifacio di [son of] Attone. The exceptions are the names of popes and emperors, the names of non-Italian persons, and these who are very well-known in their English version, such as Matilda of Canossa.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 13/02/20, SPi

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 13/02/20, SPi

Introduction A book focusing on the transformations of power in the countryside of central and northern Italy around the year 1100 requires—perhaps more so than other books—an introduction accounting for the choice of chronological and geo­ graphical coordinates, as well as of research topics. None of these elements, in itself, is particularly original in medieval studies; what is far more original is their specific combination. I will therefore set out from the geographical and chrono­ logical framework, and move on to the more strictly thematic one, in such a way as to clarify the import of my endeavour. Finally, I will discuss the actual structure of the book. The grand narrative of the Italian Middle Ages has traditionally revolved around cities, which are said to find their highest expression in urban communes. The study of the origins of communes has conventionally seen the years around 1100 as a moment of marked discontinuity.1 In this respect, an evident connec­ tion is to be found with what has been described—using a rather outdated and problematic formula—as the ‘investiture contest’.2 The stage of conflict between papacy and empire, and between their respective allies, following the crisis of legitimation experienced by the traditional political and religious authorities, along with the coeval breakdown of public power, is regarded as the soil from which those events leading to the first consular governments sprung: a topical moment, of course, in the grand narrative of the Italian Middle Ages.3 This close connection is also confirmed by the most recent research on the topic, in which the formula ‘civil wars’ is becoming increasingly used to label this stage of harsh conflict, at least partly disengaging it from the clash between a reformist papacy and the empire, and viewing it within a broader and more fluid framework linked to regional and local power balances.4 Over the last two decades, interest in this period of transition and its intrinsic features has expanded compared to the past, bringing other fields of research into 1  On this, see Bordone, ‘Civitas nobilis et antiqua’. 2  Cantarella, ‘Dalle chiese alla monarchia papale’. On this problematic in recent scholarship, see Miller, ‘The crisis in the Investiture Crisis’. 3  The crucial importance of national grand narratives in the shaping of medieval studies has been underlined by Wickham, ‘Alto medioevo e identità’. 4  Some examples in Bordone, Città e territorio, pp. 333–53 (on Asti); Keller, ‘Gli inizi del comune’ (on Lombardy); Ronzani, Chiesa e «civitas» (on Pisa). More in general Milani, I comuni italiani, pp.  16–24. On the use of ‘civil wars’ to label the phase of military conflicts opened in 1080s, see esp.  Wickham, Courts and Conflicts, pp. 39–53; on its recent diffusion in academic textbooks, see e.g. Collavini, ‘1183. I comuni italiani’. The Seigneurial Transformation: Power Structures and Political Communication in the Countryside of Central and Northern Italy, 1080–1130. Alessio Fiore, Oxford University Press (2020). © Alessio Fiore. DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198825746.001.0001

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 13/02/20, SPi

xvi Introduction play. For example, scholars have explored the transformation of justice and its modes of exercise, and more generally of the way in which conflicts were resolved;5 they have analysed the terminal crisis of the last major margravial domains possessing a markedly public character, such as the march of Tuscany and that of Turin;6 and they have newly engaged with the transformation in the mode of functioning of ecclesiastical institutions, adopting fresh perspectives compared to the past.7 All in all, these insights and perspectives vary con­sid­er­ ably, but it is precisely the diversity of such research that has contributed to fur­ ther bringing into focus this phase, which has emerged in an increasingly clear way as a moment of powerful, if not explosive, acceleration of existing social and political dynamics in the regnum Italiae. One of the defining features of Italian medieval studies is that it focuses on long-term transformations and processes, and avoids stressing the break brought about by short chronological phases—by contrast to other historiographical traditions that have taken a keen interest in such watershed moments for the sake of periodization. Still, Italian historiog­ raphy has acknowledged this (rather long) period as a turning point, according to interpretations that essentially converge despite the very different vantage points adopted.8 Studies on lordship are, by and large, an exception within this literature that presents the turn of the 1100s as a moment of sharp discontinuity compared to the previous period. However, before we proceed any further, it is better to reflect on the term ‘lordship’ and its meaning. Each national scholarly tradition has indeed conceptualized lordship in its own way, stressing specific aspects of rela­ tions between the ruler and his men, creating categories that are only partially comparable. Italian scholarship tends to regard lordship as a political and institu­ tional reality and this often creates a distinction between what the Italians call signoria (and more specifically signoria territoriale, or sometime, in Latin, dominatus loci) and the English term ‘lordship’. For Italian historians, the signoria indi­ cates not just the possession of large lands, but, above all, a share of the essential attributes of public authority, such as the rights to administer justice, to levy cer­ tain taxes, to organize military defence, and also forms of monopoly and control of mills, hunting, woodland and pasture. In this book I will focus on this specific model of lordship, and I will translate this concept with ‘territorial lordship’/‘seigneurie’ (and with the adjective ‘seigneurial’). Starting from the 1960s, particularly with the work of Giovanni Tabacco, Cinzio Violante and their pupils, research on territorial lordship in the 5  Wickham, ‘The “feudal revolution” ’. 6  Sergi (ed.), Storia di Torino, I, pp. 449–81; Sergi, I confini del potere; Provero, Dai marchesi del Vasto; Pinto and Tanzini (eds.), Poteri centrali e autonomie; Cortese, Signori, castelli; Puglia, Potere marchionale. 7 D’Acunto, ‘Chiesa romana e chiese’; D’Acunto, L’età dell’obbedienza; Cantarella, Pasquale II; Cantarella, Il sole e la luna; Ciccopiedi, Governare le diocesi. 8  On these peculiarities of Italian scholarship, see Wickham, ‘Alto medioevo e identità’.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 13/02/20, SPi

Introduction  xvii countryside of central and northern Italy has no doubt constituted one of the strong suits of Italian medieval studies. It has produced a series of sophisticated analyses of the modes of functioning of local power and rural societies, focusing in particular on issues related to the exercising of jurisdiction and to the institu­ tionalization of power. However, even in recent decades, this research has for the most part retained the traditional ‘continuistic’ approach, insofar as it has inter­ preted the emergence of seigneurial powers from a long-term perspective, as a slow and progressive process of affirmation extending from the late ninth to the early twelfth century. An exception, of course, is southern Italy, which in any case falls outside the regnum Italiae: scholars by now regard the emergence of rural lordship in this area as a turning point, but one closely connected to the military rise of an ex­ogen­ous actor such as the Normans.9 More in particular, historians tend to envisage territorial lordship as a phe­ nomenon that by the early decades of the eleventh century was already wide­ spread and consolidated across much of the kingdom, although it is only in the twelfth century that we gain a more detailed understanding of its functioning thanks to transformation in documentary practices.10 In other words, the surge in sources pertaining to the functioning of seigneurial authorities in the first dec­ ades of the twelfth centuries is traced back to the emergence of a new attitude to written documents on the part of society as a whole, leading to the written recording of practices and actions that had hitherto been confined to the oral sphere, within a context of increasing formalization of local authorities that affects not just rural lordships but also urban communes. Within this essentially homogeneous picture—regional nuances notwithstanding—Tuscany constitutes an exception. Here the rise of territorial lordship has been associated, in a par­ ticularly evident way over the last few years, with the crisis of public structures in the march at the turn of the 1080s.11 However, this is precisely an exception, which may be explained by the peculiar balances of power in Tuscany, which as late as the mid-eleventh century were still connected to forms of power of dis­ tinctly Carolingian origin. This delay in the transformation of local framework, compared to other regions, is believed to have made the process of trans­for­ma­ tion a particularly violent and sudden one, occurring under the influence of local political actors, and finally bringing Tuscany into line with the rest of central and northern Italy. From this perspective, a strong contrast emerges with France. Here the schol­ arship on the same topics first developed a model based on the transformation of 9  On the affirmation of this model, see Loré, ‘Sulle istituzioni’; for a recent and deep discussion of this topic, see Carocci, Lordships, pp. 69–114. 10  Cammarosano, ‘Cronologia della signoria rurale’. Sandro Carocci has a different opinion, seeing a territorial lordship—or better still, a lordship tending towards territoriality—still in development in the mid-twelfth century; on this, Carocci, ‘Signoria rurale, prelievo signorile’. 11  For a convenient historiographical guide to this abundant scholarship, see Provero, ‘Forty Years of Rural History’; on Tuscany, Bianchi, Collavini, ‘Risorse e competizione’.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 13/02/20, SPi

xviii Introduction seigneurial authority in a short watershed period, namely the early decades of the eleventh century—the well-known thesis of the mutation féodal, or feudal revolution—only to then dispute it and staunchly reject it. While the topic is wellknown, a short summary might be of some use, given its crucial historiographical implications.12 The starting point is Georges Duby’s landmark study on the region of Mâcon, in Burgundy, published in the 1950s; in this work the French scholar argued that the chief turning point in medieval French history was the break­ down of principalities (counties, duchies, and marches) around the year 1000 into a multitude of castle-lordships.13 This transformation was also marked by a deep alteration of the forms and very nature of local power, which up until then had preserved the features it had acquired in the Carolingian age. This thesis—which became increasingly influential as Duby’s reputation grew in following years— was further developed and newly advanced in 1980 in an important book by Éric Bournazel and Jean-Pierre Poly, entitled La mutation féodale.14 At the same time, the ‘mutationist’ position took root in France as the dominant paradigm, aiming to establish itself as a valid interpretative model applicable to post-Carolingian Europe as a whole, from Galicia to Lombardy. However, this undisputed predominance—characterized by an increasing degree of rigidity of the model (even from a chronological perspective) and of the research related to it—did not endure for long. Already by the early 1990s the argument had become the target of consistent and well-argued criticism, on the part of both French scholars, such as Dominique Barthélemy, and AngloAmerican ones like Stephen White.15 This criticism was first directed against more extreme mutationist positions, Guy Bois for example, and then extended to the very foundations of the theory, in an attempt to undermine it.16 The passion­ ate (and harsh) debate that followed witnessed the two sides hardening their views more and more and essentially failing to deliver their criticism in any con­ structive way. The polemic de facto ended a few years later with no victors—the contestants having run out of intellectual steam. Still, the fact remains that in France, the epicentre of the theory, the anti-mutationist position nowadays con­ stitutes a new historiographical dogma—and is laid out as such in university text­ books—whereas views still associated with mutationism have essentially taken a back seat in academia.17 Nevertheless, it is worth noting that in recent years the 12  The most equilibrate reconstruction of the debate until the middle of 1990s is Carocci, ‘Signoria rurale e mutazione’; it should be integrated, for the latest phase of debate, with West, Reframing the Feudal Revolution, pp. 1–8. 13 Duby, La Société aux XIe et XIIe siècles, esp. pp. 200–69. 14  Poly, Bournazel, The Feudal Transformation. 15  See for example the articles collected in White, Re-thinking kinship; and in Barthélemy, The Serf, the Knight. 16 Bois, The Transformation; see the hard criticism of the positions of Bois in L’an Mil. Rythmes et acteurs. 17 A ‘mutationist’ example in Larrea, La Navarre. On the new reference paradigm, see Mazel, Féodalités.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 13/02/20, SPi

Introduction  xix anti-mutationist camp seems to have lost some of the interpretative rigidity that had characterized the most heated stage of the debate. What proves particularly interesting in this respect is Florian Mazel’s position. While highly critical of Duby’s views, Mazel emphasizes the importance for the territorialization of local power of the stage after 1060; however, he connects this not to any socioinstitutional crisis, but rather to a separation between the ecclesiastical and the secular sphere—traditionally symbiotic to each other—under the influence of what he describes as the ‘Gregorian rupture’, and hence of ecclesiastical reform.18 The question of change has also been newly raised in a very fruitful way, free­ ing it from the exclusively French focus that had distinguished it in the past, by the contributions of some Anglo-American scholars.19 In particular, in his exten­ sive book on the transformation of nature and of methods of government in twelfth-century Europe (i.e. the period after the feudal revolution), T. N. Bisson has further refined Duby’s hypothesis and associated the localization of power with an outburst of violence and a profound reshaping of the relations between the aristocracy and peasant society. With his monograph on Lorraine and Champagne between the years 800 and 1100, Charles West has offered the first long-term regional study of an area of the Carolingian heartland; a comparison with Carolingian-age material has shown that the new seigneuries constituted an innovative form of power compared to the past, marked by an explicit for­mal­iza­ tion and patrimonialization of jurisdictional prerogatives. Furthermore, both these scholars have emphasized the importance of conducting analyses on a European scale and from a comparative perspective, stressing the existence of dif­ ferent chronologies and of specific processes of transformation connected to the local socio-political conditions at play in the various regions of post-Carolingian Europe. Not least in the light of the valuable insights provided by these studies, it seems crucial to me to try and reinterpret the situation in the Italian countryside, by focusing on the decades around 1100, in order to assess whether in this con­ text too—so different from the urban one—a break is discernible with respect to the models at work in the previous period. This operation is all the more important in view of the fact that—as we shall see in greater detail later on— during such phase urban communes had not yet established themselves politically; even from an economic perspective their role was vastly inferior to that which they were to play, say, around the year 1200. The countryside was still the main sector of Italian society (and its economy), and an analysis of what took place in this phase allows us to contextualize and to put in perspective coeval

18  An elaborate criticism of Duby’s positions is Mazel, ‘Pouvoir aristocratique et Église’. On the periodization of the ‘Gregorian rupture’ and its consequences on the forms of local power see Mazel, Féodalités, pp. 233–98, 447–91. 19 Bisson, The Crisis; West, Reframing the Feudal Revolution.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 13/02/20, SPi

xx Introduction developments in the urban sphere, stripping them of that aura of exceptionality that all too often shrouds them. In embarking on this reinterpretation of rural dynamics, I will attempt to shed light on what, to my mind, is the key socio-political process in this phase, namely the crisis of central authority and the proliferation and formalization of local forms of power (in particular, territorial lordship); a sharp shift that can be labelled as ‘feudal revolution’, but also, and perhaps more precisely, as ‘seigneurial transformation’.20 Beside terminological problems, I will discuss this process not just from a concrete perspective, but also by focusing on languages and discourses of power, by examining the connections between practices and words, between actions and written texts. Here it will be necessary, of course, to directly engage with the available sources but also, given the extensiveness of the object of enquiry, to reassess the important regional and local studies published over the last thirty years from this particular perspective, to see what they can tell us about the specific problem under consideration. The historiographical orientations which I have referred to have most often prevented scholars from fully appreciat­ ing the significance of this phase in relation to the specific topic of seigneurie and, more generally, the exercising of power in the countryside. It is a matter, then, of systematically combining the plenty of insights already provided by the extant historiography, and of setting them within an organic and explicit interpretative framework. Given the complexity of the topic, I will be articulating my enquiry into two distinct parts, respectively devoted to concrete social and power structures, and to the integration between political practices and discourses. Chapter 1 will focus on the transformation of political framework in the countryside of central and northern Italy in the period between 1080 and 1130. It will attempt to grasp the precise ways in which the system was restructured—as it came to revolve around territorial lordship—and in particular the role played by civil wars within this process. The following chapter will instead be devoted to an analysis of the spe­ cific role played by royal power in the transformation process. I will endeavour to reconstruct not just the forms taken by royal power in this period, and the changes they underwent, but also the kings/emperors’ political projects and their practical consequences with respect to power balances within the regnum, and especially in the countryside. Chapter  3 more specifically focuses on territorial lordship and its functioning, through a structural analysis designed to pinpoint the dynamics associated with the exercising of power, the economy, and changing settlement patterns. Here I will be discussing in greater detail the chronology and 20  The traditional label ‘feudal revolution’ may be misleading, but is (for me) perfectly acceptable if we ascribe to ‘feudal’ the meaning of ‘parcellization of sovereignty’ (as proposed by Perry Anderson), and to ‘revolution’ that of deep and structural change (as in the cases of ‘Industrial’ or ‘Neolithic’ re­volu­tions). See Anderson, Passages from antiquity, pp. 147–53; and West, Reframing the Feudal Revolution, pp. 261–2.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 13/02/20, SPi

Introduction  xxi stages of ‘seigneurial transformation’ (or feudal revolution). Chapter 4, the natural extension of this analysis, will be devoted to how the spread of the seigneurial model influenced the very structure of village society, and to the way in which the latter’s internal boundaries were redefined and restructured, along with the relations between its members. The last chapter in this part will instead entail a change of perspective, by shifting the focus from territorial lordship to other forms of pol­it­ ical organization of the rural space: urban communities—or at least their influ­ ence on the surrounding countryside—and autonomous rural communities (which were far less numerous). The dominatus loci came to interact in various ways with these two power models, which must therefore be examined, if we are to grasp the complexity and diversity of the rural scenario around 1100, by correctly contextualizing the experience of territorial lordship. This (only apparent) digression will bring the first part of the volume to a close. In the second part I will instead be addressing the problem of the overall restructuring of rural political culture. I will set out to determine how and to what extent the structural changes analysed in the previous part influenced the way in which the various actors involved interpreted political and social reality, and how they sought to develop conceptual resources allowing them to effectively act upon such reality. I will conduct my enquiry by focusing on four different issues. The first obviously concerns the sources available to us; it is a matter of grasping the overall documentary transformation connected to the redefinition of the very fabric of political languages: a crucial theme which involves a question of the utmost importance for our enquiry, namely that of the representativeness of the surviving sources and of how they relate to the actual balances of power. The second issue has to do with the need for a configurational approach to the various discourses of power—that is, an approach that takes interplays and mutual relations into account. This is not to say that it is possible to adopt an allencompassing approach, one extending to all discourses circulating in the period under consideration. Rather, I will focus on those discourses more directly per­ taining to the topic of this book—namely, ones related to socio-political setup— and on those best represented in the available sources. The third point has to do with the relation between individual political actors (kings, princes, lords, and local communities) and between individual languages. Here I will attempt to identify the existence of any specific and recurrent connections. Finally, the fourth issue concerns the interplay between actions and languages. The latter must be interpreted as sources of meaning that help construct representations of power relations, and which are constantly set in tension and remodelled by given actions, through an ongoing relation. Each chapter in this second part of the book will be devoted to a specific pol­it­ ical language. The aim is not to examine all the various kinds of discourse attested in our sources, but only those that seem most relevant and best documented in the texts from our period. As already mentioned, I will endeavour to provide a

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 13/02/20, SPi

xxii Introduction configurational interpretation, which is to say one focusing on the relations between individual languages within a system that can only fully be grasped if it is considered as a whole. I will set out from that language which traditionally had been most closely associated with the exercising of local power, namely the royal mandate, to explore in what way its crisis affected this period. The following chapters will be devoted to the four main languages discernible in the sources from this era: fidelity, pact, custom, and violence. In the conclusions I will then draw a balance of the research conducted, but also consider the specific model of transformation that emerges in relation to central and northern Italy, by comparison to other regions (and sub-regions), and what perspectives this model can offer in the study of the long-term trans­for­ma­ tion of social structures in rural Europe. The issue of the localization and for­mal­ iza­tion of power practices is a crucial one that, as Bisson’s and West’s research has shown, is far from having been settled and can only be understood by adopting a comparative perspective. As regards the chronological framework, I will focus on the years 1080–1130, a period of decisive importance for fully grasping the process of transformation that constitutes my research focus. These chronological limits I have set—and which in any case are not too rigid—deserve a short explanation, given their intrinsic arbitrariness. The year 1080 marks the beginning of the great war between the pro-imperial party and the pro-Gregorian one: a conflict which, as we shall see, shaped the process of transformation of socio-political balances. The end year is even more arbitrary: I have chosen (circa) 1130 because the 1120s, in my view, constitute an important stage, insofar as the written sources from this period provide a glimpse of the outcomes of the processes of localization of power that characterize the previous decades. It seems as though by this time lordship (and, more generally, new forms of local power) had become fully entrenched, while society had developed suitable means of documentation to chart the new socio-political context and effectively act upon it. A final remark on the sources and chronology is in order. To avoid adopting a flawed perspective, I will do my best not to go beyond the 1130 limit I have set myself—if I ever do, I will make sure to provide adequate reasons. The choice to avoid systematically applying the method of regression is due to the risks this operation entails: particularly insidious risks for an approach, such as the one adopted here, that takes special account of the diachronic aspect of historical pro­ cesses. As a result, certain spheres will remain rather hazy, as in the case of the internal restructuring of village society or, as far as discourses are concerned, the political use of religious language. On the other hand, I will avoid arbitrarily back-projecting later situations and contexts; instead, I will endeavour to grasp the specific features of the historical period I have chosen to focus on through a systematic and comprehensive analysis.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 13/02/20, SPi

Introduction  xxiii As far as the geographical focus of my enquiry is concerned, this will be the kingdom of Italy, which roughly coincides with present-day central and northern Italy. I will also include Lazio, which did not belong to the regnum, but was appar­ ently affected by similar processes and dynamics. Besides, the territory investi­ gated presents social patterns and frameworks of power that often vary considerably; yet, although the starting point is often different, for the period under scrutiny a marked convergence can be observed. Such a broad context makes it possible to fully appreciate the potentialities of the written sources, at least as far as social and political dynamics go. This different scale adopted com­ pared to conventional regional or sub-regional studies enables us to better grasp recurring patterns and exceptions, typical developments, and divergences.21 The Italian research conducted over the last few decades has tended to focus on geo­ graphically restricted areas, investigated from a long-term diachronic perspec­ tive. By contrast, I will carry out an operation of the opposite sort, by broadening the geographical scale as far as possible, while limiting the chronological frame­ work. Still, wherever possible, I will take regional differences into account, even though a degree of schematization and simplification is inevitable, given the breath of the enquiry. I trust that such limitations will at least partly be counter­ balanced by the possibility which this overall view provides of more clearly dis­ cerning the underlying political and social dynamics that characterize the countryside of central and northern Italy in these crucial decades. As always, the final verdict on such choices will be up to the reader.

21  On the concept of scale and its methodological implication for historical research, see Revel (ed.), Jeux d’echelles.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 13/02/20, SPi

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

PART 1

N EW F R A MEWOR K S OF LO C A L P OW E R

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

1

Civil Wars Collapse and Rebuilding of Political Structures

In this first chapter I will be focusing on the transformation of traditional pol­it­ical structures in the countryside. I will set out to ascertain whether and to what extent the period around 1100 corresponds to a general redefinition of the geog­ raphy of power, which constitutes the context for the processes of transformation of social, economic, and political balances in the countryside. From this perspec­ tive, the key break must no doubt be identified with the civil war that broke out after 1080 between the emperor and his allies and the party supporting the reformist papacy, which found a military leader in Matilda of Canossa. The situ­ ation was later exacerbated by countless local conflicts, with devastating effects on the old order.1 However, in order to fully grasp the processes of transformation that so clearly manifested themselves in the last two decades of the eleventh century and in the early decades of the following century, we must shift our gaze at least one gen­er­ ation back, to the years just after the death of emperor Henry III in 1056. This stage offers the first evident signs of certain tendencies that were to manifest themselves fully after 1080. While the civil wars of the 1080s and 1090s mark a real break, the processes characterizing this period represent not a complete nov­ elty, but rather the maturation and radicalizing of certain tendencies that had long emerged within the kingdom.

1.1  The structure of the kingdom around the mid-eleventh century In the 1050s the political scenario in central and northern Italy was extremely varied, yet not radically different from the late Carolingian one, whose imprint was still visible. There existed many centres of power, largely of public origin: marches, more or less extensive counties, domains governed by monks, and episco­ pal lordships. The last of these were often (but not always) associated with urban centres through the concession of public rights, while also including significant 1 Wickham, Sleepwalking, pp. 9–11.

The Seigneurial Transformation: Power Structures and Political Communication in the Countryside of Central and Northern Italy, 1080–1130. Alessio Fiore, Oxford University Press (2020). © Alessio Fiore. DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198825746.001.0001

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

4  The Seigneurial Transformation portions of the surrounding countryside.2 They were frequently extensive political domains, at times regional or sub-regional ones, within which public authorities continued to play a vital role, despite the changes underway. The situ­ation was complex and varied. As we shall see shortly, its stability was undermined by strong tensions. In particular, these polities were internally weakened by the benefices reform of 1037, which had deprived major lords of the possibility to freely dis­ pose of the goods granted to them in benefice by their clients (and which by then had become hereditary).3 This led to the stabilizing and consolidation of the landed property in the hands of the middle aristocracy, enabling these social groups to become locally rooted. This also translated into a new prom­in­ence of aristocratic clients, who became increasingly independent of their patrons and ambitious in their action. The processes of consolidation and empowerment pur­ sued by such an increasing number of social actors inevitably led to greater com­ petition at the local level, as well as—at least from the late 1050s onwards—to its visible radicalizing. We witness a tendency among minor centres of power to pursue autonomy, even through the use of force, eliciting an armed response from public officials and important lords. But at the same time, conflicts between major social actors increasingly tended to be resolved through violence. Almost every­ where we find a sharp rise in conflicts, including armed conflicts, and we can see considerable troubles for the holders of public rights, along with an increasing use of force by political actors. In 1065 the ducal missi (envoys) held a placitum (judicial assembly) in Teramo to solve a local conflict; the aristocrats summoned showed up at the assembly with a large armed retinue and then, after drawing their swords, left before the verdict was announced: a completely unprecedented act that eloquently betrayed their intentions.4 Compared to the past, therefore, violence and warfare were no longer primar­ ily associated with high politics, as it became increasingly linked with local pro­ cesses. Certainly, the regnum had hardly been free of conflicts in previous times; however, these conformed to different rules and patterns. Relatively short phases of (often very harsh) warfare alternated with longer periods of reorganization and pacification. Public institutions acted as a counterbalance to prevent the unchecked spread of violence. When, at cyclical intervals, the central power entered into a state of turmoil, for a variety of reasons, the conflicts became more violent and destructive. But however disruptive, these were just passing phases. Dynamics of this sort are visible both in the years at the turn of the eleventh cen­ tury, with the crisis engendered by Arduino of Ivrea’s attempt to seize the throne, 2  Some regional overviews: Sergi, I confini del potere (Piedmont); Puglia, Potere marchionale, and Cortese, Signori, castelli (both on Tuscany); Feller, Les Abruzzes médiévales (Abruzzo). 3  On these processes Cammarosano, Storia dell’Italia medievale, pp. 384–9. 4 Manaresi, I Placiti, III, n. 417 (a. 1065), pp. 275–8; a detailed analysis of this text is in Feller, Les Abruzzes médiévales, pp. 700–3. It must be stressed that this text has no parallels in oldest placita, in which the resistance of actors to the court was expressed by absence, but never by open defiance.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

Civil Wars  5 and in the 1030s, when the problem emerged of the hereditariness of benefices for minor vassals.5 This model, consisting in short crises interspersed with long stages of political recomposition, changed in the late 1050s, as socio-political turmoil became a chronic phenomenon. We witness a gradual militarization of conflicts and of society, which goes hand in hand with an increasingly manifest inability on the part of traditional structures to fulfil their duties. As we shall see in greater detail in the following pages, this transformation is visible in the sources, from a range of points of view: in the pacts between communities and lords, in the agreements between domini, in the refutationes (acts of restitution) at the end of conflicts, in chronicles, and in letters. The convergence of such different sources, and in particu­ lar a comparison between these sources and the typologically similar ones from only a few decades earlier, where these aspects are almost entirely lacking or only play a marginal role, reveal an evident change in social practices connected with violence and war. What we are dealing with is not simply a change in the docu­ mentary evidence—as has been suggested in the case of eleventh-century France, based on sound arguments—but rather a genuine transformation of the way of managing local conflict which is reflected in the written sources, notwithstanding the specific forms these take.6 Let’s take a closer look at these tendencies: one good example is provided by the Arduinic march of Turin, which included much of present-day Piedmont, from the 1060s onwards. In the face of Asti’s growing efforts to gain autonomy, the ruler of the march, Adelaide, led a violent military expedition against the city, which culminated in the (at least partial) destruction of the urban centre and the restoration of its fully subordinate status.7 Likewise, in the Susa Valley—one of the areas where the presence of the Arduinic family was most felt, even from a patrimonial point of view—the Adelaide’s response to the attempt made by the powerful abbey of San Michele della Chiusa to extend its local grasp, well beyond the traditional framework of public power, consisted in the launching of at least two armed expeditions which ended in violent open battles.8 If we look beyond the march of Turin, in the 1060s we can find the first evident traces of conflicts between cities over the control of a rural area. The clearest example certainly comes from the short yet bitter war between Pavia and Milan, which ended with the bloody battle of Campomorto (literally ‘Deadfield’).9 Also dating from the same period are the first military encounters in the long conflict between Genoa and Pisa, which had previously undertaken joint naval ex­ped­itions

5  On Arduino, see Brunhofer, Arduin von Ivrea. 6  On the ‘documentary transformation’ in France, see Barthélemy, ‘From Charters to Notices’. 7 Bordone, Città e territorio, pp. 331–6. 8  Guglielmo of the Chiusa, Vita Benedicti, p. 204; see Sergi, Potere e territorio, pp. 105–6. 9  Arnolfo of Milan, Liber gestorum, pp. 108–9.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

6  The Seigneurial Transformation beyond the boundaries of the kingdom.10 However, the increasing use of violence and arms in the countryside is also noticeable at much lower political levels. For instance, just after 1065 the abbot of Subiaco would appear to have engaged in a ser­ ies of wars against his rebellious vassals in the mountainous area near Tivoli.11 Only a few years before a violent conflict had broken out between the counts of Assisi and the abbey of Farfa over the control of some curtes (estates) in central Umbria.12 Many more examples could be adduced. But what matters here is the structural element, namely the increase of conflict in the rural context and the growing militarization of the latter. Besides, this trend was already quite clear at the time. Some valuable insights as to how people in the eleventh century perceived the processes underway is offered by a letter which the reformist monk Pier Damiani addressed to the bishop of Fermo Ulcandino in 1062. The author stresses how one of the new (and shameful) tendencies of recent years is precisely the increasing use of arms in conflicts, even on the part of churchmen. The abbot stigmatizes this behaviour by suggesting to the prelate of Fermo a course of action inspired by the New Testament ideal of ‘showing the other cheek’.13 Pier Damiani argues that for leading social actors the use of arms has become an automatic response to any (real or alleged) injustice. No mention is made of public tribunals, which im­pli­ cit­ly reveals their state of crisis and their loss of significance as a means to solve local conflicts. The letter is a highly interesting text from at least two perspectives: on the one hand, because it shows that people at the time perceived the militarization of con­ flicts as something new; on the other hand, because of the rift between the solutions proposed by a moralist like Pier Damiani and the course of action actually adopted by churchmen (and of course lay actors too) in those years. While we do not know whether or how Ulcandino answered Pier Damiani’s letter, we do know how he (and his immediate successors) acted within the turbulent context of the Marche in that period. The wealth of documents preserved by the bishopric of Fermo in the Liber iurium shows that the local prelates were busy building castles and destroying ones controlled by rival noblemen and churches, drawing up strictly military pacts, and establishing increasingly robust networks of military clients.14 The concrete attitude adopted by Ulcandino and his successors, therefore, could hardly have been more remote from the utopian and pacifist one proposed by Pier Damiani. By this period force had come to be perceived as the only means to solve conflicts; and it was on force that both lay and religious leaders relied.

10  Annales Pisani, p. 239 (s.a. 1066). 11  Chronicon sublacense, esp. pp. 12–8. 12  Il Regesto di Farfa, IV, nn. 900–1 (a. 1059), pp. 294–5. 13  Pier Damiani, Die Briefe, vol. II, n. 87 (a. 1062), pp. 508–9. On the letters of Pier Damiani, see in general D’Acunto, I laici nella chiesa; on this specific letter, see Brancoli Busdraghi, ‘Aspetti giuridici della faida’, pp. 159–73. 14  Liber iurium, passim. We miss a monographic study on the bishopric of Fermo; a first approach to the issue in Fiore, Signori e sudditi.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

Civil Wars  7 In the 1060s and 1070s, then, the situation was one of instability and violence at the local level. The royal authorities themselves were aware of this and in 1077, just after their temporary reconciliation with the papacy, attempted to re-establish peace within the regnum. That year Henry IV proclaimed a pax italica.15 The con­ tent of this decree is highly revealing: an attempt was made to limit confiscations, theft and extortion (in all likelihood of the sort inflicted on peasants and minor landowners) and to prevent military operations against castles (arsons and armed assaults). From the perspective of the imperial authorities, social unrest and vio­ lence against the poor went hand in hand with an increasing degree of conflict within the ruling class. This was an emergency situation, and it was necessary to solve it in order to restore the traditional modes of administration of power ensured by the monarchy.

1.2  The civil wars and the breakdown of political order Henry’s resolution did not have any appreciable consequences, not least because of the new problems in the relation between the papacy and the empire, and the outbreak of the revolt in Germany. These issues soon absorbed all the imperial authorities’ attention. The Italian situation reached a point of no return only a few years later, in 1080, with the outbreak of armed conflicts in the context of the open war between the emperor and the pro-Gregorian party led by Matilda of Canossa. The main theatre of war was the eastern Po Valley and Latium, but a situation of endemic warfare emerged throughout central and northern Italy.16 The growing militarization already visible in the previous two decades reached its apex. Indeed, one of the reasons why the conflict proved so violent and wide­ spread was that it broke out in areas that were already militarized. The new con­ text of war allowed this military element to find its full expression. Loyalty to one party (often a wavering loyalty) served as an ideological smokescreen to justify operations that had a far more local significance. Dynasties of counts and mar­ graves, bishops and soon urban communities also started fighting one another to establish, extend or defend the areas they controlled. The dearth of narrative sources only allows us to reconstruct this turbulent interplay of forces in a very partial and fragmentary way. The evidence which has been transmitted—often by sheer chance—represents only the tip of an iceberg that escapes direct observation. While it would be a dull task to list all these conflicts, not least given the dearth of evidence, some examples can help illustrate the interplay of different levels of conflict across the various theatres of war, as well as the highly mili­tar­ized context in which rural socio-political balances underwent substantial transformations. 15  Constitutiones, I, n. 68 (a. 1077), p. 117. 16  On the civil war, see Hay, The Military Leadership.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

8  The Seigneurial Transformation In central and southern Piedmont, and in western Liguria, the situation came to a head with the collapse of the march of Turin in 1091, after the death of its ruler Adelaide. For decades a conflict over her inheritance raged on between margrave Bonifacio Del Vasto, count Thomas of Savoy, and (for a short period) Adelaide’s daughter, Agnese, who was supported by the French adventurer Bouchard of Montresor. It is worth stressing, within this context, that Agnese’s husband, Fredrick of Montbeliard, who had also died in 1091, was remembered by people at the time as the chief regional champion of the reformist party.17 The bishop and urban community of Asti, the prelate of Turin and several dynasties of lay noblemen also took active part in the conflict.18 In the subalpine area, how­ ever, the collapse of the March was not the only cause of tension, as is shown by the situation in the north of the region. In the Novara area the counts of Biandrate, who supported the imperial party, pursued a policy openly opposing the ambi­ tions of the cives of Novara and (at least at first) their bishops. The reformist prel­ ate Alberto was assassinated by the counts in 1083 and was replaced—with a clear break—by a bishop loyal to the empire, Anselmo, whom the Biandrate family probably imposed by force.19 Nevertheless, this did not mark the end of the con­ flict between the cives of Novara and the counts: enmity flared up again in the following years, leading to the destruction of the urban centre by the imperial army in 1110, almost certainly with the support of the Biandrate, who thereby established themselves for a few decades as the dominant power in the area.20 The Veneto was marked by a number of conflicts, the most prominent of which was the magna guerra (great war) between the half-brothers who were the heirs of margrave Aldalberto Atto of the Obertenghi family (d. 1097), the Guelphs, and the Este, over this inheritance. This prolonged and fluctuating conflict became even more complicated when, after a period of hostility, the dukes of Carinthia and the patriarch of Aquileia chose to support the Guelphs, who at the time were allied with the empire.21 About that time, a little further to the south, in Romagna, one of the chief representatives of the pro-Henry party, archbishop (and imperial pope) Guilberto of Ravenna was engaged in a hard armed conflict with Matilda of Canossa over control of the Po Delta region.22 Finally, in Tuscany, Matilda’s de­pos­ ition from margravial office triggered a complex series of armed conflicts, with the involvement of families of counts (the Guidi, Alberti and Cadolingi), as well 17  Bernold of Konstanz, Chronicon, p. 495. 18  Pecchio, ‘Sviluppi signorili’; Cerrato, ‘Concorrenze religiose e signorili’, pp. 5–38; Provero, Dai marchesi del Vasto, pp. 57–74; on the conflicts in Liguria between the counts of Ventimiglia and Bonifacio, see I Libri iurium di Genova, I,1, n. 44 (a. 1140), pp. 71–2. 19  The data about the bishops of Novara are provided by the coeval diptychs of the cathedral and of San Gaudenzio; see Abbatepaolo, ‘I dittici consolari’, pp. 284–5, 378–80. 20  On the Biandrate, see Andenna, ‘I conti di Biandrate e le città’. On the destruction of Novara, see Ekkeard, Chronicon, p. 244. 21  Castagnetti, ‘Guelfi ed Estensi’; Bernold of Konstanz, Chronicon, p. 465. 22  Bernold of Konstanz, Chronicon, p. 533; see Hay, The Military Leadership, pp. 59–197.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

Civil Wars  9 as bishops and urban communities, in a game of unstable local alliances, and more or less precarious allegiance to one of the two opposing parties.23 It is not enough to merely note the spread of armed conflicts throughout the kingdom (as well as in Latium) and their markedly local nature. It is also necessary to consider the ways in which these countless local conflicts were waged, con­ stantly redefining the geography of power. While historians have rightly stressed the mild nature of warfare in the central medieval period, this most certainly does not apply to Italy around 1100. What the documentary and narrative sources describe are not low-intensity conflicts, merely involving raids and arsons, with a few sporadic and almost chance killings. Rather, they describe bloody wars (on a scale that varies depending on the context), with many open clashes between knights and armed assaults on castles in which not just countless anonymous milites died, but also many high-ranking noblemen.24 In this case a few telling examples are enough to give an idea of the trend: I have already mentioned the case of the bishop of Novara; under very similar circumstances, two Aleramic margraves—brothers of Bonifacio Del Vasto—lost their lives.25 Count Crescenzio died in battle in Latium and two leaders of the enemy army, described as barones, were beheaded in reprisal by the allies of the deceased after the seizing of their castles.26 Finally, the imperial margrave of Tuscany Rabodo perished while defend­ ing the castle of Montecascioli against the Florentine army.27 Such incidents were not confined to tumultuous moments of warfare. Querimoniae (pleas) from this period often inform us of military operations and ambushes explicitly designed to do away with rivals—an element that is quite absent from earlier texts.28 The violent death of enemies, then, was not just an accident; rather, it was an actively pursued aim, at any rate within the context of harsher local conflicts, where it could prove decisive. Besides, in a prolonged and violent conflict with the powerful Gualcherii family (which alternated with more peaceful periods of coexistence), after yet another breach of the pacts that had been drawn up, the abbey of Farfa organized a brutal punitive expedition, which culminated in the wiping out of almost the whole aristocratic clan, finally bring­ ing an end to the guerra that had been raging for decades.29 Similarly, the reprisal against the two lords responsible for the death of count Crescenzio in battle 23  Cortese, ‘Poteri locali’, pp. 59–69. 24  Killings of several milites in open field battles during local conflicts are recorded in: Il regesto del codice Pelavicino, n. 50 (a. 1124), pp. 72–8 (Tuscany); Il Regesto di Farfa, V, n. 1213 (aa. 1099–1119 c.), pp. 204–5 (Marche); n. 1275 (a. 1098), pp. 249–50 (Latium); Anonimo Cumano, De bello, pp. 413–56 (Lombardy). 25  Register Gregors VII., VII, 9 (a. 1079), pp. 470–1. 26  Annales Ceccanenses, p. 282 (s.a. 1123). 27 Gross, Lothar III, p. 37. 28  Il Registrum Magnum, n. 24 (aa. 1073–5 c.), pp. 40–1; Il Regesto di Farfa, IV, n. 883 (aa. 1049–53), pp. 279–80. See also Codex diplomaticus Amiatinus, II, n. 309 (a. 1084), pp. 261–3, in which the counts Aldobrandeschi ordered the killing of the abbot of Monte Amiata. Such episodes are completely absent in older placita and pleas. 29 Fiore, Signori e sudditi, pp. 224–9.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

10  The Seigneurial Transformation reflects a conscious desire to annihilate the enemy, which was not even dampened by his surrender. While these are no doubt extreme cases, they show just how far the conflicts between lords at the time could go. This sharp rise in violence should not be taken to mean that the use of force was unregulated. Competition, while evidently militarized by now, had its rules: as may clearly be inferred from querimoniae and similar texts, certain actions were deemed lawful, while others were not. Still, the constant and deliberate vio­ lation of this code of conduct represents a clear indicator of the extreme tension underlying the social and political framework, as the aristocracy struggled to limit the violent drives and self-destructive behaviour within its own ranks. I will be examining this problem in greater detail in the second part of the volume, in the chapter on violence.30 Suffice it to say here that it is evident how the capacity to mobilize armed troops, establish military alliances with neighbours, and subju­ gate opponents by brute force became a key means to ensure the success of local actors. The political game became militarized and, in parallel to this, the attitude to violence changed, with the collapse of what until a few decades before had been established interdictions and limitations in warfare. The major war between the two parties essentially came to an end in 1111, with the agreements between Henry V and Matilda of Canossa. However, this did not translate into a significant let up in the military action, which remained substan­ tial in all (or nearly all) regional contexts. The solving of the ideological conflict among the upper echelons of the empire showed the true nature of the many con­ flicts underway: they were struggles for local hegemony, for control over certain territories and their resources. Precisely for this reason, the notion of ‘civil wars’ adopted in the recent historiography to describe the whole range of military con­ flicts that broke out from the 1080s onwards (and probably already a few years before then) seems far more useful than the old label ‘struggle for investitures’. The connection between the collapse of public structures, the ideological crisis of central power, and the fragmentation of the territory into rival polities with vari­ able degrees of formalization and endemic military conflicts are features also common to the ‘failing states’ of today, such as Afghanistan, Somalia, and Libya.31 We must consider these contexts too (with all due differences) to understand the situation of central and northern Italy at the turn of the 1100s. One difference in particular immediately stands out and must be highlighted. We are used to associating prolonged civil warfare with the breakdown of systems of production and trade networks; but in fact it is quite evident that in central and northern Italy in those years the state of endemic conflict did not at all lead to economic collapse. Rather, as in the eleventh century, the general context was 30  See section 10.3. 31  The scholarship about ‘failing states’ is, for obvious reasons, steadily rising; see Rotberg (ed.), State Failure.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

Civil Wars  11 marked by economic growth. Development probably slowed down somewhat, at any rate in those contexts most affected by war, but we find no traces of any real inversion or even stagnation. In the countryside, which more than any other place accounted for the production of wealth, the damage—while significant at a local level—was nonetheless circumscribed.32 The destruction of crops and pil­ laging could have devastating effects at a local level, yet fit within a general frame­ work capable of easily absorbing them; even the great famine that struck Italy around 1085, almost certainly causing more victims than the coeval military con­ flicts, would not appear to have had serious repercussions.33 The constant refer­ ences to commercial transactions in times of war, as in the case of the agreements between Venice and Verona, clearly show that the flow of goods did not come to a halt even in the most heated and turbulent moments.34 Similarly, the recovery of urban centres that had been destroyed in conflicts, such as Asti, Arezzo or Novara, shows that the context in which such episodes occurred was one of economic growth.35 The wounds inflicted by war healed more or less swiftly, depending on the area—but heal they did. Certainly, the destruction of a city, such as Novara or Como, could mark a standstill in its development; yet only in exceptional cases, such as that of Fiesole, did it amount to a mortal blow.36 In a general context marked by demographic growth and economic activity, the potential for recovery remained high. As regards those centres whose destruction marked an ir­re­vers­ible decline, such as Fiesole and, to a lesser extent Lodi, this occurred by the explicit political will of the victors (respectively, Florence and Milan) to prevent the local citizens from rebuilding their city.37 Besides, the structural collapse of Fiesole went hand in hand with the boom of Florence; the more temporary crises experienced by Como and Novara, by the boom of the major rural centres of Biandrate and Isola Comacina, and naturally of Milan.38 The same principle applies—with some nuances—to the countryside, where the numerous deconstructions of castra were accompanied by new foundations, as well as by the broadening of existing ones via major investments, as we shall see in greater detail later on.39 The case of the Como area, the theatre for the decade-long war between Milan (and its allies) and Como, clearly shows that even in a prolonged and very intense 32  A detailed description of local warfare in Chronicon sublacense, pp. 12–8. 33 Bernold of Konstanz, Chronicon, p. 453, with a clear rhetorical amplification states ‘Quam famem tam inaudita mortalitas subsecuta est, ut nec tercia pars hominum remaneret, sed deficiente colono, maxima pars terrae in solitudine redacta est’. 34 Castagnetti, Mercanti, società e politica, pp. 143–7. 35  In 1071 Adelaide of Turin destroyed Asti; on this Arnolfo of Milan, Liber gestorum, p. 108; on the second destruction (1091) of the city, see Bordone, Città e territorio, pp. 344–7. In 1110 an imperial army destroyed (partially) Novara e Arezzo; Ekkeard, Chronicon, p. 244. 36  On the total destruction of Fiesole in 1125, after three years of war, see Davidsohn, Geschichte, I, pp. 392–8; see also Faini, Firenze nell’età romanica, pp. 244–5. 37  On the total destruction of Lodi by the army of Milan, in 1111, after four years of (hard) warfare, see Landolfo Seniore, Historia Mediolanensis, p. 30. 38  The specific case of Isola Comacina will be discussed in section 5.2. 39  See section 3.3.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

12  The Seigneurial Transformation context of warfare the demographic and productive fabric was no doubt subjected to considerable stress, yet never reached a point of collapse.40 In this respect, the resilience of Como and of rural centres allied or in conflict with it is exemplary. The destructive effect of the war is evident from the sharp drop in documentary evidence pertaining to the land market in the Isola Comacina and neighbouring communities compared to previous decades. Yet the immediately subsequent period witnessed an evident recovery: already by the end of the 1130s the volume of transactions (and the prices of land and houses) would appear to have returned to pre-war levels.41 Even in that area of the kingdom of Italy that for a decade came as close to a ‘total war’ as the means available in the early twelfth century allowed, the damage was repaired within fifteen years. Considering the fact that more intense military conflicts, such as the war between Milan and Lodi, were usually of shorter duration, it is easy to estimate that the process of recovery must have been much swifter as well. Even central and southern Piedmont, the theatre of the long war over the inheritance of the margarine of Turin Adelaide, would not appear to have suffered any real setback in terms of economic development, as is shown by the progressive conversion into farmland of the extensive forested areas extending across much of the present-day province of Cuneo, one of the areas most directly affected by the conflict.42

1.3  From fragmentation to recomposition With the beginning of the ‘civil war’ stage, those tendencies already visible from the 1060s onwards became more widespread or acute, bringing to light one of the structural causes of the growing unrest, namely the tension within major domains. Great lords found it harder and harder to effectively control their varied groups of vassals, clients and officials, who by now aspired to forms of local power and were reluctant to accept the limitations imposed upon them by their lords. Besides, public officials, bishops and leading abbots proved even more incapable of controlling lords within the territories they governed. We witness these small centres of power acquiring an increasing degree of autonomy, with the progressive disappearance of traditional public jurisdictional rights, such as the administra­ tion of justice, military prerogatives, hospitality rights, or the protection of small freeholders.43 The mounting difficulty of keeping one’s network of clients together 40  On the ten-years war in the area of Como, the best source (by far) is Anomimo Cumano, De bello. We still miss a monographic study on this important text; but see Grillo, ‘Una fonte per lo studio’. 41  For example, the archive of the monastery of Santa Maria di Lenno, has a documentary gap for the period between 1117 and 1128: Le carte dei monasteri di S. Maria dell’Acquafredda di Lenno, n. 24 (a. 1117) and n. 25 (a. 1128). Since 1130s the number of documents returns to good levels. 42 Comba, Metamorfosi di un paesaggio rurale, pp. 48–61. 43  In the years around 1100, the Gisalbertini counts lost their traditional comital rights in many villages now ruled by lesser lords in the countryside around Bergamo, in Lombardy; see Menant, Campagnes lombardes, pp. 417–18.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

Civil Wars  13 and the latter’s pursuit of autonomy represent a defining feature of major domains in this period. The unwillingness of aristocratic clients to accept the growing power of the abbey of Casauria was thus perceived at the time as the reason behind the success of the Norman invasion of southern Abruzzo (formerly part of the kingdom of Italy) in the mid-1070s.44 After consolidating their power and prerogatives at a local level, a few decades later the same lords organized an (at least temporarily) successful rebellion, this time siding with Casauria against the Normans, probably to safeguard their own autonomy against increasing encroachment from the Norman government. The ways in which this desire for autonomy and greater local power was expressed obviously varied depending on the local context: from open revolt against the leading lord (as in the cases of Farfa and of the episcopal lordships of Fermo and Asti) to the exploitation of the crisis of the old districts as a means to acquire full autonomy (as in Piedmont and Tuscany), to the request for help from outside actors in an attempt to undermine the old order (as with the Normans in Latium and Abruzzo). It is in such terms that we should read the promise made by the newly appointed abbot of Farfa to his monks not to grant castles in ward­ ship to powerful men (eminentis laicis), but only to monks or laymen of humble extraction (humillimis et maxime monachis). Evidently, it was felt that the latter could more easily be controlled by the central authorities and were less likely to pursue any real degree of autonomy.45 Besides, in the area governed by the bishop of Asti, the custodes castri (wardens of castle) of Priocca and Monticello— belonging to the family of the domini (lords) of Govone (who were in turn vas­ sals of the bishop)—attempted in the early twelfth century to turn the wardship entrusted to him into a genuine form of lordship.46 Likewise, in the former march of Turin, many castle wardens accountable to the margraves took advan­ tage of the economic crisis to establish themselves as fully independent domini loci (ter­ri­tor­ial lords).47 We shall be examining these local processes in greater detail in the following chapter. What I wish to draw attention to here is the outcome usually reached by these conflicts: the breakdown of the existing political order to the benefit of smaller centres, which were often themselves fragmented and not geographically compact. In this case too, the situation in Piedmont clearly reflects these develop­ ments: the dynastic crisis of the Arduinic family translated into a war of succes­ sion between different regional powers (both internal and external to the former march), ultimately leading to the breakdown of traditional power-system and the

44 Feller, Les Abruzzes médiévales, pp. 726–7 and 746–9. 45  Il Regesto di Farfa, V, n. 1122 (a. 1090 c.), p. 123. 46  Il libro verde della chiesa di Asti, n. 110 (a. 1117), pp. 247–9; the text is discussed in Bordone, Città e territorio, p. 372. 47 Sergi, Potere e territorio, pp. 120–31.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

14  The Seigneurial Transformation restructuring of the political order in the region.48 The new polities that emerged out of the crisis were not just much smaller than the former march, but also struc­ tured in a far weaker way. Even the new march controlled by the de facto victor in the war over Adelaide’s inheritance, Bonifacio del Vasto, was both smaller than the old march of Turin and far less compact. Numerous families of wardens of castles belonging to the margrave took advantage of the crisis to gain full ownership of them. Bonifacio—and later his heirs—could only acknowledge the process and attempt to correct it, whenever possible, by establishing bonds of fealty with the new local lords.49 The new polity, therefore, extended from the Langhe hills to the southern alpine valleys, from the Saluzzo plane to the Savona coastline, yet in a discontinuous, patchwork manner. Closely controlled areas were interspersed with others where the new lordship had to deal with more powerful and betterequipped local actors, or where it exercised no control at all—as in vast swathes of what is now the province of Cuneo. In the wake of Bonifacio’s death, this united polity disintegrated, despite an initial attempt at joint rule made by the many sons of the margrave. Within a few years the limits of this solution became evident and the territory came to be partitioned, with jurisdictional rights being shared among half a dozen heirs, who created a series of smaller lordships.50 A structural prob­ lem, namely the need to manage castles, estates and jurisdictional rights scattered across a vast and far from compact territory in a highly conflictual context, became intertwined with a dynastic and hereditary problem. This is an important topic which has yet to be fully explored. We shall be returning to it shortly.51 A similar case, in many ways, is that of the march of Tuscany, which had trad­ ition­al­ly been a compact and well-structured polity, and which probably consti­ tuted the main nucleus of power in the entire kingdom. In the 1080s the deposition of Matilda led to a complete breakdown of the old public structures. The outcome was the emergence of a series of independent polities in conflict with one another.52 These were incipient territorial principalities, such as those of the Guidi, Alberti, and Aldobrandeschi counts, and of the bishops of Volterra and Arezzo, but also polities centred on aggressive early urban communities such as Pisa, Lucca, and (a little later) Florence and Siena. In addition to these we find a variety of minor political entities, which had more modest ambitions yet were nonetheless very active at the local level, as well as a swarm of local lordship variously connected to larger polities, and which often controlled only one or two fortified centres.53

48  Sergi (ed.), Storia di Torino, I, pp. 449–81; Provero, ‘Aristocrazia d’ufficio’; Pecchio, ‘Sviluppi signorili’. 49 Provero, Dai marchesi del Vasto, pp. 65–74. 50 Provero, Dai marchesi del Vasto, pp. 77–108. 51  On this see section 1.4. 52  An ample overview of the complex political situation in Tuscany in the decades after 1081 in Davidsohn, Geschichte, I, pp. 207–446. 53  On the disruptive effects of these processes on local systems, see Bianchi, Collavini, ‘Risorse e competizione’.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

Civil Wars  15 I will be specifically analysing the transformation of the local political order and power management, which is closely related to this process of fragmentation, in Chapter  2. What I wish to stress here is that the civil war translated into a  breakdown of existing territorial frameworks. Hence, the ability to govern extensive areas was lost; the new authorities generally had a more limited space of action compared to previous ones. While these developments are particularly ­evident in the case of the marches of Turin and Tuscany, which have been studied in detail, similar processes must have occurred—albeit on a far smaller scale—in many of the large and medium-scale domains across central and northern Italy. These polities (governed by bishops, abbots or counts) underwent substantial processes of internal breakdown and fragmentation, which were of course accel­ erated by the fluidity of the political situation and by the military conflicts.54 After Matilda’s death, the large block of Po Valley counties in the hands of the Canossa family, which had already been weakened, collapsed and was replaced by smaller lordships. The network of Matilda’s vassals proved more enduring, particularly thanks to Henry V’s support, but ultimately it also disintegrated owing to rivalries and conflicts of interest within the group.55 The vast domain of the archbishops of Ravenna, which included Romagna and the northern Marche, suffered consider­ able losses in the civil wars.56 In central Italy the attempts made by many dynas­ ties of counts (those of Assisi, Foligno, Todi, Nocera and Camerino, among many others) to establish from the late 1050s extensive lordships, chiefly according to the boundaries of the old districts, clashed with the increasing drive for independence on the part of a range of alternative centres of power. Already by the early decades of the twelfth century, these families of counts were thus left with much smaller domains, centred on a limited number of often non-adjacent castles.57 Nevertheless, it must not be assumed that this trend towards the breakdown and fragmentation of political structure was universal. Significantly, it seems as though certain aristocratic dynasties did not passively endure the crisis but rather, with some difficulty, were able to exploit it in order to redefine and extend their power. These families made the most of their military role and capacity to estab­ lish themselves as leaders of their network of vassals, to redistribute any lands and castles seized by forced, and even—as we shall see later on—to experiment with new and more profitable forms of lordship. By effectively involving their clients in these innovations, these lords were able to counter the drive towards autonomy of the lesser aristocracy. Thus the Aldobrandeschi did not only occupy some castles belonging to the abbey of Monte Amiata by force of arms, altering the form taken by local power and making its administration more heavy-handed; they also

54 A good example is that of the Gisalbertini counts of Bergamo, discussed in Menant, ‘Les Giselbertines’. 55  For a recent overview on Matilda of Canossa, see Matilde di Canossa e il suo tempo. 56 Pallotti, Castelli e poteri signorili, pp. 35–132. 57 Fiore, Signori e sudditi, pp. 78–90.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

16  The Seigneurial Transformation recruited into their ranks some former monastic servi, whom they allowed to concretely benefit from the new order, and made economic agreements with members of the elites of the villages they had taken over.58 However, in these cases as well most of the territories controlled by individual dynasties were not compact wholes, but rather the sum of more or less extensive areas governed by them, interspersed with territories under the control of other political actors.59 It is nonetheless important to stress that this period witnessed not just pro­ cesses of fragmentation, but also processes of the opposite sort, involving both urban proto-communes (which I will be discussing later on, in section 5.1) and lay and ecclesiastical lords. In all likelihood, the breakdown of political structures reached its peak in the 1080s and 1090s. The immediately following period was marked by a tendency towards a territorial recomposition, which varied in terms of its intensity and scale, and of the actors involved, depending on the regional and sub-regional context. The best-investigated cases pertaining to lords are those of the Aldobrandeschi, Del Vasto and Guidi families, but many more political centres were able to take advantage of the crisis to consolidate or extend their control or to maintain their extensive domains, if only on a more limited scale (as in the case of the archbishops of Ravenna), giving rise to structures of a more or less princely sort.60 Almost invariably, it is difficult to observe these processes because of the considerable gaps in the documentary evidence (and the lack of any dynastic chronicles). What can be perceived are mostly their outcomes around 1130 or, in certain cases, a few decades later. In this respect, it might be useful to provide an overview of these incipient principalities, in order to assess their actual impact on the political scenario. I will group them together by region, focusing first on Piedmont and Liguria, then on Lombardy and Emilia, followed by the North-East and finally central Italy. The western subalpine area is probably the one for which most evidence is to be found in this respect.61 The aforementioned domain of the Del Vasto family extended from its original heartland, coinciding with the counties of Savona and (partly) of Albenga, to much of what is now the province of Cuneo, which was conquered at the turn of the 1100s in the great war over the Arduinic inheritance. This was probably the largest territorial principality in Italy at the time and its lord, Bonifacio, who had reached the height of his power, was a well-known figure throughout Europe, capable of planning dynastic unions with royal households

58  Codex Diplomaticus Amiatinus, II, n. 309 (ante a. 1084), pp. 261–3; see Collavini, Honorabilis domus, pp. 133–7. 59  This is clear in the well-known cases of the margraves of Monferrato, and the Guidi counts, on which see respectively Banfo, ‘Da Aleramo a Guglielmo’; and Canaccini (ed.), La lunga storia di una stirpe. 60  On the Biandrate, Virgili, ‘I possessi dei Biandrate’; on the Este, Castagnetti, ‘Guelfi ed Estensi’. 61  A good overview in Sergi, ‘La geografia del potere’.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

Civil Wars  17 such as those of France and of Sicily.62 I will be focusing on the formation of this major centre of power later on (section 2.4). However, it was not unparalleled in the subalpine area. A smaller yet nonetheless extensive domain was that of the Biandrate family, which between the late 1070s and the first decade of the follow­ ing century underwent considerable growth: from its heartland—Valsesia and Ossola—it expanded not just into the Novara area but also into those of Vercelli and (to a lesser extent) Ivrea. Staunch allies of the Salian dynasty, in 1083 the Biandrate lords defeated in battle and killed the reformist bishop of Novara, and then imposed a series of pro-Imperial bishops. In the immediately following years they also gained direct control over the episcopal see of Vercelli, which between the 1090s and early decades of the twelfth century was filled by at least two members of this kinship group—obviously with a pro-Imperial orientation.63 Control of these two sees clearly enabled the Biandrate counts to gain new bene­ fices, particularly in the plane between Vercelli and Novara. In this area the found­ ing (or re-founding) in 1093 of the great castle of Biandrate—which soon became the eponymous centre for this dynasty—clearly illustrates the new local power balance.64 The Biandrate family made its presence much less felt in the Ivrea area, which however was controlled from the late eleventh century onwards by the Canavese counts, cousins and allies of the Biandrate. The early decades of the twelfth century also witnessed the expansion and consolidation of another Aleramic branch, that of the margraves of Monferrato, who were active in the sub-region between Vercelli and Acqui, probably also thanks to the support of Henry V, to whom the Monferrato lords were very close.65 By the use of force, the latter were able to increasingly assert their presence south of the Po River, in what is now the lower Monferrato area, progressively gaining the upper hand over the other centres of power. By the late eleventh century the margraves controlled approxi­ mately one fourth of the settlements in the area; by the middle of the following century practically the whole area had fallen under their control.66 What also played into this process of political reorganization were dynastic events: the extinction of a minor Aleramic branch, that of the Sezzadio, active in the Acqui area, was followed by the incorporation of their patrimony into the domain of the Monferrato margraves, not least through the support of the emperor.67 Finally, to 62  On the Del Vasto family, see Provero, Dai marchesi del Vasto; on the tie with the Norman king of Sicily, see pp. 78–80; on the planned marriage with a daughter of Bonifacio with the king of France (failed for the strong perplexities of French bishops about the lawfulness of birth of the girl), see p. 87. On the notoriety of Bonifacio on a European scale, see The Ecclesiastical History of Orderic, VI, pp. 366 and 432. 63  Andenna, ‘I conti di Biandrate e le città’. 64  With the exception of the foundation of the castle of Biandrate, the expansion of the family in northern Piedmont is still not well studied; the research has focused on other topics, such as their role as crusaders, or their relationship with Milan; see Andenna, ‘I conti di Biandrate e le loro clientele’. On the benefices from the bishops of Vercelli, see Barbero, ‘Vassalli vescovili e aristocrazia’, pp. 220–33. 65  Sergi, ‘La geografia del potere’, pp. 29–31. 66  Banfo, ‘Compresenze e sovrapposizioni di poteri’. 67  On this branch and its extinction, see Merlone, ‘La discendenza aleramica’.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

18  The Seigneurial Transformation these principalities we should add that of the Umbertini, counts of Savoy and Maurienne. While most of their vast domains lay beyond the Alps, beyond the Aosta Valley (which in theory was not actually part of the kingdom of Italy), after the collapse of the march of Turin they also came to control the Susa Valley. From here they exerted military and political pressure on the plain around Turin, to the point that in 1130 they briefly gained control of the city itself.68 If from Piedmont we shift our attention southwards, to western Liguria, we find—alongside the vast domain of the Del Vasto lords—another important ­centre of power, that of the counts of Ventimiglia.69 Until 1140 the latter had an apparently firm hold over the whole area of the old county (including the city, which constituted the centre of their power and housed a fortified palace where they regularly sojourned), in addition to several centres in the diocese of Albenga, possibly seized from the Del Vasto lords in the war over Adelaide’s inheritance.70 At the centre of the region Genoa came to assert its power early on; the area fur­ ther to the east, around Sestri Levante, was instead—at least until the end of our period—under the control of the Malaspina margraves, who at the time were arguably the most powerful dynasty within the Obertenghi kinship group.71 The counts of Lavagna, active in this area, just like the lords of Vezzano, who con­ trolled much of what is now the province of La Spezia, acknowledged the su­per­ ior­ity of the margraves to whom they were bound by bonds of fealty.72 However, the heartland of the Malaspina dynasty, where the estates directly controlled by them were located, was further to the east, in the Lunigiana area, and extended even beyond the Apennines, to the Taro, Trebbia and Staffora valleys.73 The attempts made by the Malaspina lords to consolidate and expand their power over the plane to the south of Tortona and Piacenza were cut short by the political development of local urban communities, while in the Lunigiana area the compet­ ing presence of the bishop of Luni prevented the margraves from fully asserting their power. So although the Malaspina lords controlled one of the most extensive and solid centres of power in this period, they were surrounded by particularly powerful and dynamic opponents, who hampered any further development. Another dynasty within the Obertenghi kinship group, the Pelavicino, controlled a slightly less imposing domain, concentrated in the plane between Piacenza, Parma and Cremona, where these margraves governed a few dozen castles—many

68 Sergi, Potere e territorio, pp. 143–4. 69  Ascheri, ‘I conti di Ventimiglia’; e Venturini (ed.), Le Comté de Vintimille. 70  Clues about these acquisitions, in I libri iurium di Genova, I,1, n. 44 (a. 1140), pp. 71–2. 71  On the Obertenghi and the origins of their family names, see Nobili, Gli Obertenghi e altri saggi, pp. 179–327. 72  Petti Balbi, ‘I conti di Lavagna’, esp. p. 98. 73  We still miss a study about the rising of Malaspina; we must use Biccherai, ‘Malaspina, Alberto’; and also Burla, Malaspina di Lunigiana, pp. 16–20.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

Civil Wars  19 of them directly.74 In this case too, the location of the domains proved rather unfavourable for the pursuit of the Pelavicino’s political plans. However, it must be stressed that at least up until 1130 the Pelavicino not only preserved their inde­ pendence, but even expanded their domains, so much so that in the 1110s they did not hesitate to enter into conflict with the imperial au­thor­ities themselves over control of the important rural centre of Borgo San Donnino.75 Extending further to the east, between the Apennines and the Po, from Modena to Mantua and Bologna, was the area most densely filled with estates formerly belonging to Matilda of Canossa. After her death these lands passed into the hands of Henry V  for a short time.76 By contrast, no real prin­ci­pal­ities existed in the rest of Lombardy, with the partial exception of the polity established by a branch of the Gisalbertini counts, centred on the great castle of Crema; by the turn of the 1100s, this polity was able to stand up to a politically precocious and aggressive city such as Cremona. To a lesser degree, we must remember the extensive lordships in the Alpine valleys controlled by the bishops of Bergamo and Brescia.77 East of Matilda’s lands there extended the great episcopal principality of Ravenna. While weakened compared to its stage of maximum expansion, which it had probably reached around 1070, in the 1120s this polity remained one of the most important centres of power in the whole kingdom.78 Approximately between 1080 and 1110, the archbishops lost control over broad swathes of what are now the provinces of Imola and especially Faenza and Ferrara, to the benefit of local aristocratic or urban powers. Nevertheless, despite these losses, the area pol­it­ ical­ly controlled by the archbishops remained a vast one, which extended for several dozen kilometres from the city, particularly towards the south. Cervia and the whole territory of Cesena were firmly in the hands of the archbishops of Ravenna, who had a dense network of vicecomites (viscounts) in the area; not only that, but a number of major castles along the northern coastline of the Marche, such as Montalboddo, Montecerro and Castelbaldo, were either wholly or partly controlled by officials appointed by the archbishops.79 Moreover, the prelates of Ravenna did not entirely lose their hold over the rural aristocracy, but were capable of forcibly reasserting their superiority over certain rebel lords, such as the counts of Imola, who were subjugated after a harsh military conflict in the late eleventh century. In the areas closer to Ravenna, episcopal control over the increasingly numerous holders of dominatus loci remained quite firm, notwith­ standing certain difficulties.

74  We miss also a monographic study on the Pelavicino for this period; but see Collavini and Varanini, ‘Pallavicino, Oberto I’. 75  Soliani, ‘Antichi signori’. 76  On this, see section 2.3. 77  See respectively Menant, ‘Les Gisalbertines’; De Angelis, ‘Esordi e caratteri’; Menant, Campagnes lombardes, pp. 402–85. 78 Pallotti, Castelli e poteri, pp. 35–132; on the earlier period, see Fasoli, ‘Il dominio territoriale’. 79 Fiore, Signori e sudditi, pp. 137–9, 256.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

20  The Seigneurial Transformation Operating on a smaller, yet nonetheless significant scale, was a centre of princely power in the hands of another branch of the Obertenghi dynasty: the Este.80 Their domains, which were far more compact, were located between the Scodosia (south of Padua) and the Polesine area near Rovigo, i.e. a little to the north of the bishops of Ravenna’s domains. However, the capacity for political action of this major sei­ gneurial centres was undermined by the serious conflict that broke out within the Este household in the late 1090s between the son of Adalberto Azzo II (d. 1097) and his first wife—Guelph, based in Germany—and his half-brothers, the Este. With the support of powerful transalpine allies and of the patriarchs of Aquileia, the former attempted to gain control of his father’s Italian estates, giving rise to a long, uncertain and bloody war, which waged on for decades, with some peaceful intervals. While this situation of conflict did not bring about the collapse of the Este domain, it prevented it from becoming the centre of broader processes of political regrouping on the regional level, at any rate in the period we are investigating. As regards the rest of the Veneto, it is difficult to speak of genuine prin­ci­pal­ ities. Bishops such as those of Padua and Treviso, or comital families such as the counts of Treviso and those of San Bonifacio in Verona, controlled significant yet much smaller landed patrimonies.81 Further to the east lay a far more prominent polity, the principality of the patriarchs of Aquileia, which in 1077—in compli­ ance with the emperor’s will—incorporated the extensive county of Friuli.82 The vast principality that emerged from this fusion included present-day Friuli and Istria, and hence constituted one of the largest centres of power in the whole regnum. Compared to the other domains analysed so far, this polity was marked by a considerable degree of compactness, but also—and especially—by a high degree of continuity with Carolingian institutional and social structures. The defining features of the Friuli area include continuity in the mode of exercise of public power, the limited development of territorial lordship, the presence of an aristoc­ racy based on large landed patrimonies (with estates often scattered across a wide area), the survival of the mansus (the traditional peasant landholding), the imped­ ance of communities of freemen, and the lack of significant forms of independ­ ent political action on the part of urban communities.83 In this area too, in our period, certain leading aristocratic families and churches developed ter­ri­tor­ial forms of power. In the eastern part of the principality, for instance, the family of transalpine origin that later came to be known as the counts of Gorizia were able to establish a territorial domain of their own around the eponymous centre. This was further extended over the course of the twelfth century, not least through the 80  On the Este, see Castagnetti, ‘Guelfi ed Estensi’. 81  For a general overview, see Castagnetti, ‘L’età precomunale’, pp. 28–81. 82  Cammarosano, ‘Patriarcato, Impero’. 83  For a rich overview, see Cammarosano (ed.), Il patriarcato di Aquileia; on the peculiarity of socio-political structures in rural Friuli, see Cammarosano, ‘Strutture di insediamento’.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

Civil Wars  21 family’s close relations with the patriarch, whom they supported.84 However, the seigneurie never became a widespread phenomenon in Friuli, and most public forms of power remained in the hands of the patriarch, who exercised it locally through a close-knit web of gastalds and ministeriales. Let’s now shift our gaze to central Italy, which presents a rather varied scenario, at least from this perspective. The area most characterized by the presence of ter­ri­tor­ial principalities is no doubt Tuscany, where the collapse of the march in 1081 paved the way for different projects of territorial recomposition by leading political actors in the region. Among these in the north were the Cadolingi, counts of Pistoia, whose power extended to the Arno Valley, between Florence and Fucecchio, and the Elsa Valley, as well as the mountainous area on the border with Bologna.85 This dynasty, however, become extinct when the count Uguccione died, in 1113, without leaving any heirs. This led to a violent conflict between different regional actors. It was the Guidi who profited the most from the collapse of Cadolingian power. Although the Guidi owned significant estates in Tuscany, up until this moment their heartland had lain beyond the Apennines, around the castle of Modigliana, not far from Faenza.86 Through a strong alliance with Matilda of Canossa, the Guidi were soon able to establish a vast principality, which constituted a real match for the rising power of Florence up until the mid-twelfth century. At a lower level we find the political project of the Alberti, who like the Guidi were able to expand their presence in Tuscany starting from a power base chiefly located north of the Apennines, in the Bologna area.87 These families of counts, however, were not the only ones to pursue ambitious plans of territorial reorganization. The bishops of Arezzo (at least up until 1130) and especially those of Volterra were able to establish themselves as hegemonic powers within their dioceses.88 Finally, in southern Tuscany, an area essentially devoid of real urban centres, another lay dynasty rose to prominence, that of the Aldobrandeschi. Starting from the traditional exercising of comital prerogatives, they succeeded in expanding and consolidating their power by taking extremely aggressive action against minor political actors, as witnessed by the well-known querimonia sub­ mitted by the monks of the monastery of Monte Amiata in 1083.89 Outside Tuscany, we find a far more fragmented scenario. In northern Umbria the only noteworthy attempt to establish a principality was carried out by the family known as Marchiones, whose estates extended from the eastern Arezzo area to the countryside around Gubbio, but were mostly concentrated in the territory of 84 Stih, I conti di Gorizia, pp. 15–52; see also Da Ottone III a Massimiliano I. 85 Pescaglini Monti, ‘I conti Cadolingi’; on their land in the mountains south of Bologna, see Zagnoni, ‘I conti Cadolingi’. 86  On the Guidi and their rising, see the articles collected in La lunga storia di una dinastia. 87  Ceccarelli, ‘La fondazione di Semifonte’, pp. 213–22. 88 Su Arezzo, Delumeau, Arezzo, pp. 281–306. On Volterra see Paganelli, ‘Infra nostrum episcopatum’. 89 Collavini, Honorabilis domus, pp. 109–74.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

22  The Seigneurial Transformation Città di Castello and in the northern stretch of the Perugia area.90 After an initial stage in which this vast patrimony was divided between two branches of the dynasty, following a violent family feud in the late eleventh century, dynastic pol­ icies led to the recomposition of the domain, with the establishment of a genuine territorial principality.91 In the rest of the region, it seems likely that what also contributed to the creation of major political centres was the limited compactness of local comital dynasties, which remained fragmented through the splitting of patrimonies. While there existed a number of domains in the region, such as those of the Monadi counts of Foligno and of the Rapizoni counts of Todi, none of these was able to reach sufficient critical mass to give rise to more ambitious territorial projects.92 Much the same can be said about the central and northern Marche, even though the 1110s witnessed the rise of the Guarnerii margraves, genuine Amtsmarkgrafen appointed by emperor who brought under their direct control many castles between Senigallia and southern Fermo area, thereby becoming a point of reference for local seigneurial elites.93 Immediately to the south laid two bishoprics, those of Fermo and of Ascoli, which established themselves as hege­ monic powers—despite some opposition—within their dioceses, giving rise to rather robust principalities, very similar to the one established in Tuscany by the bishops of Volterra. As regards Latium, the situation is marked by an even greater degree of fragmen­ tation. The dramatic crisis of pontifical power from the 1080s led to a complete collapse of traditional public structure and to the proliferation of local forms of power. The dearth of sources only provides a partial glimpse of the dynamics of recomposition. However, it is clear that even the major lordship established around Tusculum by the Tuscolani—the old ruling family in Rome—which almost cer­ tainly constituted the most significant political centre in the region outside Rome itself, was no match for leading principalities such as those of the Guidi, Malaspina or Del Vasto.94 After this brief overview, it is worth pausing to consider the nature of ter­ri­tor­ial principalities in the age under investigation. I have adopted this label to describe large political centres whose rulers more or less directly controlled at least between twenty and thirty castles or villages. In other words, I have adopted an essentially quantitative criterion. In this regard, it is worth recalling that, generally speaking, the use of this label in the historiography is reserved for political entities from the second half of the twelfth century onwards, which display a more complex struc­ ture and higher degree of maturity. Even the more extensive political centres to be found before 1130 would appear to have been far less organized than later ones.

90  Tiberini, ‘I marchesi di Colle’. 91  For a more detailed analysis, see section 1.4. 92 Fiore, Signori e sudditi. 93 Fiore, Signori e sudditi, pp. 49–50, 113–16; Fiore, ‘Changing strategies’. 94 Wickham, Medieval Rome, pp. 42–52; and Wickham, ‘The origins of the signoria’.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

Civil Wars  23 Still, it is undeniable that already by the early decades of the twelfth century we catch a glimpse—if only an occasional one, given the greater patchiness of the sources of certain elements that are regarded as defining features of genuine terri­ torial principalities: the subordination of lesser aristocracy via bonds of fealty or other symbolic forms of acknowledgement of political superiority (such as the albergaria, hospitality right); the preservation of prerogatives related to military affairs, taxation, and high justice in all the areas ac­know­ledg­ing their hegemony; the establishment of networks of temporary officials for the management of those castles under the direct control of the prince; and, finally, the control and redistri­ bution of resources on a wide scale. As regards the process of the subordination of lesser aristocracy through bonds of fidelity, the case of Piedmont is particularly clear and noteworthy. After the collapse of the march of Turin, the counts of Savoy and the Del Vasto seized areas that were essentially foreign to them, and in which territorial lordships—often in the hands of the old custodes of castles appointed by the margraves of Turin— were spreading. Faced with this situation, the course of action adopted was often a pragmatic one, based on the acknowledgement of the new authorities in exchange for the fidelitas (fidelity) of local lords, according to a process of recip­ rocal legitimation.95 On his part, in establishing a territorial domain, the bishop of Fermo repeatedly adopted practices analogous to those associated with the socalled ‘oblate fief ’ to subordinate lesser aristocracy.96 The acknowledgement of a prince’s hegemony was not merely a formal gesture: it implied the acknowledgement of concrete prerogatives over the areas controlled by local lords. For instance, in 1110 the counts of Ventimiglia, as ‘princes’, were appointed judges in the bitter conflict between the men of San Romolo and the canons of the chapter of Genoa, the holders of the local districtus (right of command).97 In the 1120s the superior power of the Del Vasto and Pelavicino families compared to that wielded by the minor lords active in the territories they controlled (or lay claim to) partly occurred through the annual albergaria of seizable armed groups or, alter­ natively, through the imposition of a tax in kind.98 As late as 1146 the Guidi, who

95 Provero, Dai marchesi del Vasto, pp. 125–64; and Sergi, Potere e territorio, pp. 120–31. 96  See for example Liber iurium, n. 65 (a. 1108), pp. 136–8; another reference in n. 83 (a. 1145), pp. 178–9. Other ‘medium’ lords (ruling 5–10 castles) made the same; see Le carte dell’archivio vescovile di Ivrea, n. 3 (a. 1094), pp. 13–4; Le carte dell’archivio di S. Pietro di Perugia, I, n. 15 (a. 1130), pp. 68–70. 97  Il registro della curia arcivescovile di Genova, p. 442 (a. 1110); the count acted as judges in San Romolo also fourteen yeas later; see Liber privilegiorum ecclesiae ianunesis, n. 9 (a. 1124), pp. 24–5. 98  At Serralunga d’Alba the monks of Fruttuaria were required to provide board and lodging for the margraves’ military retinues once a year or, if they failed to do so, to pay a levy of fifteen modia of wheat: see Sanna, Conduzione fondiaria, p. 151. On the albergariae imposed by the Pelavicino family on minor territorial lords in the Piacenza area, see the evidence published in Documenti degli archivi di Pavia, n. 54 (a. 1184), pp. 150–1; and n. 55 (a. 1184), pp. 161; in the 1110s even a well-established authority with princely ambitions such as counts of the Canavese in Piedmont could impose (or seek to impose) albergariae on minor lords in the area: see the 1114 document transcribed in Una cronaca inedita, pp. 83–4. For a later example from the Marche, see Liber iurium, n. 51 (a. 1146), pp. 103–5.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

24  The Seigneurial Transformation had foregone their prerogatives over the residents of Moggiona, subject to the abbey of Camaldoli, in 1098, nonetheless continued to exact an annual tribute of forty solidi from them: a levy connected to the acknowledgement of the Guidi’s political superiority.99 Equally significant is the evidence pertaining to the establishment of genuine networks of princely officials. A document drafted in Fermo in the early decades of the twelfth century shows that the fifteen-odd castles directly controlled by the bishop of Fermo, which had not been granted in benefice to any local aristocrats, were each governed by a viscount or a gastald. The latter, moreover, were expected to make a series of periodical payments to their lord, so as to confirm the dele­ gated nature of the power they exercised.100 Likewise, two documents drafted in Piedmont in 1131 and 1137 clearly show that the rights enjoyed by the counts of Savoy in the lower Susa Valley were effectively exercised through a network of officials that included viscounts, castellans, gastalds, praepositi (stewards) and clusarii (probably men in charge of tolls), but also simple custodes pratorum (war­ dens of meadows).101 Along much the same lines, the texts from Farfa show that already by the last decade of the eleventh century the great lords were not just perfectly aware of the fact that it was better for them to maintain direct control over their castles rather than grant them in benefice, but also that it was far more expedient to entrust men of humble rank with guardianship duties than highranking individuals, as the former were easier for the lord to control.102 We also have some interesting evidence concerning the control and redistribu­ tion of economic resources. Around 1130, to cater for the great celebrations for the consecration of their family monastery of Rosarno, near Florence, the Guidi counts ordered wheat from as far as Modigliana, in Romagna, which was located roughly 70km away. This major castle, probably the most important centre in the Guidi’s domain at the time, was therefore a hub for the accumulation and redistri­ bution of resources, including agricultural resources, on a very wide scale, within

99  Documenti per la storia dei conti Guidi, n. 99 (a. 1098), pp. 147–8; and n. 191 (a. 1146), pp. 258–9; see Collavini, ‘Le basi economiche’. 100  Liber iurium, n. 30 (a. 1178 c. but aa. 1112–27 c.), pp. 53–5. The editor has dated this text to around 1178 (when Fermo was destroyed). However, a much earlier date is suggested by the fact that the document—which was no doubt intended to be exhaustive—makes no mention of the officials in charge of several castles (e.g. Montesanto) directly governed by the local bishops, as attested by un­broken evidence from the late 1130s onwards. In my opinion, the deed was drafted some time between 1112 and 1127. As regards the terminus post quem, this is set by the absence from the list of the vicecomites of the major episcopal castle of Agello, which that year was given in emphyteutic lease to the (imperial) margraves, the Guarnerii. Between the 1080s and 1112, Agello was governed by epis­ copal viscounts: see Liber iurium, n. 43 (a. 1086), pp. 78–80. The term ante quem is instead based on the absence from the list of the viscount or gastald of the episcopal castle of Montesanto, erected in 1128, and later brought under the direct control of the bishops of Fermo via his officials: see Liber iurium, n. 108 (a. 1128), pp. 231–3. 101  Cartario della abazia di S. Solutore, n. 29 (a. 1131), p. 52; Documenti inediti e sparsi sulla storia di Torino, n. 11 (a. 1137), p. 10; a discussion of these texts in Sergi, Potere e territorio, pp. 126–7. 102  Il Regesto di Farfa, V, n. 1122 (a. 1090 c.), p. 123.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

Civil Wars  25 the area under the political control of this dynasty of counts. This clearly also shows the capacity of the princely authorities to control economic resources.103 Indeed, it might be hypothesized that the almost complete disappearance of silos for the stocking of grain in Tuscany from the late eleventh century onwards—as clearly attested by the archaeological record—and the increasingly frequent refer­ ences in the written sources to wooden ‘arks’ (movable containers) is associated with these processes of concentration of agricultural resources in major sei­gneur­ ial centres, including both principalities and territorial lordships. The reason for this is that the centres in question were easier to defend and were more directly controlled by their lord.104 In this respect, it is interesting to note the presence of new, large silos as late as the early twelfth century in the ‘capital’ of a principality, Tusculum. These silos were located in the area most closely controlled by the lords: an element, also attested elsewhere, which might be taken to suggest that these structures were concentrated in the ‘central places’ of lords, precisely in view of the centralized accumulation and redistribution of the resources produced within the framework of major domains.105 These combined processes made principalities something different from and more complex than a mere sum of individual seigneurial centres developed around castles. The structure of the lords’ power was probably weaker than the one which emerged later on; the mechanisms of accountability we first encounter around year 1200 were still missing; and the modes of enlisting the minor aristocracy were less cogent than those developed in later decades. Nonetheless, already by the early twelfth century princes were experimenting with ways of rationally man­ aging their estates from a political and economic standpoint. As we have seen, only families from the lay high aristocracy, who already held public rights, and bishops were able to establish genuine principalities. The moment in which a crisis emerged and the old order broke down, those actors who were already exercising seigneurial powers and controlling extensive and compact stretches of the countryside obviously found themselves in an advantageous pos­ ition to become leaders in the process of recomposition of the political structures. However, it is worth noting that not all the great families of counts and margraves— or all bishops, even—were able to exploit to the same degree the opportunities provided by the crisis, which no doubt constituted a drastic moment for the selec­ tion of political actors. Finally, monastic lordships represent an altogether differ­ ent case, as they essentially proved incapable of establishing genuine principalities. 103  I più antichi documenti del monastero di S. Maria di Rosano, Depositiones in lite (a. 1203), pp. 242–86, esp. p. 267. 104  On this see Collavini, ‘Le basi economiche e materiali’. On the disappearance of silos and the increasing documentary references to ‘arks’, see Collavini, ‘Luoghi e contenitori’. 105  See Beolchini, Delogu, ‘La nobiltà romana altomedievale’, p. 160; Beolchini, Tusculum II, pp. 374–5. There is archaeological evidence, at the middle of twelfth century, of another great silo in a princely ‘central place’, Poggibonsi, in central Tuscany, ruled by the Guidi; on this Francovich and Valenti (eds.), Poggio imperiale, pp. 136–7.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

26  The Seigneurial Transformation Nevertheless, up until 1130 certain abbeys, particularly in central Italy, such as Farfa, Subiaco, Ferentillo and San Dalmazzo di Pedona, succeeded in develop­ ing ‘medium’ lordships (5–10 castles), or in the case of Farfa, two.106 For most monasteries, which often owned considerable patrimonies, with extensive estates in particular areas, the civil war stage marked a dramatic patrimonial crisis, which played into the hands of lay aristocrats (often the concessionaires themselves) as well as bishops. The Langhe region in southern Piedmont offers a good example of this trend. In the early decades of the eleventh century, the monasteries of Breme/Novalesa and Fruttuaria owned over fifteen castles and curtes (estates) in the area;107 by the mid-twelfth century, the abbey of Breme owned merely two settlements, Pollenzo and San Giorgio, whereas Fruttuaria only controlled the castle of Serralunga, which actually fell under the jurisdiction of the Del Vasto family. By this date, the lands of the monastery had fallen squarely into the hands of local families—at least partly descending from monastic fideles—or of the bishop of Alba.108 The great monasteries essentially failed in their attempt to convert their vast patrimonies into ‘princely’ cores of seigneurial power, something which Fulda and Saint Gall were instead able to achieve north of the Alps.109 One possible explan­ ation for this failure is the loss of royal patronage in the turbulent period of civil war. The monasteries had largely developed as the centres of rural political entities through their symbiotic relationship with the public authorities. The collapse of the latter brought about a drastic and difficult process of reorganization, which is particularly evident in the rich sources pertaining to Farfa. The sources from Farfa and the Subiaco Chronicon clearly show that most aristocratic beneficial holders of monastic castra, especially those located far from the heart of monastic domains, took advantage of the political crisis to sever any links with the abbots, exploiting their local power to establish themselves as full owner.110 When this 106  On the territorial lordship of the abbey of Ferentillo, see Orazi, L’abbazia di Ferentillo; on the lordship of the abbots of San Dalmazzo in the Gesso Valley, and in the low Vermenagna Valley, see Marro, ‘Valdieri, Andonno’. The territorial lordship of Farfa was strucured, by 1100, in two different territorial blocks; one centered on the abbey of Farfa, in Latium, and the other around Offida, in the southern Marche; on the latter, see Laudadio, ‘Farfa e le autonomie locali’; we miss a monographic study on the former, but we can use Stroll, The Medieval Abbey, pp. 157–231; and Wickham, ‘The origins of the signoria’. On the lordship of Subiaco, see Toubert, Les structures du Latium, passim. 107  On the many possessions of Fruttuaria in this area (among which the curtes scilicet castella, estates or castles, of Serralunga, Borgomale, Barbaresco, Colombero, and Montorsino) a good snap­ shot in the imperial grant of 1014, Diplomata Henrici II, n. 302 (a. 1014), p. 381; for a detailed analysis of Fruttuaria’s lands, see Sanna, Conduzione fondiaria, pp. 61–99; e Lucioni, Presenze fruttuariensi. On the acquisition of the castles of Verduno and Roddi by the abbey of Breme/Novalesa, see La Cronaca di Novalesa, pp. 290–2; on Pollenzo, pp. 290–3; the ownership of these castles, and of other lands and rights (fishing rights, tolls, port dues on Tanaro River) were confirmed by Henry III in 1048, in a diploma: Diplomata Henrici III, n. 214 (a. 1048), pp. 285–7. 108  For an overview of the political setup near Alba around year 1150, see Albesano, ‘La costruzione politica’, pp. 90–100. 109 Franke, Studien zur Geschichte der Fuldaer Äbte; Robinson, Die Fürstabtei St. Gallen, pp. 6–25. 110  Chronicon sublacense, pp. 12–18; Chronicon farfense, II, pp. 205–34.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

Civil Wars  27 occurred in areas close to seigneurial centres governed by monks, the latter sometimes reacted by taking up arms in an effort to forcibly regain control of the usurped estates. This was the case with the energetic abbot of Subiaco Giovanni, who engaged in prolonged and exhausting wars against his rebellious fideles. When the same process occurred in more peripheral areas, the monasteries—by now deprived of the royal support they had traditionally enjoyed—simply lacked any means to react and could do nothing but passively look on. While the monasteries failed in their attempt to establish themselves as centres of political recomposition, this was not the case with urban communities, which in this period clearly started emerging as autonomous political actors. We will be examining these complex dynamics in greater detail in Chapter 5, to which I will refer for a more in-depth discussion. Here I only wish to note that up until the 1120s even urban communities—with some significant exceptions—had rather limited success. Only a dozen or so large centres (such as Milan, Pavia, Pisa and Genoa) were able to establish extensive domains early on—often overlapping with the old comital districts—by imposing their hegemony over minor political centres.111 Most urban communities instead only succeeded in controlling far more limited areas, usually within a dozen kilometres from the urban walls (but more often less than that), in some case also gaining control of a few isolated rural centres located further away.112 Moreover, as late as the end of the 1120s many cities, especially in central Italy, lacked any genuine political autonomy and were variously governed by the bishops (Treviso, Volterra, Fermo) or, more rarely, by lay lords (Ventimiglia, Verona, Palestrina). In other words, the situation was rather different from the one which Frederick Barbarossa was to face only a few decades later, in the mid-twelfth century.113 With the exception of present-day Lombardy, the territories in which the nascent principalities exercised their hegemony were markedly superior to those governed by urban communities; in some cases, such as Tuscany, the situation was a balanced one. Indeed, while the process that was eventually to lead urban communes to dominate the rural pol­it­ical landscape was already well underway, at least in certain areas, its outcomes still seemed far from inevitable or certain.

1.4  On the apparent irrationality of dynastic strategies: political plans and family tensions Before bringing this section on processes of political fragmentation and recom­ position to a close, I wish to take a brief detour and examine a topic that was only 111  On Pisa, Ronzani, Chiesa e civitas; on Genoa, Bordone, ‘Le origini del comune’. 112  For a more detailed discussion, see section 5.1. 113  See section 5.1; for the situation at middle of twelfth century, see Otto and Rahewinus, Gesta Friderici, II, 13, p. 116.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

28  The Seigneurial Transformation mentioned in the previous pages, namely the relation between family planning strategies and political plans. This relation is of crucial importance to the success or failure of the nascent princely projects involving many aristocratic families in this period. Besides, it must be noted that similar considerations apply, if on a smaller scale, to a much broader range of territorial lordships. As already noted, the success of these political projects would appear to be closely connected to the capacity of a kinship group to keep its patrimony undivided and to entrust it to a single heir each generation. After all, the potential of a princely polity that could rely on twenty castles or so was very different from that of three ‘medium’ lordships, each controlling half a dozen castles. The former could aspire to become the cata­ lyst for a process of territorial aggregation in a rather extensive area, while the latter could not, given that they lacked the critical mass required.114 It is important to stress that these patrimonial outcomes were not always due to mere biological chance, but resulted from conscious family planning choices. As is well known, one of the features of the Italian aristocracy of the early and high middle ages was the presence of succession rules based on (at least the­or­et­ic­ al­ly) equal division among male heirs. Obviously, this implied a constant threat to the management of family patrimonies, which at every new generation were likely to be split. The high birthrate and low infant mortality rates compared to lower classes often led to the presence of three or more adult male heirs at the time of death of a lord: a situation that within a few generations could bring about a considerable degree of fragmentation of a family’s patrimony. In the face of these trends, from early on the Italian aristocracy adopted a number of solutions designed to minimize the risk of patrimonial fragmentation and dispersion. Over the last few decades these technique have been the object of more or less specific reflections, from Cinzio Violante’s studies to the more recent contribu­ tion by Sandro Carocci.115 As regards the period at the turn of the twelfth century, this appears to be dominated by an at least partial attempt to limit the prolifer­ ation of family branches, by promoting the reproduction of firstborns alone (or at any rate of just one male heir), as attested by the cases of the Guidi, Aldobrandeschi, Monferrato and Biandrate comital (or margravial) families.116 While the need to limit patrimonial dispersion had already been felt in earlier years, it became even stronger in a period in which large landed patrimonies were being converted into polities, opening up new and turbulent fields of action. This strategy was required in order to fully exploit the political potential offered by control over a large num­ ber of castles and villages. Of course, it also posed certain risks, which are quite evident in the case of the Cadolingi, one of the leading aristocratic dynasties in Tuscany, in the early twelfth century. The family had four male brothers who had 114  On this topic, an important discussion in Collavini, ‘I signori rurali in Italia’. 115  Violante, ‘Alcune caratteristiche’; Carocci, ‘Genealogie nobiliari’. 116 Collavini, Honorabilis domus, pp. 81–8.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

Civil Wars  29 reached adulthood; of these, three were unmarried and were evidently juniors, while the fourth brother, Uguccione, would appear to have been married and was clearly destined to become the leader of the dynasty. However, all the junior sons died prematurely and the eldest brother’s marital union proved barren. From a political standpoint, the outcome was disastrous, as it led—partly in accordance with the count’s testamentary dispositions—to the dismemberment of the dynas­ ty’s patrimony and to the outbreak of a violent war between aristocratic families and the episcopal authorities over control of the Cadolingian inheritance.117 A variation of this strategy of patrimonial management that was adopted, albeit infrequently, in order to minimize these risks was to allow some junior sons (but not all) to start their own lineage. However, based on specific agreements within the kinship group, the junior sons in question would only be assigned a very small share of the family patrimony. This was the case, for instance, with the Arduinic branch of the margraves of Romagnano, as well as with different branches within the Aleramic kinship group.118 Another course of action, adopted only by a minority of families, was to pre­ serve the existing patrimony, while dividing it into shares owned by the heirs, who would manage it as a consortium. However, as illustrated by the example of the Del Vasto family and, on a smaller scale, by that of the Gisalbertini of Bergamo and Rapizoni of Todi (in Umbria), this solution presented considerable difficul­ ties in terms of management, particularly as power became increasingly ter­ri­tor­ ialized. Within a more or less short time, it was likely to translate into an actual division of a family’s territory among its various branches.119 It is no coincidence that, in the period under consideration, the descendent of some major margravial dynasties that had many branches, such as the Obertenghi and Aleramici, instead resorted to various agreements and transactions within their own kinship group in order to rationalize their patrimony, by eliminating or limiting as far as pos­ sible the more or less numerous estates that were owned in indiviso (undivided), so as to clearly lay out which area belonged to which family.120 The tendency towards first-born inheritance—de facto, if not de iure—was widespread yet not universal. Even families who tended to systematically adopt such practice could make exceptions now and then, thereby splitting their patri­ mony, as was for instance the case with the Aleramic lord Bonifacio Del Vasto or 117  Pescaglini Monti, ‘I conti Cadolingi’. 118  Tarpino, ‘I marchesi di Romagnano’; Provero, Dai marchesi del Vasto, pp. 77–85. 119  On the Gisalbertini, see Menant, ‘Les Giselbertines’; on the Rapizoni, see Fiore, ‘Strategie dinas­ tiche’, in which I discuss this issue more in depth. 120  Nobili, ‘L’evoluzione delle dominazioni’; at the beginning of twelfth century Malaspina and Pelavicino made several mutual exchanges of castles in the Po Valley and in the mountains south of Parma and Piacenza, to compact and rationalize their territorial lordships; on these swaps, see Documenti degli archivi di Pavia, n. 55 (a. 1184), pp. 161; for a reference to other swaps between differ­ ent branch of the Obertenghi kin-group, see Il regesto del codice Pelavicino, n. 50 (a. 1124), pp. 72–8. On Monferrato and Del Vasto, see Provero, Dai marchesi del Vasto, pp. 77–85.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

30  The Seigneurial Transformation with the Obertenghi margraves of Massa-Corsica in the 1130s.121 While first-born inheritance was the predominant practice, the law called for an equal div­ision of the inheritance; hence, it was easy to contravene the rules adopted by a family and split a patrimony among all those legally entitled to it. The irrationality of these choices, always a prelude to the weakening of a dynasty’s power, is all too evident. Even a single exception to the usual mode of regulation could have fatal conse­ quences for a family’s political future, by significantly reducing its scope for action. Having ascertained this much, we must now examine the at least apparent irration­ ality of these exceptions, given that the consequences of such choices could hardly be ignored by witnesses at the time, less still by those actually responsible for them. I will therefore focus my attention on a couple of specific cases that will allow us to more concretely investigate the limits of these organizational strategies, and in particular the emergence of marked tensions between individual aspirations and family choices.122 I trust that this operation will help us to better contextualize and understand the inconsistencies that emerge from an analysis of the behaviour of aristocratic dynasties. By closely examining these dynamics it will also be possible to grasp one of the reasons for the relative rarity of territorial principalities in the Italian context, at any rate considering the potential associated with large landed patrimonies in the first half of the eleventh century.123 The dramatic irreconcilability between individual aspirations and choices motivated by family interests clearly emerges in the case of Rainerio, a member of the family of Marchiones descending from the margrave of Tuscany Rainerio (I). The latter controlled a vast complex of estates between eastern Tuscany and north-western Umbria, where in the last decades of the eleventh century the fam­ ily started acquiring explicitly seigneurial powers.124 From the late tenth century onwards the Marchiones adopted a very strict family policy, avoiding any form of patrimonial fragmentation, at any rate up until the death of margrave Ugo in the late 1050s. Ugo’s brothers (Gerardo and Sassone), for instance, were almost cer­ tainly forced to emigrate to pontifical Latium, where they established themselves around 1040, foregoing their rights over the family inheritance.125 The margrave died leaving three male sons, who in all likelihood had just reached adulthood: Rainerio, Enrico, and Ugo. The last of these died shortly afterwards, probably before marrying and certainly before siring any children. In 1067 Rainerio (II) would appear to have recently wed one comitissa Guilla, as suggested by a letter 121  On the Del Vasto, see below; on the division in three parts of the patrimony of the margraves of Massa-Corsica, after a long period of undivided management, see Nobili, ‘Le signorie territoriali’. 122  On this issue the reference is Bizzocchi, In famiglia. 123  On untapped political potential of many lordships (with a focus on central Italy), see Collavini, ‘I signori rurali in Italia’. 124  On this family the best work is Tiberini, ‘Origini e radicamento’. I will however propose a differ­ ent reconstruction of the events about the sons of Ugo, not effectively explained by Tiberini. Where not otherwise specified I will however refer to this article. 125 Wickham, Medieval Rome, pp. 216–18.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

Civil Wars  31 this woman received from Pier Damiani;126 shortly afterwards it seems as though a son was born to the couple who bore the same name as his father and who by 1090 was a married adult. Probably in the same year Rainerio’s brother Enrico married; in 1078 his sons were still minors, while by 1084 the eldest had reached adulthood and married.127 We do not know for sure which of the margrave’s sons was destined to become the leader of the dynasty. However, judging from the use of the family names Rainerio and Ugo, it is plausible that the eldest son was one of these two. Indeed, it is quite possible that the eldest son was Ugo and that only his untimely death cut his leadership of the dynasty short. Significantly, both the brothers who outlived Ugo married and remained in the area where the family was rooted: an action that went directly against the long-standing traditions of this dynasty. The two brothers, moreover, chose to split the patrimony rather than jointly manage it. The creation of two new families, therefore, went hand in hand with a division of the inheritance. However, this process was fraught with ten­ sions: it is likely that the elder brother (probably Rainerio) felt somewhat cheated of his right to family leadership by his brother’s choice. Not only that, but his occurred in a context in which there were no members of the previous generation of the family who could act as intermediaries, since they were all either dead (the father, the mother, and the paternal aunt) or far away (the paternal uncles). Such tensions had a dramatic outcome: Rainerio killed his brother Enrico with his own hands.128 The exact circumstances of this murder are unknown, but it must have occurred in 1074 or a few years before. The fact that Rainerio not merely instigated the murder but carried it out in person is unambiguously stated in the available sources.129 What we do not know is whether the murder was planned or merely an impulsive act. Certainly, Rainerio’s later actions clearly reveal the connection between the murder and patrimonial relations within the family. As punishment for the margrave’s crime, a heavy penance was imposed on him by the Church, which included abstention from sexual intercourse. However, after an initial and short-lived stage in which Rainerio would seem to have pas­ sively accepted his punishment, perhaps simply in an attempt to calm things down after the misdeed, the margrave, who had become a widower, chose to infringe his obligations and marry a new wife.130 The prospects of securing a future for his lineage, now that he was a widower with only one male son, must have seemed 126  Pier Damiani, Die Briefe, I, n. 143 (a. 1066), pp. 522–4. This letter is imbued with the hatred of Roman pro-reform party towards the Marchiones; see D’Acunto, I laici nella chiesa, pp. 332–7. 127  This division, occurred when the two brothers were alive, is mentioned in Documenti per la storia di Arezzo, I, n. 230 (a. 1079), p. 321. 128  Register Gregors VII., II, n. 48 (a. 1075), pp. 188. This text (written in January) mentions the murder and the penitence inflicted to Rainerio, and also his decision to take a new wife; it’s plausible that the murder took place at least six months before. The werra with the sister-in-law is not men­ tioned in this text, therefore it began later. 129  Register Gregors VII., V, n. 14a (a. 1078), p. 371 (manum suum). 130  Register Gregors VII, II, n. 48 (a. 1075), p. 188.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

32  The Seigneurial Transformation too slim to him. That of Rainerio was a genuine challenge, but his subsequent actions show even more clearly what family and patrimonial tensions lay behind the murder. Rainerio embarked on a genuine war against his sister-in-law, the guardian of his nephews, who were still minors at the time. First he attempted to seize her castles and estates. Then he attempted to use his position as the only adult male in the family to gain control over his father’s patrimony as a whole, ousting the other heirs, who were still minors. The attempt was not entirely suc­ cessful and Rainerio had to agree to sharing the patrimony with his sister-in-law and nephews.131 What is also interesting is the reaction to this unquestionably problematic event within the margrave’s social milieu. Rainerio’s actions earned him the enmity of Gregory VII and the bishops loyal to him, who already showed a certain mis­ trust towards the kinship group as a whole. By contrast, the Imperial party was quite willing to accept the margrave within its ranks. A few years after the murder, Rainerio, who had consolidated his position at the local level, was appointed duke of Spoleto by the emperor. He proved himself to be a worthy collaborator of Henry IV and he is mentioned among other witnesses in imperial charters. Rainerio also supported the sovereign in his military enterprises, although he was prevented from reaping the benefits of this leading political role from his untimely death for natural causes in 1085.132 The fact that Rainerio had murdered his brother with his own hands and had sought to disinherit the latter’s sons while they were still in their infancy did not lead to his marginalization with respect to his aristocratic group, which evidently was willing to tolerate—or even justify— such behaviour. However, the cold hand of fate scotched Rainerio’s dynastic plans: his second wedding, if it was ever celebrated at all, proved barren, while his only male son, who bore the same name as his father, died at the turn of the twelfth century leaving no direct heirs. This enabled the reunification of the family patri­ mony at the hands of margrave Ugo (one of Enrico’s two sons) and the establish­ ment of a genuine territorial principality in northern Umbria, which was to survive until the early thirteenth century.133 Whereas Rainerio’s case is one of conflict between brothers, that of Bonifacio Del Vasto concerns the dynamics between parents and their offspring. Bonifacio belonged to one of the main branches of the great Aleramic dynasty of margraves, active in the area between western Liguria and southern Piedmont since the tenth century. He was one of the five sons of Tete (or Ottone, dead in 1063 c.) to have reached adulthood—possibly the second-born. In all likelihood, the eldest was 131  Register Gregors VII, V, n. 14a (a. 1078), p. 371. 132  On his political activity and his relationship with Henry IV, see Fiore, Signori e sudditi, pp. 48–9. On his death, Bernold of Konstanz, Chronicon, pp. 453–4, which contains also a harsh opinion on him by a supporter of Roman pro-reform party; on the hostility of this group towards the family, see also Pier Damiani, Die Briefe, n. 143 (a. 1066), pp. 522–4. 133  On this first phase of the history of the family, see Tiberini, ‘I marchesi di Colle’.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

Civil Wars  33 Anselm, the only son who would appear to have been married by the late 1070s, and who had sired one son and one or more daughters. Evidently, he was destined to become the head of the family, according to dynamics that had already become well-established in the previous generations.134 However, both Anselmo and Manfredo died within a short time from one another (or even on the same occa­ sion perhaps), while engaging in armed conflict.135 Bonifacio, therefore, found himself suddenly propelled from the role of junior son to head of the family. The first action he took is highly revealing: he married the widow of his dead brother, despite prohibition from the Church.136 He thereby asserted himself as the new leader of the kinship group and confirmed the bonds of allegiance with the bride’s family, which were clearly of crucial importance in this period of armed conflict with other polities. The immediately following years witnessed the consolidation of Bonifacio’s role, who became one of the key players on the regional political stage. Even the marriage with his sister-in-law proved fruitful, despite the problems it caused with the ecclesiastical authorities. Of the children born from this marital union, however, only one male, named after his father (the future Bonifacio of Incisa) and one female, reached adulthood. Bonifacio’s nephews, the sons of his deceased brother, were removed from the subalpine area, so as to avoid any com­ petition in the future, through prestigious marriages within the Norman court in Palermo.137 Meanwhile, following the death of Bonifacio’s aunt Adelaide of Turin (1091), a military conflict broke out in Piedmont over her inheritance. The margrave was one of the main claimants, on account of his relation to Adelaide, the material resources at his disposal, and his political ties. He plunged headlong into the fray. In the same years, Bonifacio’s wedding came to an end; the margrave either divorced his wife (as Piedmontese scholars have argued on the basis of rather late sources), possibly yielding to ecclesiastical pressure, or was made a widower. What we know for sure is that he immediately chose to remarry, in this case with Agnes, the daughter of the count of Vermandois, one of the leading representatives of the northern French aristocracy.138 The choice to remarry was possibly also motiv­ ated by the margrave’s awareness that he did not have enough male heirs to secure the future of his lineage (as his own family history suggested). The marriage proved a very prolific one and produced a large brood of males. The first-born, Manfredo, had reached adulthood by the early 1120s. Shortly after 1100 Bonifacio (later to be known as Bonifacio of Incisa), the first-born son from the margrave’s first marriage and a young man at the time, joined his father in military oper­ ations in central and southern Piedmont. It was within this context of warfare 134 Provero, Dai marchesi del Vasto, pp. 81–7. 135  Register Gregors VII., VII, n. 9 (a. 1079), pp. 470–1. 136  Register Gregors VII., VII, n. 9 (a. 1079), pp. 470–1. 137  Goffredo Malaterra, De rebus gestis Rogerii, p. 93; see also Bresc, ‘Gli Aleramici in Sicilia’. 138 Provero, Dai marchesi del Vasto, p. 87.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

34  The Seigneurial Transformation that he hatched his plan for betrayal. As Bonifacio Del Vasto himself recalls in the testament he drew up in 1125, the young man betrayed his father and handed him over to his ‘mortal enemies’, along with some important castles with which he had been entrusted.139 The margrave was only set free after prolonged negoti­ ations and finally succeeded in establishing himself as the dominant lord across much of southern Piedmont. The reasons for this betrayal are not explicitly stated, but the content of the testament and the later events allow us to formulate a well-founded hypothesis. The 1125 testamentary disposition called for the equal division of Bonifacio’s patri­ mony among his numerous male sons; Bonifacio of Incisa alone was excluded, precisely on account of his past betrayal.140 It was only thanks to his mother’s estates that his descendants were able to establish an independent centre of power around Incisa, after making peace with their cousins.141 Moreover, it seems as though in the following years all of the other sons of Bonifacio Del Vasto were married and had children: they became the forebears of some of the leading aris­ tocratic households in the area, such as the margraves of Saluzzo and the Del Carretto family. In other words, the exclusion of the treacherous son did not lead to the choice of privileged heir from among the sons from Bonifacio’s second marriage, who would reunite his father’s patrimony, as had usually been the case with the Aleramici. Rather, the choice was made to equally divide the inheritance. Possibly this decision by the margrave was also influenced by his own experience of being a junior son: Bonifacio may have wished to spare his sons the same fate. Of course, we do not know whether this egalitarian attitude to his sons was already manifest at the time of Bonifacio of Incisa’s betrayal. However, precisely in view of the latter’s choice, it must have been quite clear by then that someone other than him was intended to become the leader of the family. Certainly, Bonifacio del Vasto’s second wife—the daughter of one of the most prominent noble families from across the Alps—must have been unwilling to accept the prospect that her stepson would become the head of the family, thereby forcing her own sons to play a secondary role and depriving them of the possibility of establishing lin­ eages of their own. If this hypothesis is correct, it is possible to view Bonifacio of Incisa’s betrayal as a radical, if ultimately counter-productive, act of protest by someone who felt he had been cheated of his rights over his father’s inheritance, to the benefit of his half-brothers; someone who refused to be merely ‘one’ of the heirs as opposed to ‘the sole’ heir. Be that as it may, it is significant that even in a situation of this sort Bonifacio of Incisa avoided the stain of parricide by merely handing over his father to the enemy.

139  The betrayal is narrated in the testament of Bonifacio del Vasto, written in 1125; it’s edited in Manuel De San Quintino, Osservazioni critiche, p. 99. 140  Manuel De San Quintino, Osservazioni critiche, p. 99. 141  On the origins of the margraves of Incisa, see Albenga, Il Marchesato d’Incisa, pp. 4–22.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

Civil Wars  35 The whole episode also shows, for once, the complex tangle of relations, feelings of affection and personal events that might lie behind a father’s choice to trans­ gress established family traditions and to effectively divide his inheritance: a choice that was destined to have weighty consequences for the political future of Piedmont and western Liguria. Whereas in the following decades a united princi­ pality might have constituted the centre for a wide-scale process of political aggregation—notwithstanding the difficulties connected to its government—the polities that emerged from its partition, such as those in the hands of the Saluzzo and Del Carretto families, had far more limited political horizons. Another branch of the Aleramic kinship group, the Monferrato family, strictly kept to the prin­ ciple of first-born inheritance. Because of this, although around 1100 it enjoyed far more limited political power compared to Bonifacio, within a few decades it was able to establish a more successful principality than the heirs of the margrave Del Vasto.142 We must not take these cases as exemplary ones, although other more or less similar cases are to be found.143 Rather, the value of these cases lies in the fact that provide a glimpse of certain difficulties associated with the adoption of ‘rational’ family policies, which is to say ones designed to ensure the undivided transmis­ sion of a patrimony. These policies required a considerable degree of discipline among the members of a family, who had to be willing to sacrifice their own per­ sonal aspirations for their dynasty’s sake. Junior sons were expected to choose celibacy or have barren marriages, and hence to forgo any progeny. Fathers were expected to favour one son over the others. The cases of Bonifacio and Rainerio effectively illustrate the marked tensions that such practices engendered in the mutual relations between family members. The price to pay in terms of personal aspirations, ties of affection and relations within a family were evidently perceived by those involved as being too high, at least sometimes; this led to deeply dys­ functional choices, at any rate from a dynastic perspective. A man’s aspiration to be something more than a junior son and to start a lineage of his own; the broken expectations of those who felt they were destined to become the leaders of their family; the affection of a father who did not wish to favour one son over the ­others, with the risk of triggering a war between his heirs: these (and others still) were the reasons behind many—if not all—of those acts of patrimonial fragmentation which strike us as irrational and deeply dysfunctional from a political perspec­ tive. Moreover, all these tensions were strengthened by the fact that in principle

142  Banfo, ‘Da Aleramo a Guglielmo’. 143  These issues are discussed in depth in Fiore, ‘Strategie dinastiche’; I would mention here only the armed conflict between the margrave Oberto Pelavicino and his son Dalfino (almost certainly a junior son). The son injured Oberto, and in another occasion tried to take him prisoner, allying with the bishop of Parma, responsible of the killing in battle of his own brother Tancredi; all these events are remembered (with bitterness) by Oberto in his treaty of alliance with Piacenza; see Il Registrum Magnum, n. 150 (a. 1145), pp. 310–13.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

36  The Seigneurial Transformation (yet not in practice) the law supported the equal division of inheritances: for this reason, the option of first-born inheritance required a strong sense of discipline on the part of all the actors involved. However, these choices, which can be regarded as motivated more by affection and personal aspiration than by lucid political-patrimonial considerations, had very significant consequences. They led to the fragmentation of different centres of power that could have become the kernels of future territorial principalities, thereby paving the way for the dominant role which urban communes were to play in the process of political recomposition in the late twelfth century. In this chapter I have chosen to adopt a ‘bottom-down’ approach to the problem of the political redefinition of the political context in the Italian countryside of the years under consideration, by focusing on the nature of the projects pursued by aristocratic actors and on their transformation. What has emerged is a context marked by profound changes, by a high degree of instability, and by fluid balances. A period of maximum fragmentation, probably to be identified with that between the mid-1080s and the mid-1090s, was followed by a series of attempts at territorial recomposition carried out by a wide range of actors in a conflictual fashion and with outcomes that varied from case to case. While many of the social actors ­ ishops), the framework involved were traditional figures (margraves, counts, and b in which they acted was a radically new one. With some exceptions, their political plans were generally independent of the old balances and rested on new, more dynamic and fluid, foundations. Before narrowing down the focus of our analysis and observing the concrete repercussions of the crisis on local power balances and the actual modes in which power was exercised, it is necessary to address a problem that has at least partly been overlooked in the recent historiography: the specific role played by the empire with respect to the political crisis, and in particular the short- and long-term consequences of the policies promoted by the last Salian rulers in Italy.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

2

Imperial Power Crisis and Transformation

Before we set out to examine strictly local dynamics, I believe it is important to analyse in greater detail the role of imperial power within the context of political crisis and fragmentation. In the previous pages I repeatedly referred to the actions of Henry IV and his son, Henry V, yet without ever attempting to outline their political action within the kingdom of Italy.1 The present chapter is designed to fill this gap. Imperial policies, like the responses to them on the part of local forces, constitute a genuine litmus test to more clearly identify the trans­form­ations affecting political balances in Italy. It is not always easy to grasp the as­pir­ations and plans of the kings/emperors, who were constantly facing political challenges, emergencies, and revolts. Nonetheless, it is possible to identify certain lines of conduct—marked by a significant degree of discontinuity compared to the past— which show that the emperors were not merely interested in restoring the lost order, but were seeking innovative solutions to deal with the new political balances in the kingdom. Royal power should not be seen simply as a victim of the political crisis that broke out in the late eleventh century, by adopting an interpretation distorted by a teleological perspective; rather, it is necessary to assign this power a leading role on the Italian political stage. This troubled stage was perceived by the imperial authorities not just as a threat to themselves and to their traditional supremacy, but also as an op­por­tun­ ity to break free from the bonds of the old political system, so as to attain new and direct access to the kingdom of Italy and its resources. In pursuing this interpretative perspective, I will focus on the concrete resources and on the political infra­ structure of the last Salian rulers in Italy, in an effort to fill a gap in the recent historiography on these topics. I will instead leave aside the problems connected to symbolic communication and to the relationship with the papacy, two topics which have polarized research in recent decades.2 In this regard, it must be noted

1  Research has only recently rediscovered Henry V; see the important Lubich (ed.), Heinrich V. in seiner Zeit. Regarding our topic, note the very important article in that volume by Goetz, ‘Zwischen Reichszugehörigkeit und Eigenständigkeit’. 2  See for example, Weinfurter, ‘Reformidee und Königtum’; Althoff, Heinrich IV.; D’Acunto, L’età dell’obbedienza; Cantarella, Pasquale II.

The Seigneurial Transformation: Power Structures and Political Communication in the Countryside of Central and Northern Italy, 1080–1130. Alessio Fiore, Oxford University Press (2020). © Alessio Fiore. DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198825746.001.0001

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

38  The Seigneurial Transformation that, in relation to our period, the expression ‘royal infrastructure’ chiefly refers to those centres under the direct control of the royal authorities. However, what makes it particularly difficult to investigate the royal fisc, its size and its use are the social practices connected to it. A recent and important study by Simone Collavini and Paolo Tomei has shown that those estates belonging to the fiscus (be it royal, margravial or comital) were granted and transmitted on the basis of oral practices, by contrast to private lands.3 A text (proclamatio) composed by the Tuscan monastery of San Michele in Marturi (present-day Poggibonsi) in view of a dispute to be settled by the margrave of Tuscany Bonifacio of Canossa, around the mid-eleventh century, sheds light on this management system.4 Outlining the history of the monastery and its patrimony in the decades around 1000, this document shows that the institution, which had been founded by the margraves on public land, and the fiscal complex of which it was a part, were managed by the margraves of Tuscany and their local representatives not through written deeds, but exclusively through oral dispositions and grants of precaria (temporary concessions) which were not recorded in written documents. The monastic documents clearly show that the properties in question circulated widely among the margraves’ supporters, who in turn would transfer them to their clients as sub-concessions, always through oral dispositions and precaria, with no strictly feudal connotation. The text further notes that the use of writing for these forms of property transfer was strictly ruled out, as it would have violated the fiscal nature of the property, which could always be revoked by the public official, to prevent any patrimonialization attempt on the concessionaires’ part. The implications of this document are quite evident: we never have emphyteutic leases, libella or feudal concessions pertaining to these properties, by contrast to properties belonging to churches or lay aristocrats, but only the occasional mention of them in texts of a different nature or in charters. Hence, we are never able to gain a picture of these properties as they pass from the hands of the fiscus into those of powerful individuals. From this perspective, those fiscal estates con­ trolled by the king or public officials might be seen as genuine ‘black holes’ in our documentary evidence. Therefore, we must make the most of the scant data avail­ able in our sources. In this case too, to commence our investigation we must take a little step back, to the reign of Henry III, in an effort to understand what the features of royal power were in mid eleventh-century Italy, and how they were perceived by the sovereigns themselves.

3  Collavini and Tomei, ‘Beni fiscali e “scritturazione” ’. 4  This important text is edited and discussed in Collavini, ‘I beni fiscali in Tuscia’.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

Imperial Power  39

2.1  Henry III: realizing the limits of imperial power Around 1050, royal authority in the Italian context still played a somewhat contra­dict­ory role. On the one hand, it was still perceived as the ultimate source of all legitimate power, and its superiority was accepted by all political actors within the regnum. But from a practical standpoint, it had rather limited leeway and only proved an effective force when the king (and his army) found themselves south of the Alps.5 The emperor lacked a permanent structure and concrete basis for his power in the peninsula that might allow him to effectively control the political game in the kingdom of Italy during his absence. The monarchy still had substan­ tial landed estates, yet all—or almost all—these properties were de facto con­ trolled by Italian political actors, who acted as intermediaries between the central authorities and local societies. When in Germany, the emperor was forced to rely almost exclusively on Italian political actors. However, at this stage it was essentially impossible for the king to remove lay officials and replace them, even in the face of actual instances of dis­ loyalty. Things were not much better with bishops and abbots, even though the king preserved a certain degree of control over some episcopal cathedrals and royal monasteries. This situation must have been perceived as problematic even by the imperial leadership itself, given that in the reign of Henry III some attempts were made to transform it and create new political balances. It is precisely in the light of this that we must interpret certain tendencies, such as the establishment of more direct relations with local societies, both urban and rural. Communities of freemen had traditionally been regarded as the recipients of royal protection, and Henry III sought to make the most of this connection, not least by using the (in all likelihood) few curtes (estates) still under direct royal control as a means to increase imperial power. Some good guidance with respect to these processes is provided by the sov­ ereign’s action in Valcamonica, an Alpine valley in Lombardy, where he sought to exploit the important royal curtis of Darfo to establish strong bonds with the free communities in the area, and especially with the men of the Val di Scalve, by cutting off the major power-holders active in the area, such as the bishop of Bergamo.6 Moreover, Henry issued charters directly to urban communities, avoiding the traditional mediation of margraves and bishops, as is shown by the privileges he issued Mantua and Ferrara in 1055.7 Moreover, he attempted to promote the role of the king as the defender of freemen in the countryside, protecting them against the mounting pressure from big rural landowners. By confirming the privileges 5 Tabacco, The Struggle for Power, pp. 164–76. 6  Diplomata Henrici III, n. 199 (a. 1047), pp. 255–7; on this grant, see Menant, Campagnes lombardes, pp. 639–41. 7  Diplomata Henrici III, n. 351 (a. 1055), p. 478; n. 356 (a. 1055), p. 484.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

40  The Seigneurial Transformation and rights—established by local custom—of the homines of the Saccisica district, a vast rural area not far from Padua, he forestalled, at least temporarily, the attempt made by the prelate of Padua to impose a kind of seigneurial power over the local communities.8 The emperor also made an earnest attempt to acquire direct control over the march of Tuscany, the most powerful public structure in the kingdom, by taking advantage of the dynastic problems of the Canossa family. However, the results of this action were short-lived.9 Despite these visible and evident signs of dis­con­ tinu­ity compared to the recent past, the project of consolidation of royal power and its local bases never developed beyond the embryonic stage, not least because of Henry III’s premature death, which—as already noted—gave rise to a phase of increasing political instability.

2.2  Henry IV: a creative destruction As we have seen in the previous chapter, at first Henry IV adopted a rather cautious approach to the problems associated with ruling Italy.10 In the very first years of his government, the emperor essentially followed in his father’s footsteps, as is shown for instance by the privileges he granted the men of Lazise, in Veneto, or the arimanni of Vigevano, in Lombardy.11 Even his proclamation of the pax italica in 1077 must simply be interpreted as an attempt to promote the trad­ition­al role of the ruler as the guarantor of public order.12 The deterioration of the situation compared to the early 1050s probably made it difficult to envisage a more ambi­ tious action plan. Besides, Henry himself was soon forced to ac­know­ledge the changes that had occurred in the Italian contest. While twenty-odd years earlier his father had taken resolute action to protect the freedom of the arimanni of the Saccisica district, the new emperor was forced to abandon them and to endorse the seigneurial claims made by the bishop of Padua.13 However, the outbreak of the civil wars of the 1080s, which led to a powerful and irreversible acceleration of the breakdown of existing political balances, completely altered the framework of reference, opening up new and hitherto unthinkable avenues for the emperor. In the face of the mounting conflict, Henry chose to adopt a very aggressive policy, by favouring—and in certain cases deliberately bringing about—the dis­ appear­ance of many traditional public districts, such as the march of Tuscany and that of Turin, or the county of Friuli. The aim was clearly to gain direct control of 8  Diplomata Henrici. III, n. 352 (a. 1055), pp. 479–80. These diplomas are discussed in Tabacco, I liberi del re, esp. pp. 165–96; on the Saccisica see also Rippe, Padoue et son contado, pp. 161–77. 9 Goetz, Beatrix von Canossa, pp. 140–69. 10  Constitutiones, I, n. 68 (a. 1077) p. 117. 11  Diplomata Henrici IV, n. 170 (a. 1065), pp. 221–2 (Vigevano); n. 287 (a. 1077), pp. 375–6 (Lazise). 12  Constitutiones, I, n. 68 (a. 1077) p. 117. 13 Castagnetti, Arimanni in Romania.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

Imperial Power  41 the fiscal properties previously controlled by public officials, while at the same time establishing close bonds with the local political actors, even at more modest levels, thereby bypassing the traditional aristocratic intermediaries. Thus, while the guidelines did not change compared to the years of Henry III, the energetic and systematic manner in which this course of action was pursued was very dif­ ferent, thanks to the new political context. One of the clearest illustrations of these processes is provided by the march of Turin. Here Henry IV did not acknowledge the rights inherited by the daughter of countess Adelaide, who had governed the march, acting in a completely op­pos­ite way from his predecessors a few decades earlier.14 The emperor’s choice crucially contributed to bringing about the collapse of the great public structure just after Adelaide’s death in 1091, within a context of local civil wars between the various claimants to the countess’ heredity. The sovereign himself intervened, despatch­ ing his son Conrad with an army to gain control of the margravial fiscal estates, but the plan failed after the prince rebelled, joining the pro-Gregorian party.15 In Tuscany too Henry removed Matilda of Canossa from margravial office, thereby favouring the affirmation of local authorities, with whom he attempted to estab­ lish direct links, confirming himself as the new leader and point of reference. The numerous imperial charters issued to urban and rural communities throughout the kingdom in those years clearly reflect the emperor’s desire to enter into direct contact with local societies and to create a network of relations uniting the centre and the peripheries.16 Henry did not merely destroy those intermediate structures which he per­ ceived as dangerous for the hegemonic plans of imperial power, but in some cases attempted to revitalize them as a means of controlling the territory. In Umbria and in the Marche the emperor restored the duchy of Spoleto and the march of Fermo/Ancona, which after an initial phase of being governed separately were united under the authority of a royal ministerialis of German origin. The new duke/margrave was chiefly active in the Adriatic sector, but through the despatch of missi he extended his control to the very heart of Umbria.17 In the Veneto the emperor revived the traditional march of Verona, assigning the office of margrave to Lutold, a member of the powerful transalpine family of the Eppensteiner, who operated with great zeal in the area between 1077 and 1090.18 More generally, in the same period Henry confiscated the castles and curtes of rebels throughout the

14  On the collapse of the march of Turin, see Provero, ‘Aristocrazia d’ufficio’; and Pecchio, ‘Sviluppi signorili’. 15  Bernold of Konstanz, Chronicon, pp. 495–6. On Conrad, see Goetz, ‘Der Thronerbe als Rivale’. 16  See for example Diplomata Henrici IV., n. 170 (a. 1065), pp. 221–2; and n. 287 (a. 1077), pp. 375–6 (both for rural communities); n. 334 (a. 1081), pp. 437–9 (for the cives, citizens, of Lucca); n. 421 (a. 1091), pp. 563–4 (for the cives of Mantua). 17  Il Regesto di Farfa, vol. V, n. 1133 (a. 1094) p. 135; n. 1251 (a. 1094) pp. 231–2. 18 Klaar, Die Herrschaft der Eppensteiner, pp. 108–15.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

42  The Seigneurial Transformation Po Valley, in an attempt to establish a network of Reichsguten under the sovereign’s direct control, forming the outline of a permanent royal infrastructure. Henry’s ambitious plans, however, ran up against some military setbacks, which soon limited his capacity for action to increasingly restricted areas. By the time Henry IV was able to quit Italy for Germany in 1095, following his military defeat at the hands of Matilda and her allies, his plan for a new and more direct system of royal government had fallen through.19 The sovereign maintained a relative hold over north-eastern Italy and (perhaps) the Marche, but the other regions of the kingdom were no longer under his control. In the years 1097–1110 no charter was issued to Italian recipients: an indicator of a crisis that was both material and ideological. The empire’s prestige and capacity for action in the peninsula reached an all-time low.20 Only under Henry V did royal power enter a more active stage, according to lines of intervention not unlike the ones fore­shadowed during his father’s reign. This issue will be the focus of the next section. But before examining Henry V’s reign, I would like to reflect on the short- and long-term consequences of im­per­ial action within the context of the civil wars of the late eleventh century—a matter that has largely been overlooked by researchers. In order to fully grasp these consequences, it will be useful to briefly turn our attention to the divergent trajec­ tories of two regions: Tuscany and Friuli. In these regions political structures of Carolingian origin remained intact well into the 1070s. As already noted, in Tuscany Henry IV removed Matilda from margravial office and actively promoted the dissolution of the traditional system of power, which was seen as an instrument of power for the house of Canossa, and hence as a direct threat to royal predom­ inance.21 The sovereign, therefore, attempted to establish some direct connections with rising local forces—urban communities, bishops, and comital dynasties— without appointing a new margrave. As a result, within a ­couple of decades the old public districts collapsed, along with traditional institutions.22 Henry IV also deposed the powerful count of Friuli, a supporter of the Gregorian party, but in this case he merely entrusted his office, along with all the rights attached to it, to the patriarchate of Aquileia (one of the few bishoprics still effectively controlled by the monarchy), thereby favouring the preservation of the old political structures.23 The upshot was a remarkable degree of continuity, from a social as well as a political perspective. As late as the end of the thirteenth century, the socio-political scenario in Friuli was in many ways closer to that of Carolingian Italy than it was to that of the Italy of its day.24

19 Hay, The Military Leadership, pp. 59–197. 20  Busch, ‘Die Diplome der Salier’, esp. p. 293. 21  Ronzani, ‘L’affermazione dei Comuni’. 22 Cortese, Signori, castelli. 23  Cammarosano, ‘Patriarcato, Impero’. 24 For a general overview, see Cammarosano (ed.), Il Patriarcato di Aquileia; see also Zanin, L’evoluzione dei poteri.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

Imperial Power  43 The atypical case of Friuli shows that the tendency towards the fragmentation and localization of power structures and dynamics was not inevitable. While the preconditions in the two areas were not radically different, their highly divergent outcomes appear to be connected to the different guidelines adopted by imperial power at a local level. In other words, the traditional model of government in the Italian countryside was not inevitably doomed to extinction, and a different kind of development might have been possible.25 The redefinition of the socio-political scenario in rural areas was the result not just of long-term processes, but also of imperial policies and choices.

2.3  Henry V: the plan for a permanent royal infrastructure In the years of Henry V’s reign the relative stabilization of the political framework, following the end of the harshest stage of the civil wars, provides a clearer picture of imperial policies compared to Henry IV’s period. It is evident that the king was attempting to build an efficient and enduring system of government, capable of mitigating the effects of its inevitable deficiencies through the construction of a network of local political infrastructures and of officials in charge of their man­ agement. This is especially true for the period between 1116 and 1125, a crucial moment for the project of intensifying the royal presence in Italy. In 1116, after the death of Matilda of Canossa, Henry descended into Italy in order to assert his rights as the heir to the grand countess’ alodium: a patrimony consisting of hun­ dreds of castles, villages and curtes scattered throughout the Po Valley.26 Gaining control of these properties meant securing the kind of power base that the mon­ archy was lacking and which would be able to lend concrete form to the ruler’s hegemonic plans in Italy, at a time in which his capacity for rule was being sub­ stantially challenged in Germany.27 For Henry, redefining his forms of control over the regnum Italiae by turning it into one of the cornerstones of imperial power also meant reaffirming his prestige and role as undisputed leader within the con­ text of the empire. Initially, at least, the plan was a resounding success. Many of the centres in question, like Brescello and Nogara, were placed under the direct control of royal officials, often of German origin, although many others continued to be held as benefices by the many vassals of the Canossa family. Indeed, Henry V established himself as the new senior of Matilda’s vassal clientele: we find members of this extensive group physically present alongside the sovereign at assemblies, cere­ monies and acts of donation, to provide both political and military support. 25  Fiore, ‘Il tempo dei cambiamenti’. 26  Golinelli, ‘L’Italia dopo la lotta’. See also Gross, Lothar III. 27  Goetz, ‘Zwischen Reichszugehörigkeit und Eigenständigkeit’.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

44  The Seigneurial Transformation Moreover, Henry protected and offered rich gifts to those religious institutions traditionally connected to the Canossa family. Such acts were all designed to re­inforce the sovereign’s role as heir to the family in the eyes of local societies.28 However, the emperor’s intervention was not limited to the sphere of Matilda’s properties. The latter were only a concrete starting point to expand and consoli­ date royal power throughout Italy—particularly in rural areas, but also in urban centres. It is possible to identify some subtle attempts to exercise forms of partial control over the activities of proto-communal centres, through the appointment (or confirmation) of urban missi regi as intermediaries between the community of citizens (cives) and the king. Attestations are very limited—not least because of the flimsy and fragmentary nature of the available sources—yet are nonetheless sig­ nificant. The clearest example is Lucca, with its wealth of documents: here the missus regius was a leading urban nobleman, Flaiperto; the title gave him a high social status (superior, for instance, to that of consuls in the same period), a leading role in public ceremonials, and certain jurisdictional rights over the city, of an evident public nature.29 In Ferrara too the missus played an important role, not just in the city, but also in its environs, where he controlled curtes and toll stations.30 Moreover, the action of imperial officials in cities was probably connected to urban palaces and fortresses, the existence of which is recalled or assumed in several charters issued to urban communities.31 Thus just after 1116 a new im­per­ial palace was built in Mantua, in the suburb of San Giovanni, probably in relation to the empire’s need to collect the albergaria in the city and its immediate hinterland.32 It must be stressed that imperial power was far from hostile to urban commu­ nities and their political role, as long as this found a place within the framework of imperial governance. A clear example of this collaboration is represented by the charter issued to the populum Placentinum (people of Piacenza) in 1122. This document recalls the military support which the city provided during the im­per­ ial attempt to regain the castles of Bargone and Borgo San Donnino, probably 28  See for example Diplomata Henrici V., n. 161 (a. 1116); e n. 177 (a. 1116); on these symbolic actions and their meanings, see Goetz, ‘Zwischen Reichszugehörigkeit’, pp. 229–31. 29 Wickham, Courts and Conflicts, pp. 31–7. 30 ‘Appendice’, to Castagnetti, Il processo per Ostiglia, n. 1 (ante a. 1151), p. 339, testimony of Alberto Cagarusca. Another missus was (almost certainly) active in Pavia; see Diplomata Henrici V., n. 322 (a. 1118–21/4 c.), and Goetz, ‘Zwischen Reichszugehörigkeit und Eigenständigkeit’, p. 231. It’s also possible that Azo di Corrado of Modena, dead in 1119, and called rector urbis in his epitaph, held the same office in Modena; see Rölker, Nobiltà e comune, pp. 130–1. 31  On the imperial castle of Bologna, destroyed by rebellious cives, see Simeoni, ‘Bologna e la politica italiana’. 32  Its building was envisaged in the grant to the citizens of Mantua released by Henry V in 1116; see Regesto mantovano, vol. I, n. 170 (a. 1116), p. 122. The palace was effectively built, as it’s apparent from Lothar III’s grant of 1133; see n. 223 (a. 1133), p. 158 (only in 1133 the emperor gave up albergaria). There was another imperial palace (palatium domini imperatoris) in Milan, inside the walls, near the church of Sant’Ambrogio; in the late 1130s it was still property of the emperor, but perhaps already abandoned: see Ambrosini, ‘S. Ambrogio’, pp. 95–6. In the years of Henry V ‘Anselmus iudex et missus domini imperatoris’ was active in Milan, where he participated in a consular judgement in 1117, transcripted and authenticated by him; see Gli atti del comune di Milano, n. 1 (a. 1117), pp. 3–5.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

Imperial Power  45 against margrave Malaspina or the bishop of Parma.33 In addition to granting toll rights over Fiorenzuola and exemption from any tolls imposed at Borgo, the sovereign promised the city military help from his legati (envoys), who controlled the two castles, and the possibility for the urban community to use them as a ref­ uge in the event of war. While the effort to establish a direct link with urban communities—also through the appointment of local officials (at any rate where this was possible)—proved important within the context of royal policies, the connection established with the marches was absolutely crucial. These represented inter­medi­ate structures designed to control the web of Reichsguten and to medi­ ate the relation between the sovereign and local political actors. Henry V promoted the resurgence, as a royal infrastructure, of the march of Tuscany, which had been without a margrave since Matilda’s deposition in 1081. In 1116 the king entrusted it to his ministerialis Rabodo and set out to (at least partially) restore the trad­ition­al system of power, by regaining old rural fiscal estates and imposing the authority of the new Amtsmarkgraf on urban communities and lords in the region.34 Henry V further resumed an active imperial policy in those marches which had already been re-established by his father, in the Veneto and in central Italy. During the same years, the margrave/duke brought under his direct control a number of major castles in Umbria and the Marche, including San Ginesio, San Severino and Agello, by expropriating lay and ecclesiastical lords.35 In Umbria his action was actually more limited: it was apparently confined to the Spoleto area, even though the dearth of evidence makes it impossible to reach any definite ver­ dict on the matter.36 Be that as it may, in these years the margrave effectively con­ trolled much of the rural aristocracy, and was able to recruit a large army, which he led into Latium to defend the imperial abbey of Farfa during an armed conflict between rival claimants to the title of abbot.37 In the Veneto too, after a period of inactivity between 1090 and the early twelfth century, the margrave regained a leading role on the local political stage. It is almost certain that he created a network of royal castles, which was denser in the Lake Garda area, later known as comitatus Gardensis. This large fiscal district is only visible in our sources from Lothar III’s reign onwards. However, there is strong evidence to suggest that such properties were incorporated into the royal patrimony precisely in the final years of Salian rule.38 The margrave himself was very active in the region, and this allowed the empire to preserve and consolidate 33  Il Registrum Magnum, I, n. 28 (a. 1122), pp. 46–7. 34  Ronzani, ‘L’affermazione dei Comuni’. 35  Liber iurium, n. 44 (a. 1112), pp. 80–3; Turchi, Camerinum Sacrum, n. 9 (a. 1117), pp. xxx–xxxvi; Benigni, San Ginesio illustrata, n. 4 (a. 1117), p. vii. 36  Il Regesto di Farfa, V, n. 1133 (a. 1094) p. 135; n. 1251 (a. 1094), pp. 231–2. 37  Chronicon Farfense, II, pp. 302–7. 38 Castagnetti, Comitato di Garda, pp. 41–87. See also Diplomata Henrici IV, n. 287 (a. 1077), pp. 375–6, for an imperial grant to the men of Lazise, a castle on the shore of Garda Lake, later part of comitatus Gardensis.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

46  The Seigneurial Transformation its relations with the major aristocratic families in the area, particularly those of comital origin, as is shown by the presence of large numbers of members of the local political elite at the large placitum held by the imperial margrave in Verona in 1123.39 While the marches played a central role in Henry’s policy, we find no trace of any reconstruction of a comitatus (county) as a public district either within the marches or outside them (the expression comitatus Gardensis is only attested at a later date). All we find are small districts, centred on some large castles, whose officials are never described as comites (counts) in our sources. Frequently these districts were more than just simple territorial lordships: some of the large royal castles were genuine ‘central places’ capable of exercising political control over extensive swathes of the countryside. A good illustration of these phenomena is provided by Borgo San Donnino and Bargone—respectively located in the plane between Parma and Piacenza, and in the Apennine region just to the south—as well as by Ficarolo, near Ferrara, Nogara, in the Verona area, and San Martino di Gavardo, not far from Brescia.40 While the empire significantly invested in the marches and fiscal castles, it did not do so with existing counties, which from a royal perspective were viewed as mere geographical expressions. The numerous comites we find in our sources are always the scions of traditional Italian dynasties of counts—whose properties and rights were often safeguarded by the mon­archy— and not actual royal officials.41 In this situation it is possible to grasp some significant parallels with Germany, where in the same decades counties lost their public territorial dimension, becom­ ing a label assigned to the patrimonial exercising of power over people and places by counts. This also applies to the growing importance of fiscal estates, under the direct control of the empire through ministeriales and other officials. Henry IV’s ‘reconstruction’ of the royal fisc, especially in Saxony but also in southern Germany, constitutes one of the best known and best investigated aspects of his reign.42 By contrast, the use of marches, so significant in Italy, finds no direct parallel in imperial policies north of the Alps. It is worth focusing precisely on the political significance of the marches one last time, in order to better understand the nature of the royal political project in Italy in our period. In the late Salian period, at 39  Le carte del capitolo di Verona, I, n. 54 (a. 1123), pp. 103–5. 40  On the activity of imperial officers in Ficarolo and Nogara, see ‘Appendice’, to Castagnetti, Il processo per Ostiglia, n. 1 (ante a. 1151), p. 339; on San Marino di Gavardo, see Annales Brixienses, p. 812 (s.a. 1121): ‘arcem S. Martini de Gavardo quam tenebant Allemanni’; on Borgo San Donnino (and Bargone), see Soliani, ‘Antichi signori’, and the text published in the appendix of that work as n. 1 (early twelfth century), pp. 134–5. 41  Only exception known to me is the margravial missus Bernoldo acting for the imperial mar­ graves of Fermo, in the Apennines in 1094; see Le carte di Fonte Avellana, I, n. 81 (a. 1094), pp. 189–90. It must be stressed that the title of comes has not a territorial dimension; it could possibly be a per­ sonal title of the missus (very probably a German, considering the name), not connected with his role as imperial officer in Italy. 42  On this crucial issue Weinfurter, The Salian Century, pp. 134–41.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

Imperial Power  47 least, the term ‘march’ would appear to have been used as a sort of label to identify large territories (with a pre-existing public tradition) where there were enough properties belonging to the royal fisc to support the empire’s hegemonic plans. In this respect, the absence of Piedmont from the list of new imperial marches is highly significant. This region included the territories belonging to two old structures of this kind: the march of Turin, which only collapsed in 1091 by direct royal intervention, and the march of Ivrea, which had already dissolved by the early decades of the eleventh century.43 This might seem like a perfect political scenario for the (re)creation of a margravial structure on the empire’s part. However, the crown did not attempt to restore either of the two old districts. As we have seen, Henry IV attempted to achieve direct control over cities, castles and other fiscal properties immediately after Adelaide’s death through resolute mili­ tary action, but this attempt ended in failure: the region broke up into a number of competing local domains, which left little leeway for royal power. The local network of Reichsguten remained a rather loose one, and it was not extensive enough to support the project of a new imperial march. A weak fiscal base and too many high-profile local rivals (starting with the margrave Bonifacio Del Vasto) led the central authorities to keep a low profile in Piedmont, even in the reign of Henry V, by contrast to the active policy adopted in the Veneto, in Tuscany, and in Umbria. This large-scale plan to lend new shape to the imperial presence in Italy met with strong resistance at the local level. Many Italian political actors, such as nas­ cent urban communes and some major lords, saw the increasingly numerous royal castles as an obstacle to their personal territorial ambitions. Once it had (at least partially) regained its prestige, imperial power could still prove attractive to Italian political actors as a means to legitimize their emerging political plans. This is shown by the numerous charters which the emperor issued during his sojourn in Italy, not just to traditional political actors such as the families of old public officers and churches, but also to new ones such as urban communities and the rising families of the seigneurial aristocracy.44 However, once they were faced with the concrete will of the empire to develop a new system of governance that necessarily conflicted with their local interests, the various centres of power—be they urban or rural, old or new—often reached the conclusion that they could do without this new form of governance, at any rate in those areas where imperial power made its presence more strongly felt.45

43 Sergi, I confini del potere. 44 On the receivers of Henry V’s diplomas, see Goetz, ‘Zwischen Reichszugehörigkeit und Eigenständigkeit’. 45  My interpretation, therefore, at least partly diverges from that recently formulated by Wickham, Sleepwalking, pp. 201–4, who argues that urban communities first became aware of their role as pol­it­ ical actors in the years 1140–50, yet without ever discussing how Henry V’s measures may have con­ tributed to the process of their political development.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

48  The Seigneurial Transformation For example, whereas in Piedmont imperial power was not perceived as a threat by local political actors, given the weakness of the fiscal network in the region, the situation was very different in western Emilia and in Tuscany. Around 1116, imme­ diately after the departure of the imperial army, margrave Malaspina attacked the imperial ministeriales who controlled the centres of Borgo San Donnino and Bargone in the Parma area.46 Likewise, in 1119, the Florentines laid siege to the castle of Montecascioli, which was defended by the margrave of Tuscany Rabodo, and they ultimately succeeded in destroying it, killing the im­per­ial high official in the process.47 Besides, similar actions had already been carried out in the same years by the inhabitants of Bologna and Brescia, as well as by the bishop of Parma.48 Already with the return of Henry V (and most of his army) to Germany in 1118, a progressive weakening of the fiscal network occurred, as it was not solid enough to withstand the attacks launched by local political actors. The death of the sover­ eign in 1125 sealed the end of this project. Here and there small districts remained in the hands of German officials, who by this time acted as local lords and were not coordinated in any way. An exem­ plary case is provided by the Guarnerii margraves, who forwent their hegemonic role at a regional level, focusing instead on the management of a number of castles in the central and southern Marche. A similar phenomenon is visible, on a smaller scale, in the context of those German officials entrusted with controlling the important castles of Borgo San Donnino and Bargone in western Emilia.49 The central authorities themselves had tried to change their approach, acknow­ ledging the fact that in an increasingly fragmented, disjointed and conflictual context, the key to success was not so much the coordination of local forces— according to the model that had been in force until the mid-eleventh century—as direct control over local jurisdictions, by then the only ones capable of lending concrete form to their hegemonic ambitions. In this respect, it is significant that Henry V did not even attempt to restore the regular holding of placita, which had been one of the traditional linchpins of royal authority in the previous period.50 Even in his plan to revitalize marches and duchies as inter­medi­ate structures between the central power and the local societies, the ruler was bound to rely on the direct management of local castles and jurisdictions by the royal high officials 46  ‘Appendice’, to Soliani, ‘Antichi signori’, n. 1 (iniz. XII sec.), pp. 134–5. 47 Davidsohn, Geschichte, I, pp. 564–74. 48  Annales Brixienses, p. 812 (sub a. 1121); Simeoni, ‘Bologna e la politica italiana’; Schumann, Istituzioni e società, pp. 242–9. We should also add to this list the destruction of the royal castle of Ficarolo by the men of Ferrara in the early 1120s: see ‘Appendice’, to Castagnetti, Il processo per Ostiglia, n. 1 (ante a. 1151), p. 334 (Ruberto de Gazo’s testimony), and p. 339 (Alberto Cagarusca’s testimony). As more generally emerges from an analysis of the testimonies in question, after the destruction of the castle, the men of Ferrara started exercising their power even over centres, such as Ostiglia, which had hitherto been controlled by Imperial officials under the missus regius of Ficarolo/Ferrara. 49  On the Guarnerii margraves in the Marche, see Fiore, Signori e sudditi, pp. 113–6; on Borgo San Donnino and Bargone, Soliani, ‘Antichi signori’. 50  Wickham, ‘Justice in the Kingdom of Italy’.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

Imperial Power  49 in charge of those political structures. It is interesting to note that the policies pursued by the last Salian emperors are very similar to those underlying the attempt to restore royal power in Italy, first by Lothar III, and later with far more noticeable and enduring effects by Frederick Barbarossa.51 However, this new attitude on the part of the royal authorities inevitably gave rise to conflict with local political actors, who sought to reinforce their own power precisely through the acquisition and control of jurisdictional rights. Given that the latter would appear to have acquired increasing importance, in order to better understand how the collapse of traditional forms of power, the enduring crisis of legitimacy, and the long series of civil wars transformed the actual ways in which power was exercised, it is necessary to change our perspective and to adopt a vantage point closer to concrete local dynamics. These topics will be the focus of the next two chapters. 51  I have discussed this topic in Fiore, ‘L’Impero come signore’.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

3

Territorial Lordship Rise and Spread of a Model of Power

In the following pages I will attempt to evaluate whether and to what extent the decades around 1100 marked an actual break in terms of how power was concretely exercised at the local level compared to the previous phase. I will focus my attention on territorial lordship, which precisely in this period became the basic building block for the organizing of rural space from a political perspective. However, we should not forget that in the same period the newly established urban communes were starting to extend their control over their environs: generally, rather restricted yet steadily expanding areas. Finally, a secondary, albeit far from irrelevant, role was played by autonomous rural communities, which were also engaged in creating their domains. I will return to these two specific forms of power later on, in the final chapter of Part I. Nevertheless, we should not overlook their presence within the political framework of the Italian countryside in the period under consideration. The latter ought not be reduced to the seigneurial model, which, while predominant and distinctive of this period, was not the exclusive political model.

3.1  Power in the countryside before 1050: land and public rights Before examining the decades around 1100, we must focus our attention on the tenth century and the first half of the eleventh, in order to understand how the rural world was typically administered at that stage, i.e. what the context was for the subsequent changes. The socio-economic scenario was marked by the central importance of land ownership and rent. Castles were an increasingly prominent presence, yet were less numerous and imposing than in later periods.1 Besides, castles generally served as a means to protect large estates and were only rarely associated with the exercising of more or less complete jurisdictional rights. Landed patrimonies seldom took the form of compact blocks of land: most often, they were interspersed with estates belonging to other owners. Peasant alodia 1  For a general overview, see Fiore, ‘Les châteaux et la compétition’. The Seigneurial Transformation: Power Structures and Political Communication in the Countryside of Central and Northern Italy, 1080–1130. Alessio Fiore, Oxford University Press (2020). © Alessio Fiore. DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198825746.001.0001

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

Territorial Lordship  51 played a significant role, depending on the area: small and medium-sized properties were a prominent feature of rural society in central and northern Italy. While in most cases peasant alodia existed alongside extensive landed estates, we find a relatively large number of rural communities in which large aristocratic properties were essentially absent and local society were de facto controlled by local medium landowners—sometimes labelled arimanni—directly connected to public power. The latter constituted an important model of government for all rural social actors. Over the course of the eleventh century the number of ter­ri­tor­ial lordships steadily rose, thanks to the increasingly numerous concessions of jurisdictional rights made to lay aristocrats or churches by the monarchy. Yet, extensive areas still remained under the control of public officials or actors (such as bishops) who were closely connected to public power. In Abruzzo, for example, as late as 1060, despite the increasing spread of seigniorial authorities, the local counts still controlled the whole Chieti area, where they exercised their power in a fully traditional way.2 Within this context, the exercising of ‘private’ lordship must have largely been modelled after the example of public officers.3 Thus when organizing a seigniorial court of justice in 1057, the abbey of Casauria modelled it after the comital placitum in terms of the language and formal procedures adopted.4 Likewise, at Inzago, in Lombardy, in 1015 the local men swore to the abbot of the Milanese monastery of Sant’Ambrogio to se distringere (obey) and to receive justice from him tamquam ante comite (like before the count): a formula that clearly reveals what the limits for the correct exercising of jurisdictional rights were for the people concerned.5 As late as the 1040s, similar expressions show that the nascent territorial lordships in the hands of the monastery of Farfa were modelled after the prerogatives formerly enjoyed by the local counts.6 At least up until the late 1050s, therefore, public power constituted a model for those exercising (or aspiring to exercise) territorial lordship. Even in those local contexts where lords already fully controlled the districtus, the exercising of local power was largely modelled after the (rather mild) form of government exercised by public officials, which also involved property rights, comprising census (rents) and services expected from the lords’ tenants. As we have seen, these rights extended to the exercising of justice (and related revenues), military prerogatives, and control over toll and trade rights, along with the exploitation of fallow land. The case of the upper Roya Valley, in the county of Ventimiglia, clearly shows that traditional forms of public power had a limited impact on local 2 Feller, Les Abruzzes médiévales, pp. 708–19. 3  On the imitatio comitis (imitation of the count) from the other lords, see Tabacco, The Struggle for Power, pp. 191–6. 4 Feller, Les Abruzzes médiévales, pp. 702–7. 5  Gli atti privati milanesi, I, n. 74 (a. 1015), p. 175. 6  Wickham, ‘The origins of the signoria’.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

52  The Seigneurial Transformation society, as is illustrated by the so-called ‘charter of Tenda’—an important text from around 1060 that lays out the power exercised by the local counts over some communities of freemen.7 It is crucial, therefore, to emphasize the economic implications of the forms of lordship that remained predominant until the mid-eleventh century, and which translated into a relatively weak economic pressure on local subjects. The trad­ition­al means to increase profits was to expand one’s landed property at the expense of smaller landowners, so as to reduce the latter to mere tenants and force them to pay rents on their lands. In the early decades of the eleventh century this process frequently took the form of violent expropriations. One typical example is provided by the querimonia (plea) submitted by the church of Reggio against the Della Palude family around the year 1040.8 Besides, many other texts from this period refer to a similar context of aggressiveness towards small allodiaries and peripheral properties belonging to major landowners (in particular, but not exclusively, monastic institutions).9 There is nothing new here compared to the strategies typically adopted to increase large aristocratic properties within the traditional Carolingian system. However, from the second half of the eleventh century onwards the tendency in question was increasingly combined with the levying of new taxes (on the basis of property or jurisdictional rights, depending on the local context). In a letter from the late 1060s, Pier Damiani reports a situ­ation of this sort with reference to the Marchiones family, active in eastern Tuscany and north-western Umbria:10 these lords carried out confiscationes pauperum (seizures from the poor), which went hand in hand with the imposition of new illationes (levies) on the peasants under their control.

3.2  The new forms of local power In the immediately following decades, this tendency underwent a brusque acceleration through the imposition of a whole range of new burdens, labour services and taxes upon the rural population as a whole. An overall redefinition of the 7  Daviso, ‘La carta di Tenda’. 8  Casagrande, ‘Il ritrovamento del testo’, the text is edited at pp. 124–7. 9  See the text cited in the next note and, for example, Chronicon farfense, I, pp. 248–58 (encroachments upon lands owned by the abbey of Farfa in central Italy in the 1050s); and Il Regesto di Farfa, IV nn. 900–1 (a. 1059), pp. 294–5 (encroachments in the territory of Assisi); Papsturkunden, n. 625 (a. 1045), pp. 1172–5 (encroachments upon rural lands owned by the abbey of San Pietro of Perugia, in Umbria). As regards the appropriation of the small landed properties, significant evidence is provided by the actions performed in the Saccisica area by the bishop of Padua. The latter forcibly (violenter) made local allodiaries transfer their landed properties over to him by means of specific documents (cartae), turning them into leaseholders subject to heavy dues (iniuste servitutis oppressione). The emperor eventually forced the prelate to return the properties to their lawful owners, along with the documents extorted from them. See Diplomata Henrici III., n. 352 (a. 1055), p. 479. 10  Pier Damiani, Die Briefe, III, n. 143 (a. 1067), pp. 524–5.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

Territorial Lordship  53 existing forms of power occurred, as the territorial lordship model became firmly established and widespread.11 This was a crucial transition, as it structurally changed the very forms of seigneurial taxation. However, there is a risk of not fully appreciating the nature of this process on account of the episodic nature of the available sources, which shed light—in an entirely occasional way—on individual contexts, without creating any real clusters of evidence that might allow us to grasp the nature of the processes underway. For this reason, it is necessary to make the most of those rare instances in which the documentary evidence allows us not just to paint a detailed picture of the situation at a particular moment in time, but to grasp the process of transformation, if only partially. In order to understand in greater detail how and to what extent power was exercised at a local level at the turn of the 1100s, it seems useful to briefly examine the three following cases: Calusco in Lombardy,12 Casciavola in Tuscany,13 and Cliviano in Latium.14 A text from 1068—concerning the agreements between the lord of Calusco and some peasants who were moving into the castle—speaks of a form of power that was still weak and limited, and essentially based on the imposition of agricultural rents and of some minor obligations connected to the usufruct of fortified structures. While the specific dynamics in the process of transformation characterizing the case in question are unknown to us, what is quite clear is the endpoint of such process a few decades later. A document from 1130 paints a very detailed picture of the seigneurial rights that had become crystallized in the local area. The peasants were required to provide (probably monetary) contributions for the purchase of new castles, along with corvées and raw materials for the building of new structures within the castrum, and the upkeep of existing ones. They were further expected to stand guard and pay certain taxes for the military protection that the lords offered their subjects. The most notable among these taxes was the old public fodrum, which by now was fully under the lords’ control. It must be stressed that these new levies rested on a jurisdictional and territorial foundation: to increase their revenue, the domini loci relied on their political power rather than on the power deriving from their landed patrimonies. Through this mechanism, within two generations the economic pressure exerted on subjects increased tenfold, notwithstanding the fruitless resistance put up by peasants, who—with

11  This is presented as a turning point in the establishment of actual lordships in Lombardy, albeit without any critical discussion of the matter, in Keller, Signori e vassalli, pp. 118–36, and Menant, Campagnes lombardes, pp. 401–6. Wickham, ‘La signoria rurale’, sees the process as being closely related to the collapse of the march of Tuscany. 12  Le pergamene degli archivi di Bergamo, n. 37 (a. 1068), pp. 68–9; and Atti del comune di Milano, n. 3 (a. 1130), p. 6 (both on Calusco). On this, Menant, Campagnes lombardes, pp. 409–18. 13  Lettere originali del medioevo, I, n. 18 (aa. 1098–1106 c.), p. 156 (Casciavola); this important text is discussed in Wickham, ‘La signoria rurale’; see section 10.1. 14  Il Regesto di Farfa, V, n. 1303 (aa. 1090–9 c.), p. 290. See Carocci, ‘La signoria rurale’, pp. 195–6.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

54  The Seigneurial Transformation the memory of a very different situation still alive in their minds—in 1130 made an unsuccessful attempt to lessen the burdens imposed upon them.15 The case of Casciavola offers a different, yet complementary, perspective from that of Calusco. The former village represents an exception, insofar as the attempt to establish a territorial lordship failed, thanks to the intervention of the urban commune of Pisa. However, a querimonia (plea) drafted around 1100 clearly illustrates the gradual process of transformation of aristocratic power, in which violence played a central role.16 The inceptive lordship of the San Casciano aristocratic group over the village was based precisely on the military protection they offered the peasants. The lords asked each family to provide—in addition to sentry services—only two carts full of timber for each cella (storage area) occupied in the castle. Later, the annual tribute in kind was replaced by a weightier one in money (no less than sixteen denarii per family), but shortly afterwards the San Casciano lords asked for three more carts of timber. When the fortifications of the castle were destroyed during warfare, the peasants took advantage of the situation to assert their freedom from the increasing obligations, which were formally bound to the walls of the castrum; but just when the men had decided they had had enough with the mounting demands, the protection provided by the lords showed itself in all of its perverse ambiguousness. To reject this protection was to expose oneself to the possibility of violent reprisal at the hands of the rejected protector. In the specific case in question, the rejection led to a long series of assaults, arbitrary expropriations, and daily abuses directed against the inhabitants of Casciavola, merely for the purpose of ensuring their complete submission to the aristocratic group and acceptance of the new forms of surplus extraction. This oppressive turn was stemmed, around 1070, by the peasants’ appeal to the margravial tribunal, which forced the San Casciano to waive their alleged rights. In the immediately following years, as public order broke down within the context of the civil wars of the 1080s (evoked in the text through the rhetorical yet highly effective formula ‘postea, cum omnis potestas perdidit virtutem et iustitia mortua est et periit de nostra terra’), the lords returned to the fray, further broadening their requests and attempting to impose themselves upon the community with unprecedented brutality. The text mentions the forced seizure of movable assets, food, and cattle, savage thrashings of the young peasants, and even beatings inflicted on women during labour. Exceptionally, the escalation of violence here was curbed by the intervention of the commune of Pisa. Nonetheless, it sheds a disturbing light on what in many cases must have been the mode of transition from the light forms of lordship attested as late as the 1070s and the far more oppressive ones that became customary after year 1100.

15  For a similar case (Calcinate) in the same area, see Menant, Campagnes lombardes, p. 418. 16  Lettere originali del medioevo, I, n. 18 (aa. 1098–1106 c.), p. 156.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

Territorial Lordship  55 Economic pressure on peasant society also increased in those centres which had been subject to territorial lordships for several decades. One interesting testimony in this respect concerns Cliviano, in the Salto Valley, near Rieti. This village, which had been governed by the abbey of Farfa for centuries, passed into the hands of a lay aristocratic family in the eleventh century as part of an exchange. A few years after the exchange, the inhabitants entrusted the local priest, Adamo, to write a heartfelt letter to the abbot, asking him to take them back under his lordship.17 The reason for this was precisely the rapacity of the new lords compared to the old monastic domination: ‘eo quod seniores tollunt omnia et vos modicum tenetis’ (‘because the lords take all, and you just a little’).18 Farfa was locally associated with a form of power exercised in non-oppressive fashion, in contrast to the (new) seniores. However, this change was not merely due to the change of ownership, but was part of a more general process, as is shown precisely by the coeval sources from Farfa, which reveal an increase even in the burdens weighing upon the communities directly controlled by the monks.19 The text from Cliviano also shows that—as in the case of Casciavola—the change was a (relatively) swift one, clearly perceived by the subjects, as opposed to a gradual one occurring over an extended period of time. From this perspective, one element worth investigating is the actual degree of the economic pressure exerted by territorial lordships on individual village communities. The dearth of quantitative evidence for the period under consideration prevents the kind of detailed analyses that is instead possible for much later contexts. Still, on the basis of certain sources we can at least endeavour to outline the magnitude of the profit associated with jurisdictional rights. These figures should not be underestimated. As we have just seen in relation to Casciavola, in the late eleventh century the San Casciano family demanded at least sixteen denarii (in addition to three cartloads of timber, and upkeep and sentry duties at the castrum) for each hearth; and this, before the phase of systematic acts of violence and extortion inflicted upon the local residents, when the pressure from the lords no doubt increased substantially—although it is impossible to tell just how much.20 At Marzana, an important castle in the Valpantena area, in 1121 the jurisdictional rights of the chapter of Verona were set at a flat rate of ten lirae per year (equal to 2,400 denarii), but to these were added other undefined servitia. Moreover, in those same years the inhabitants of the village were required to restore the walls of the castle and rebuild its imposing tower, which had probably been destroyed

17  Il Regesto di Farfa, V, n. 1303 (aa. 1090–9 c.), p. 290. See Carocci, ‘La signoria rurale’, pp. 195–6. 18  Carocci, ‘La signoria rurale’, pp. 195–1. 19  Il Regesto di Farfa, V, n. 1154 (a. 1097 c.), p. 158 for the new and heavy corveés imposed by the monks to the rural communities in Sabina, supposedly to be spent for the construction of the new grand abbatial church, but actually used for works of fortification. 20  Lettere originali, I, n. 18 (aa. 1098–1106 c.), p. 156.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

56  The Seigneurial Transformation during warfare.21 Marzana was a rather large centre, inhabited by an elite of wealthy arimanni as well as by mere vilani (tenants). If we hypo­thet­ic­al­ly set its population at 150 households and divide the ten lirae of jurisdictional revenue by this figure, what we get is sixteen denarii per housing unit, just as at Casciavola.22 It must nonetheless be emphasized that in this case a rather significant amount of the local surplus must have remained in the hands of the community, given that the latter also committed itself to paying an additional ten lirae as fodrum in the event that the emperor might visit Italy (a far from merely the­or­et­ic­al possibility at the time). Finally, according to the querimonia from Monte Amiata, shortly after 1080 the Aldobrandeschi were asking a couple of small monastic villages (villulae) that had passed under their control for roughly thirty lirae a year in total, which probably included both jurisdictional and property rights. To these were added building corveés for the local residents. Given that the two villages were hardly very significant ones from a demographical standpoint, the level of taxation must have been much higher than at Marzana, or at Casciavola at the early stage of its lordship, although it cannot be calculated exactly for each hearth.23 One first element that emerges, then, is the marked variability of ‘jurisdictional’ levy, depending on the local context. However, in themselves these figures tell us little and must be examined alongside land rents and the price of agricultural land, as a term of comparison. At Zevio, in the Verona area, in 1121, the year of the pact from Marzana, a massaricium (peasant holding) with arable land and a house was rented to a peasant—by an owner other than the local lord—for the annual rent of one solidus (i.e. 24 denarii) and one fourth of the cereal crop:24 a figure that is not all that far from the one that must have applied to the individual family units residing in Marzana (a sum to which land rent must have further been added). In the decades around 1100, in central Italy, holdings with a house and enough land to support a peasant family, with a total surface of 5–7 modia, were frequently estimated to be worth roughly twenty solidi (equal to one libra or 240 denarii).25 This suggests that even a sum of sixteen denarii (plus labour services) was far from petty: it must have considerably limited the possibility of saving anything for wealthy farmers, and reduced it to a minimum in the 21  Le carte del capitolo di Verona, I, n. 48 (a. 1121), pp. 96–9. 22  On the (often considerable) landed property owned by the local elite in the Marzana area, see Le carte del capitolo di Verona, I, n. 129 (a. 1147), pp. 246–7; and esp. n. 135 (a. 1149), pp. 256–7. As regards the estimate provided, if we were to posit a population of 120 or 200 households, we would obviously get a different result, but the order of magnitude of the taxation would still be the same— which is what really matters here. 23  Codex Diplomaticus Amiatinus, II, n. 309 (ante a. 1084), pp. 261–3. 24  Le carte del capitolo di Verona, I, n. 47 (a. 1121), pp. 95–6. 25  See for example Le carte di Sassovivo, I, n. 129 (a. 1100), pp. 196–7; II, n. 118 (a. 1143), p. 143; similar prices are attested also in the Po Valley; see Le carte del capitolo di Verona, I, n. 39 (a. 1117), pp. 80–1 (a peasant farm in Vigasio (Veneto) is sold for 20 solidi).

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

Territorial Lordship  57 case of poorer farmers, who were also weighed down with land rents. Even more burdensome taxes could have a tragic impact on the economic condition of certain strata of village society. The economic pressure which the lords exerted through their jurisdictional rights was such as to intercept a significant portion of the agricultural surplus produced by the lords’ subject—and which instead escaped rents. Hence, it had a significant impact on the socio-economic balance of individual villages, albeit to a degree that varied depending on the specific sub-regional and local context.26 The decades around the year 1100, therefore, emerge as a crucial period in the development of forms of power in the countryside. Numerous sources from this period refer to these innovations in the mode of exercise of local power, which at times are labelled malus usus or malae consuetudines.27 Another important indicator of such change is the genuine boom in the number of letters of privilege and written pacts designed to regulate the relations between lords and communities.28 I will analyse these documents and their production in greater detail in Part II of the volume. Here I can anticipate that while up until the mid-eleventh century we only find sporadic texts, in the subsequent years, up to 1080, we witness a gradual increase in such documents, which becomes exponential over the four following decades. It is evident that a strong need was felt to attempt to formally lay down in writing practices and norms that were largely new, within the framework of a general redefinition of local balances and modes of exercising power. The inextricable intertwining, from as early as the first decades of the twelfth century, of seigniorial rights of public and private origin—weighing upon the whole peasant population, regardless of any relations associated with the ownership of land—is a clear sign of the profound transformation of power balances, as well as of the complex nature of seigneurie.29 It was a matter not merely of usurping traditional public prerogatives (by imitating them), but of altering and extending them, by combining them with the kind of burdens typical of relations based on land ownership; and this, within the context of the widespread use of violence, which greatly increased the lords’ possibility of exerting economic pressure. The breakdown of public power created a void that was readily filled. It gave those who had some clout at the local level the possibility to imitate those prerogatives typical of those controlling the districtus. The lords did not merely appropriate these traditional prerogatives, but introduced new forms of levy, for example to

26  For a discussion of this specific issue, see Chapter 4. On the difference between sub-regions, and between the localities within these same sub-regions, see Wickham, ‘La signoria rurale’. 27  Fiore, ‘Bonus et malus usus’; on the awareness of the novelty represented by these new practices of power, see Damiani, Die Briefe, III, n. 143 (a. 1067), pp. 524–5, with the cry against the new levies imposed by the Marchiones on their peasants in eastern Tuscany and in northern Umbria. 28  Menant, ‘Les chartes de franchise’; Fiore, ‘Refiguring Local Power’. 29  As underlined by Sergi, ‘Storia agraria’.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

58  The Seigneurial Transformation the detriment of small local landowners, but also of the local community as a whole.30 The light forms of protection exercised in relation to freemen and other landowners’ subordinates by the lord of a castle could change and become more rigid by imitation of the traditional prerogatives of legitimate districtus-holders, while at the same time introducing new levies and burdens.31 At Cerea, in the Verona area, the San Bonifacio counts, who already exercised traditional public rights over the centre, took advantage of the situation to unlawfully increase levies—despite the peasants’ remonstrations—by imposing heavier albergariae and a new form of monetary taxation directed at the community as a whole.32 While ‘jurisdictional’ taxation could vary significantly depending on the local context, it always allowed the domini loci to detain a significant portion of the surplus and, on a more symbolic level, to impose on their subjects a form of power that was no longer based on personal status and land ownership, but rather territorial.

3.3  Archaeology of power: castles in the light of the written sources and material evidence As our starting point we should take the fact that the process of creation or re­def­ in­ition of territorial lordship went hand in hand with a considerable (if variable) increase in the economic pressure exercised on peasant society. We must therefore examine the underlying reasons for this transformation of economic and power relations, and the general implications of this tendency for social balances in the countryside. The turn towards lordship that is clearly detectable in Tuscany in the decades around 1100 has recently—and persuasively—been interpreted as an aristocratic reaction to the considerable economic limits of land rent.33 According to this view, within the context of the economic growth shaping the countryside in the eleventh century, this rigid form of income proved in­ef­fect­ive as a means to intercept the growing productive surplus, which instead benefited peasant society as a whole. Growing aristocratic discontent led to a reaction that took a concrete form precisely with the establishment of territorial lordship and with the imposition of extra-economic, jurisdictional forms of taxation which weighed upon not just tenant farmers, but the peasant community as a whole. Evidence of the lords’ new capacity to impose levies may be found in the ma­ter­ial revolution undergone by Tuscan castles, with the emergence of more 30  A convenient guide is Menant, Campagnes lombardes, pp. 417–8, that notes the sells (clearly ex post, to secure the actual situation) from the legitimate holders of comital rights over freemen and arimanni to their (real) local lords, between 1090 and 1120. Other (quite) similar examples from Emilia in Die Urkunden und Briefe der Markgrafin Mathilde, n. 101 (a. 1107), pp. 276–7; n. 132 (a. 1114), pp. 338–40. 31  Sergi, ‘Storia agraria’, uses the concept of di ‘risorsa-sudditi’ (asset-subjects). 32  Le carte del capitolo di Verona, I, n. 120 (a. 1145), pp. 223–8, the events described date from early decades of the twelfth century. 33  Bianchi, Collavini, ‘Risorse e competizione’.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

Territorial Lordship  59 sturdy shapes, the spread of the use of stone, and the new prominence acquired by distinctly seigniorial structures such as towers. Recent archaeological investigations have highlighted the break between the simple fortified structures of the eleventh century and the far more elaborate castles of the following century, after a stage of transition which occurred precisely in the decades around 1100.34 This change is also associated with the spread of the use of stone and brick in place of wood, which was still widely employed in the previous stage. Stone came to be used for the building of towers, early palaces and annexes (in place of pre-existing wooden constructions) in the area probably set aside as a place of residence for the lords or, as in the case of larger dominions, their local represen­ tatives. Besides, these structures go hand in hand with material finds (pottery, animal remains) that show a significant consumption of valuable goods by the residents: something that marks their superiority compared to the mass of subjects.35 The complexity of these structures also depends on what role individual castles played within the local political context: the structures in question take a simpler form in the peripheries of great dominions (controlled by custodes castri), and more imposing and striking ones in the places of residence of lords. This includes not just the most powerful domini, but also minor lords, who in such a way probably attempted to make up for the limited power they actually wielded.36 Competitive ostentation through the building of castles thus became an integral part of the rural landscape and of the grammar of rural power. In my view this thesis can be extended to central and northern Italy as a whole, with the due regional distinctions and nuances, which must be made the object of more specific enquiries. These will become possible with the future broadening of the archaeological record, which at present lacks the wealth of details available in the case of Tuscany. An important clue here is provided by the Latium countryside. As early as the eleventh century, lords across much of the region enjoyed full jurisdictional rights, which find documentary expression in the placitum et districtus formula.37 However, this early flourishing of lordships (in much the same years and forms as certain sectors of the Po Valley) is not associated with any substantial material evidence. Despite the emphasis on lords’ incastellamento efforts—the focus of a fundamental work by Pierre Toubert—in the written sources produced between the late tenth century and the first half of the eleventh, the field evidence shows a far less evident break in terms of structures and forms of settlement.38 While these efforts no doubt marked an important stage in the

34  On the situation in southern Tuscany, see Farinelli, I castelli nella Toscana, pp. 91–156. 35  Bianchi, ‘Archeologia della signoria’, for a very rich interpretive overview of Italian arch­aeo­ logic­al scholarship. 36  Bianchi, ‘Costruire castelli’. On animal remains, see Valenti, Savadori, ‘Animal Bones’. 37  Wickham, ‘The origins of the signoria’. 38 Toubert, Les structures du Latium, pp. 303–68; and Hubert, ‘L’incastellamento’.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

60  The Seigneurial Transformation process of the centralization of settlement and in the lords’ acquisition of greater socio-economic control, their outcome was far from remarkable. The contrast between the written sources and the material evidence probably reflects the rift between aristocratic plans and the results actually achieved. Archaeological excavations have revealed only minor fortified structures, which suggests that the lords’ capacity to siphon off rural surplus was not very great. Evidently, jurisdiction was not yet a significant source of profit, and the income from the renting of land showed all its limits. Things changed significantly towards the end of the eleventh century (and even more so in the twelfth), when castles became far more imposing.39 At the same time, the documentary sources bear witness to far harsher and more incisive—not to mention brutal, in many cases—forms of lordship connected to the exerting of far greater economic pressure on subjects.40 However, castles are not merely an indicator of the increase in seigneurial pressure: for they appear to be connected to this process in a far closer and deeper way. Within this context of considerable instability and fluidity, marked by intense military activity, castles became the centre of jurisdictional districts with uncertain, shifting boundaries. Whereas in the previous stage, at least until the mideleventh century, the connection between control over castles and the exercising of districtus was far from obvious, insofar as most castra were simply associated with large landed estates, rather than jurisdictional rights, the situation radically changed after 1080. A connection emerged between the ownership of a castle and the exercising of jurisdictional rights of a distinctly territorial nature over the surrounding area. The emphasis on the building of new fortified structures at this stage in monastic chronicles and the direct link with the intensification of local power are significant elements, because they show that the phenomena in question were also evident to observers at the time. Referring to abbot Giovanni’s building of massive new fortifications at Subiaco, the anonymous author of the monastic Chronicon claims that it was precisely thanks to these new structures that the monastery gained complete control over the village for the first time—and this, despite the fact that the monastery had been enjoying jurisdictional rights over Subiaco for roughly a century thanks to a papal concession.41 In other words, an explicit connection was established between the material reinforcement of the castle and the strengthening of local rule. From this perspective, it is also worth recalling the symbolic as well as material role of fortified structures, which increasingly started punctuating the Italian countryside. In this period stone walls started spreading, along with stone

39  An important overview of archaeological data, in Molinari, ‘Siti rurali’. 40  Wickham, ‘The origins of the signoria’, pp. 487–8. 41  Chronicon sublacense, pp. 12–18. See Molinari, ‘Siti rurali’, on the enlargement of castle structures in Latium in the decades around 1100.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

Territorial Lordship  61 t­ owers.42 As regards the latter, the studies published in recent decades tend to downplay their practical military function, at least to some extent, while stressing their symbolic and iconic value.43 Often the tower (or towers) of a specific castrum was (were) not situated in a particularly significant position for defending the castle, and at the same time the interior space was too small to serve as a dwelling place, if not for a brief time, in an emergency situation.44 In other words, towers would be an evident marker of the presence of a lord and of his dominion over a particular place and its surroundings, a means to evoke the power of their owner and builder even in his physical absence. The inaccessibility and costliness of towers would mark the difference between rulers and ruled, shaping people’s perception of both physical and social space. Therefore, the choice of locating towers (and the aristocratic dwellings annexed to them) in elevated and prominent positions would not so much serve a practical purpose, as reflect the logic of ostentation of seigniorial power and of its military nature. In various centres in Piedmont, such as Ceva, Piasco, Prato Sesia and Santo Stefano Belbo, the castle, located on a hilltop, was rather distant from the village, which was instead located on flat land, and towers over it from a height of several dozen metres.45 The symbolic significance of these architectural choices is quite evident. Clearly, this should not be taken to suggest that from a practical standpoint the defensive role of the towers and fortified areas attached to them was of little or no value; on the contrary, they remained an important means of protection in the event of sieges and provided a (useful) ultimate refuge in emergency situations.46 However, this was probably not the chief concern of those building such costly structures. The fact that at this stage fortifications tended to replace churches as the point of reference for local power even in areas ruled by ecclesiastical institutions is highly revealing of the kind of change underway in the representation and perception of local power.47 The military dimension of the power symbolized by towers and keeps is selfevident. Besides, the development of the territorial lordship, and of the material structures most closely connected to it, occurred within a climate of considerable uncertainty, marked—as we have seen—by ongoing and usually armed conflicts. The increased competition focused on castra, which had become pawns in the new political game played out in the countryside, is also witnessed by the intensity of the process of incastellamento in the decades at the turn of 1100. Maria Elena 42  It must be stressed that in the same period we can perceive an explosion of the number of towers in cities, used as markers of socio-political status (and also as structures for urban warfare); for an overview, see Settia, Erme torri, pp. 83–114. 43  For an important discussions of these general issues, see Creighton, Early European Castles, pp. 61–5. 44  Molinari, ‘Siti rurali’, p. 139. 45  See the files about Ceva, Piasco and Santo Stefano Belbo in Viglino Davico (ed.), Atlante castellano; and that about Prato Sesia in Sommo (ed.), Luoghi fortificati. 46  Good examples in the local wars described in Chronicon sublacense, pp. 12–18. 47  Molinari, ‘Siti rurali’, p. 137.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

62  The Seigneurial Transformation Cortese’s research on the Florence area has shown that this stage witnessed a significant reduction in the number of castles compared to the previous period. Much the same process is evident even in the central and southern Marche, as revealed by the extensive survey carried out by Roberto Bernacchia.48 In particular, the data pertaining to the southern part of this region, which coincides with the extensive diocesan territories of Ascoli and Fermo, allow us to gain more than just a vague picture of this process.49 The area in question is particularly well documented, thanks to the sources from Farfa and the two episcopal churches, from as early as the late tenth century. The period up until 1060 witnessed the foundation of numerous castles in the area, roughly 130, always associated with forms of land-based power, whereas we find no explicit mention of jurisdictional prerogatives. One interesting piece of evidence closely related to these foundations is the limited size of the estates that are often centred around the castra. In the case of donations, sales, exchanges or emphyteutic leases involving castles, the documents frequently specify the surface of the patrimony that found its administrative centre in the fortified settle­ment: a piece of evidence that also confirms the fact that these were essentially property transactions. While some castles would appear to have been founded at the centre of vast estates measuring several thousand modia, quite a few were built on restricted plots of land of no more than 400 modia. This is the case with the castle of Paterno, founded by an aristocratic family in the first half of the eleventh century and donated to the bishop of Fermo and the abbot of San Bartolomeo in 1066: it encompassed only 203 modia of landed property.50 The castle of Troia, donated by a member of a comital family to the prelate of Fermo in 1036, only included 100 modia of land.51 Estates of such limited size, no matter how fertile and well cultivated, could support a few dozen peasant families at most. The period between 1060 and 1120 witnessed a profound redefinition of settle­ ment patterns in the southern Marche. Around half of the centres founded in the previous stage disappeared and while several new castles were established (albeit fewer than the abandoned ones), several of these new settlements were transient: they vanish from the documentary evidence after their first mention. This confirms just how unstable the settlement grid was at this stage. In general, while many new castles were founded, even more disappeared, creating a markedly negative balance. This selection process proved particularly detrimental to settle­ments which were associated with more limited estates, and hence inevitably more fragile from a demographic perspective. One compelling example of this tendency is constituted by the territory of the present-day municipality of Servigliano, near Fermo. In the second half of the eleventh century the settlement pattern in the 48 Cortese, Signori, castelli, pp. 155–60; Bernacchia, Incastellamento e distretti, pp. 250–65. 49  About these data, see Bernacchia, Incastellamento e distretti, pp. 250–65. 50  Liber iurium, n. 95 (a. 1066), pp. 197–9. 51  Liber iurium, n. 106 (a. 1036), pp. 226–8.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

Territorial Lordship  63 area was rather fragmentary. Servigliano—which had probably already been fortified—laid at the centre of an estate owned by the bishop of Fermo.52 The centre had probably already absorbed the tiny castle of Troia, which had been donated to the prelate by its founders in 1036 and is never mentioned again after this date.53 However, the area also included another two castles, Santa Croce and Montecupo, which were controlled by two groups of minor local aristocrats. In 1108 the two families promised the bishop of Fermo (probably following an armed conflict with the latter) to demolish the two castles they had hitherto controlled and to move, along with their subjects, into the episcopal castrum of Servigliano, committing themselves to its reconstruction—an action probably required by the arriving of newcomers.54 While warfare operations are only adumbrated in this text, the context of military competition within which this process of ‘creative destruction’ occurred is evident from coeval documents, where references to attempts to destroy existing castles or prevent the construction of new ones become increasingly numerous. Not all the old centres had the demographic and economic potential to enable the construction and consolidation of territorial lordships and gave way to better equipped neighbours, be they other lords, nascent urban communes or, more rarely, independent castle communities. We should not forget that with the complete collapse of public order after 1080, several centres inhabited by freemen, such as Val di Scalve and Isola Comacina, acquired prerogatives, powers, and policies not unlike those typical of territorial lordships.55 In other cases still, communities within broader dominions attempted to take advantage (with varying degrees of success) of the stage of warfare and upheaval to free themselves from their lord and gain self-government, as in the case of Sambuca in the Pistoia area and San Gimignano, near Volterra.56 We will examine these realities in detail later on. For the moment, it is important to bear in mind that, within the complex scenario of the countryside of this period, other political actors were at work alongside the lords and urban proto-communes.57 Within this turbulent context, local actors acquired full awareness of the new significance of castles, as is evident from their reaction to the new establishment of a fortification by political actors already operating in a given area. To carry out an action of this sort was to invite conflict: for it meant reaffirming one’s power, even in military terms, while altering the existing balance. Thus the bishop of Luni regarded the construction of a new castle by the Malaspina, in an area he lay

52  Servigliano was first mentioned in 1035 (as mons); see Liber iurium, n. 273 (a. 1035), pp. 500–2. 53  Liber iurium, n. 106 (a. 1036), pp. 226–8. 54  Liber iurium, n. 274 (a. 1108), pp. 502–4. 55  See respectively: Menant, Campagnes lombardes, p. 493; Grillo, ‘Una fonte per lo studio’; Fiore, ‘I rituali della violenza’. 56  Regesta Chartarum Pistoriensium. Vescovado, n. 13 (a. 1104), pp. 13–4 (on Sambuca); Davidsohn, Geschichte, I, pp. 351–2 (on San Gimignano, around 1100). 57  See section 5.2.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

64  The Seigneurial Transformation claim to, as a serious threat to his own power and reacted militarily, by attacking the building site to prevent the completion of the work.58 In the prelate’s words, which were publicly uttered as soon as the news of the Malaspina’s building plans reached him, the construction of the castle would have entailed ‘the destruction of his comitatus’: it would have felt as though his ‘liver were being ripped out of his body’. It is noteworthy that in this case (as in other similar ones) the military attack, which culminated in a bloody open-field battle between the bishop’s milites and those of the Malaspina, took place just as the building work was about to start. The aim was not merely to disrupt the construction plans but also (and perhaps especially) to do so in the most public and spectacular way possible, to counterbalance the striking inauguration of the new building. The construction of a castle was a public act that amounted to the symbolic affirmation of one’s control over an area. It carried marked military implications, as is witnessed by the presence of numerous milites alongside the builders. Likewise, the response to this claim needed to be ostentatious and spectacular, in such a way as to reaffirm one’s rights and deny those of one’s opponent as powerfully as possible, before society as a whole. The castrum, then, stood as the physical and material projection of that military power on which hegemony over a local area ultimately rested. From this perspective, it is worth noting that in testimonies given in Tuscany in the mid-twelfth centuries, the witnesses, when referring to the offensive military operations (hostes) carried out by the bishop of Volterra, in which they had personally taken part, recall the building of certain castles alongside various armed expeditions against their enemies.59 In the eyes of their contemporaries, offensive military operations and the building of castles were one and the same thing. The explicitly military aspect of these operations—a means to stake one’s claims associated with the construction of fortifications—clearly emerges once more in the actions of the abbot of Subiaco. In several cases, in the case of a vassal’s refusal to return to the abbey a castle he held as a benefice, the abbot did not merely engage in a series of offensive military operations, but erected a new castle a short distance away from the one to which he lay claim, in such a way as to express as openly as possible his desire to control the territory. Conversely in two such episodes, when an agreement was struck with vassals after a phase of armed conflict, the new fortifications built by the abbey of Subiaco were demolished.60 The more conflictual the context was, the more crucial the erection of fortified structures proved from both a military and symbolic perspective. One interesting case in this respect is that of Valsesia, in northern Piedmont.61 A clear rift may be observed between the situation in the mouth of the valley, where several rival

58  Il regesto del codice Pelavicino, n. 50 (a. 1124), pp. 72–7. For an analogue episode, see Il Regesto di Farfa, V, n. 1213 (aa. 1099–1119 c.), pp. 204–5. 59  Collavini, ‘Il principato vescovile di Volterra’. 60  Chronicon sublacense, pp. 12–8. 61  For the castles of this area, see Sommo (ed.), Luoghi fortificati, I, pp. 47–76.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

Territorial Lordship  65 authorities were operating (in particular the counts of Biandrate, the bishop of Vercelli and that of Novara, and the margraves of Romagnano) and the valley itself, which had been entirely in the hands of the counts of Biandrate at least since the mid-eleventh century.62 By contrast, in the middle and upper valley no castles or towers were ever built. The only exception is a stronghold near Varallo, the most important centre in the valley (and probably already the local central place at the time, as it was to be in the subsequent period). Attested from as early as the mid-tenth century, in all likelihood it was originally constructed by the public authorities and later fell under the control of the counts of Biandrate.63 The building of fortifications and the massive investment of resources connected to it were a distinguishing feature of the disputed areas, whereas this phenomenon did not occur in the more safely secured area, if not in a wholly marginal way. The family of counts only built a range of significant fortifications in the problematic area, in such a way as to prevent their enemies from accessing the valley and to symbolically mark the boundary of their territory, whereas they did not invest in the stronghold of Varallo, which would not appear to have undergone any notable restorations, despite traces of occupation. The fragmentary situation and high degree of conflict characterizing the stage of the final affirmation of territorial lordship nonetheless generally suggest the development of a tight web of fortifications. One significant exception within this framework is represented by the immediate environs of cities, where the nascent communes engaged in a fierce struggle to prevent the building of castles or destroy existing ones. The presence of castles, by now associated with the exercising of jurisdictional rights, was perceived as a threat to urban jurisdiction and control— including economic control—over the surroundings. The best-known example of this is the Sei Miglia (Six Miles) areas around Lucca, which was almost devoid of castra. However, similar phenomena may be observed in numerous other cases as well.64 The founding, rebuilding or restoration of castles abundantly documented by written as well as archaeological sources was very costly in material terms. Such operations were made possible precisely by the new and fuller control over local society exercised by the lords, but at the same time they also enabled this control to be exercised in the difficult and conflictual context of the age. These building projects required considerable investments, demonstrating the new hold over local society exercised by the lords undertaking them. Only a far closer control over local society could ensure the local extraction of the labour and materials

62  On the political situation of Valsesia, see Guglielmotti, ‘Unità e divisione’. 63  Sommo (ed.), Luoghi fortificati, I, pp. 47–76. 64  On the ‘Sei Miglia’, see Wickham, Communities and clientele; and Quirós Castillo, El incastellamento, pp. 137–54. For a general overview, see Cortese, ‘Incastellamento e città’.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

66  The Seigneurial Transformation required.65 From this perspective, a highly significant piece of evidence is the disuse of mortar mills (mortar being a crucial material extensively employed for the building of castles)—well-documented in the archaeological record for the eleventh century—in favour of hand-mixing, which was far more costly in terms of human resources, as some experimental archaeological surveys have shown. What is more, this trend occurred in a context of increased building requirements.66 The element in question seems to bear witness to the fact that the lords’ capacity to locally extract labour had significantly increased, making techno­logic­al strategies to save on human capital superfluous. Rather, it may be argued that the fact that additional labour was made necessary was to some extent welcome to the lords, insofar as it allowed them to powerfully reassert their increasingly tight control over their subordinates’ bodies. Besides, the capacity to mobilize such significant resources explains the new and increased capacity to extract surplus at a local level, by now on a jurisdictional basis. This, in turn, further explains why the imposition of complete and explicit territorial lordship in those communities characterized to a more or less substantial degree by the presence of peasant alodia did not translate into the dispossession of their owners. This element has sometimes been interpreted as betraying a certain weakness on the lords’ part. In the tenth and early eleventh century the bulk of castle owners sought to expropriate, in a more or less legal way, the landed properties of those residing in their area of influence, so as to increase land rents. By contrast, the territorial lords of the late eleventh and early twelfth century had no need to act in such a manner, as by then they were capable of imposing levies upon the whole population residing in the districts surrounding the castles (despite their fluid and not yet strictly defined boundaries). The fact that the lords did not appropriate all lands, therefore, should not be interpreted as a sign of weakness: indeed, perfectly comparable situations may be observed both in areas subject to what are regarded as weak forms of lordship, such as northern Tuscany, and ones subject to strong forms of lordship, such as the central Po Valley.67 Material evidence also provides some significant clues as regards the ways in which the increasing quota of productive surplus accumulated by the lords circulated within village society. In this age stone houses started making their appearance near castles, as in the case of those built adjacent to the castle of Manzano, in Piedmont, in the early decades of the twelfth century.68 These were houses set 65  On the Aldobrandeschi’s imposition of heavy building corvées on their subjects in southern Tuscany around the year 1080, see Codex Diplomaticus Amiatinus, II, n. 309 (ante a. 1084), pp. 261–3; on the heavy building corvées which the abbot of Farfa imposed on the peasants in the villages directly under the abbey’s control, see Il Regesto di Farfa, V, n. 1154 (a. 1097 c.), p. 158 (the peasants were apparently required to work in shifts, so that at any one time twenty men would always be involved in the building activity). 66  Bianchi, ‘Costruire castelli’. 67 Wickham, The Mountain and the City, pp. 307–43; Menant, Campagnes lombardes, pp. 421–3. 68  Micheletto, ‘L’insediamento rurale’.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

Territorial Lordship  67 aside not for the lords themselves but, in all likelihood, for the local military elites. In other words, the knights sought to imitate, on a smaller scale, the structures and materials adopted by their lords, thereby marking their distance from the rest of the local population, which continued to live in wooden dwellings. The use of stone (or brick) became a way to visually and concretely express the divisions of local society, but also the transformations of the system of appropriation and redistribution of local economic resources. If seigneurial coercion was crucial for the appropriation of surplus, this was only possible—as we shall see later on— through the redefinition of the balances of village society, and the militarization of part of the local military elite, closely connected to the domini.69 Starting from the last decades of the eleventh century, the appropriation of rural surplus entailed the exercising of dominatus loci, of control over the local territory and its residents. There was no need for the lords to insist on controlling landed properties in order to acquire the surplus; indeed, from the late eleventh century onwards, at times we find properties previously held in concession being donated as a reward to individual subordinates (often, but not exclusively, of military extraction): a new phenomenon that allows us to clearly grasp the implications of the transformation underway.70 We will later be discussing the ways in which village society was reshaped. Here we must instead deal with a particular phenomenon that emerged precisely in the period under consideration, without being confined to it, and which appears to be closely connected to the re­def­in­ ition of local power balances: the construction of fortified boroughs in the countryside by major lords.

3.4  Seigneurial ‘central places’ and their role Already by the first half of the eleventh century, the settlement pattern in the Italian countryside must have been far from homogeneous: many small-sized centres existed alongside far more significant settlements, such as Susa, Guastalla, Monselice and Pontremoli. However, within the context of the more general process of incastellamento (and decastellamento), the period after 1080 witnessed a tendency towards the construction of new fortified boroughs in the countryside or the restructuring and enlargement of pre-existing fortified settlements.71 Among the best-known examples in this respect we find Crema, Biandrate, and Empoli, which are evidenced by more or less rich sources that enable us to clearly appreciate the difference in scale compared to the more typical foundations of

69  I will discuss this issue in more depth in section 4.1. 70  See for example Le carte di Sassovivo, I, n. 159 (a. 1105), pp. 236–8; Documenti per la storia di Arezzo, I, n. 289 (a. 1098), pp. 395–6; Codice diplomatico padovano, II, n. 5 (1104), pp. 4–5. 71  About this issue, see Cortese, ‘Signorie rurali e centri’.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

68  The Seigneurial Transformation castra. These examples can help understand a far broader phenomenon, of which the documentary evidence often provides only a fleeting glimpse. In this context too it is likely that progress in the archaeological research in coming years will provide crucial data to enrich and broaden our records. However, not least in the light of our current knowledge, to conflate these interventions with the more common, and less ambitious, examples of incastellamento would be to water down their importance and miss the opportunity to investigate the specific features of these projects within the context of the countryside of that age. I will therefore set out from some better-known examples in order to more broadly reflect on the possible dimensions of the phenomenon and on its specific significance. That of Crema is no doubt the most famous example, precisely on account of the particular success enjoyed by this new settlement—which in the immediately following decades was to acquire markedly semi-urban features—and of the particular richness and density of the local documentary and narrative evidence.72 Crema was founded in the early 1080s upon the initiative of a distinguished comital family, the Gisalbertini, who had long been the comites of the county of Bergamo, a relatively peripheral area compared to the centre of their patrimony. From the very beginning, Crema drew a considerable population, attracting within a short time a very broad pool of immigrants (peasants, but also numerous families of military extraction), mostly from outside the area ruled by the counts. Precisely on account of its capacity to drawn new inhabitants, within a few years Crema became a point of reference for an extensive area and hence a military rival for urban centres such as Lodi and (especially) Cremona that sought to control the surrounding territory. Moreover, the new castrum soon became a lynchpin for much of the Gisalbertini clan, who moved there. An altogether different case is that of Empoli, which was founded by the Guidi in 1119 near the parish church of Sant’Andrea, in an area where their power ran up against the growing ambitions of Florence. From the very beginning, the new castle was of considerable size and housed a population that had hitherto been dispersed across several settlements, within a broad territory. It established itself as the political and economic hub for a vast section of the Guidi’s domain.73 The (re)founding of Biandrate, a dozen kilometres away from Novara, instead occurred in 1093 upon the initiative of the main branch of the ancient family of counts of the Novara area, a branch which was soon to take its name from the castle. This historical event is known to us through a double letter of privilege issued to the local milites and peasants by the counts, in order to promote the development and settlement of the site. This investment is clearly connected to a 72  Menant, ‘Alle origini della società cremasca’; and Albini, ‘Crema dall’XI al XIII secolo’. 73  Documenti per la storia dei conti Guidi, nn. 162–3 (a. 1119), pp. 226–8; on these texts see Cortese, ‘Signorie rurali e centri’, p. 398. A similar (but slightly later) example is the (re)foundation of Poggibonsi by the Guidi counts; an enterprise thanks to the rich archaeology; see Poggio imperiale, pp. 126–44.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

Territorial Lordship  69 stage of marked expansion by this aristocratic family, who after a harsh armed conflict with the bishop of Novara, culminating in the physical elimination of the prelate, consolidated and extended its hold over the plain, quite a distance away from their mountain strongholds of Ossola and Valsesia.74 Besides, the military context for this initiative is evident from the very pacts drawn up with the local milites, whose support was crucial for the Biandrate family’s plans. The three cases just mentioned allow us to identify certain common features, most notably the founding of a fortification in a military context marked by rivalry with large alternative power centres, including urban ones. In the case of Biandrate and Crema, another notable feature is the fact that these sites were conceived as genuine cornerstones for a princely political project.75 Whereas Empoli was intended to be one of the administrative centres within the extensive and uneven area controlled by the Guidi (like Modigliana and Monte di Croce), the other two castles were destined, within a very short time, to become genuine seigniorial ‘capitals’. Crema gradually lost this position, as within a few decades the dominant role of the counts gave way to the authority of the local community. By contrast, Biandrate preserved its original function for quite some time, so much so that in the late twelfth century it was completely destroyed by the communes of Vercelli and Novara as a way to symbolize the dismantlement of the comital principality.76 These three examples are far from isolated ones and can be used as guidelines to understand a wide-scale process that is nonetheless impossible to fully grasp, owing to the occasional nature of the written and archaeological sources. One particularly significant case, in this respect, is that of Tusculum, in Latium, which is documented by a major excavation campaign. What we have here is not merely a gradual process of development, but extensive and ambitious interventions, which coincide with a substantial enlargement of the space occupied by this settle­ment, and which constitute the crucial premise for its transformation in an even more markedly urban sense from the mid-twelfth century onwards.77 The centrality of this settlement, even from an economic perspective, is further revealed by the presence of large warehouses for the foodstuffs produced, in all likelihood, not just in the immediate environs, but also in minor centres controlled by the same family of lords—a feature that, as we have seen, Tusculum shares with other similar sites.78 In this case the centre in question was also the ‘capital’ of an important seigneurial family, the Tuscolani, and the building work coincided with their full

74  Andenna, ‘I conti di Biandrate e le loro clientele’; the double charter of franchise (for milites and peasants) is edited in I Biscioni, I/2, nn. 279–80 (a. 1093), pp. 120–2. 75  See the archaeology about the later (but structurally similar) settlement of Poggibonsi (founded in 1155): Poggio imperiale, pp. 126–44. 76  Degrandi, ‘Definizioni teoriche e prassi’, pp. 466–70. 77  Beolchini, Delogu, ‘La nobiltà romana altomedievale’; and Beolchini, Tusculum II. 78  See section 1.3.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

70  The Seigneurial Transformation affirmation as territorial lords, within the framework of the collapse of papal power in the region. Other similar cases probably include Prato, which around 1100 became the main hub for the Alberti counts’ domain, and Massa (significantly called Massa del markese), in Lunigiana. Following margrave Alberto’s intervention, in the 1080s Massa became the eponymous centre and political hub for one of the branches of the kinship group of the Obertenghi, engaged in an ambitious project in the coastal area between Liguria and Tuscany, as well as in Corsica.79 However, as perfectly illustrated by the case of Empoli, the founding of a settlement ex novo (or the re-founding of an existing settlement on a larger scale) cannot always be interpreted as an attempt to establish a genuine capital. More often, it was simply a matter of planning new economic and/or political centres for an area, by exploiting the fluid territorial boundaries and context of increased productiveness. The territories controlled by princes were large enough to support several centres of this sort, many of which were actually situated in a marginal position. For example, shortly before 1100 the margraves of Monferrato built a large, fortified ­burgum novum at Trino, a peripheral area within their domain, where their political plans conflicted with those of the bishop of Vercelli, whereas no similar interventions are known to us at the heart of their territory, not least because of the dearth of evidence.80 In addition, it is not unlikely that investments were made to found new settlements or re-found pre-existing ones, in such a way as to lend them a semi-urban character, within the extensive domain ruled by Bonifacio Del Vasto (Cortemilia, Cairo, Loreto, Saluzzo and Ceva being the most likely candidates).81 The settlement of Loreto, which served as the margrave’s favourite residence in the last years of his life but was then razed to the ground by the citizens of Asti and abandoned, around the year 1200, might be made the object of valuable archaeological surveys in the future that would shed new light on such a process. In these same years, within the framework of the vast domain of the Aldobrandeschi, Grosseto underwent substantial economic and demographic development (culminating in its being raised to the status of civitas in 1138 with the transfer of the see of the bishop of Roselle within its walls), not least thanks to the production of salt—a major source of revenue at the time. By the 1130s this centre in Maremma, protected by thick walls and furnished with a fortified keep, was perceived by observers from across the Alps as a genuine civitas, like Turin or Florence, rather than as a mere castrum.82 It is quite possible that the counts 79  Cortese, ‘Signorie rurali e centri’, p. 399 (Prato); and Nobili, ‘Le signorie territoriali’, pp. 304–6 (Massa). 80  Le carte dell’archivio capitolare di Vercelli, I, n. 64 (a. 1100), p. 78; see Panero, Villenove medievali, pp. 20–1. 81  On these settlements Provero, Dai marchesi del Vasto, pp. 125–50. 82  Collavini, ‘Grosseto’. On Grosseto, considered as a civitas by German eyes, see Annalista Saxo, Annales, p. 773. Even the great castle of Gamondio (in this case autonomous and not subject to any lord), in southern Piedmont, is labelled by the same author as civitas (p. 771).

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

Territorial Lordship  71 played an active role in the development of this centre. However, despite its demographic and economic weight, Grosseto never became the ‘capital’ of the principality, partly owing to the fraught relations between the local community and the family of counts, who opted at that stage for an ‘itinerant’ form of rule, i.e. one that did not entail the selection of a specific place as the seat of princely power.83 More powerful abbots also undertook initiatives of this sort, as is shown for instance by the substantial building investments made by the abbey of Subiaco for its eponymous castle and those made by the abbot of Farfa at Offida, which in the immediately subsequent period was destined to become the main centre ruled by Farfa in the southern Marche. At Offida, the material restoration of the settlement went hand in hand with the issuing of franchises and privileges to the local community: an initiative clearly intended to further increase the population.84 By contrast, it is likely that the need for projects of this sort was not as keenly felt by bishops, since their power was (also) urban in nature. Yet, it is worth noting that in certain cases the bishop’s see was located within a walled settlement adjacent to the city itself, as in the cases of Imola and Arezzo. However, where the episcopal authorities develop extensive polities—as in Volterra, Ravenna, the southern Marche, and the southern Piedmont—it is possible to find cases such as those illustrated in these last pages. While the bishops did not need ‘capitals’, they still needed administrative and economic centres in order to make the most of the potential offered by their control over the countryside. One particularly significant example is the bishop of Fermo’s founding of Civitanova, probably in the first half of the 1070s. The very name chosen for the new settlement, located in the northern sector of the diocese of Fermo, clearly reveals the ‘urban’ ambitions behind the project. Moreover, we know that even homines depending on other lords emigrated to the new centre (and this inevitably became a source of considerable tension). Finally, on the occasion of the founding of the settlement, its inhabitants were granted a generous charter of franchise, which ensured a significant degree of self-government for the local community and its representatives, much as at Offida and Biandrate.85 In the late 1080s and early 1090s, the bishop of Ravenna also acted in a particularly incisive way with regard to the small fortified centre (oppidulum) of Argenta, in the Po delta, an important trading area where considerable reclamation work was carried out. A huge tower was built there that made a strong impression at the time. It represented the most striking element in the building project, evidently designed to establish Argenta as a toll station and junction in the regional trade system. But it also served as a lynchpin for the 83  Collavini, ‘Grosseto’, pp. 127–33. 84  On Offida, see Il Regesto di Farfa, V, n. 1319b (a. 1099–1119 c.), p. 310. 85  The documenti is lost, but in the later decades it was used as model for other charters of franchise granted by the bishop of Fermo; see Tomei, ‘Genesi e primi sviluppi’, pp. 139–42; and Fiore, Signori e sudditi, pp. 250–1. On the conflict with the personal domini of some immigrants, see Liber iurium, n. 84 (a. 1075), pp. 179–81.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

72  The Seigneurial Transformation r­ eclamation of the surrounding marshes, thanks to the network of canals branching out from Argenta.86 The success of this new central place is also illustrated by the two sojourns—including a rather extended one—that the archbishop made there in 1093 and 1097, as well as by the later history of the settlement.87 From a general perspective, a distinguishing feature of the period in question in contrast to the immediately preceding one is the building ex novo or re-founding of large rural centres, where the population could be concentrated in what would probably have been regarded as an urban setting in northern Europe. These ini­ tiatives could even draw residents from outside the domain of those promoting the centres, as is shown by the case of Crema and, on a more limited scale, that of Civitanova.88 This result was also obtained through the concession of a considerable degree of self-government to the local communities, as in Biandrate, Offida, and Civitanova, and more generally of a relative limitation (and regulation) of seigniorial taxation, at least compared to the frequently ‘predatory’ modes of exaction typical of the age. In addition to playing an economic and demographic role, often connected to the reclamation, tilling and cultivation of land (as in Argenta, Crema and, probably, Biandrate), these centres were of crucial pol­it­ical importance. They were conceived as genuine linchpins for the control of the surrounding territory and the coordination of the minor fortifications in the environs. From this perspective, the ‘military’ component of the population was of fundamental importance, as is shown in particular by the cases of Biandrate and Crema: concentrating in one large centre a considerable number of easily mobilized knights, was crucial in order to exercise effective military control over the surrounding area. Finally, in certain cases this political aspect is even more prominent, insofar as the sites are conceived as the genuine ‘capitals’ of incipient principalities, as in the cases of Prato, Tusculum and Biandrate. One element worth stressing is the fact that such projects were exclusively implemented by major political actors with an almost prince-like profile (distinguished families of margraves and counts, bishops who were highly politically active at the local level, and major abbeys). These were the only political actors possessing the material resources required to undertake costly endeavours of this sort; but they were also the only actors to control territories large enough to support such ambitious political and economic projects, which otherwise would have almost certainly been destined to failure. What seems to emerge quite clearly from the analysis carried out so far is the fact that the decades at the turn of the year 1100 represent a decisive moment, in which the processes of localization and redefinition of power that had been unfolding for decades underwent a crucial acceleration within the context of the 86 Deusdedit, Libellus, p. 330; on the cruciality of the munitio (stronghold) of Argenta for the local political projects of the archbishop, see also Bernold of Konstanz, Chronicon, p. 533. Perhaps the monumental rebuilding of the local church dates from the same years: Vasina, ‘Le pievi’, p. 615. 87 Pallotti, Castelli e poteri signorili, pp. 41–6. 88  Liber iurium, n. 84 (a. 1075), pp. 179–81.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

Territorial Lordship  73 breakdown of public order previously described. The territorial lordship model became widespread, establishing itself as the principle shaping most of the rural territory. A close relationship emerged between the ownership of castles and the exercising of jurisdictional prerogatives that was destined to characterize subsequent centuries as well. The economic pressure on peasant society increased through the imposition of new burdens on a territorial and jurisdictional basis, which were added on top of the more traditional burdens based on land ownership. In other words, what we witness is not a mere localization of power practices and structures, but their redefinition and reshaping; and this is attested not just by changes in the documentary evidence, with the proliferation of texts connected to the concrete modes in which jurisdiction was exercised (the kind of texts essentially absent in the previous centuries), but also by the material and archaeological evidence.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

4

Inside the Lordship Reshaping Local Societies

In the previous chapter we have seen how the widespread application of the model of power of the territorial lordship in the countryside at the turn of the 1100s led to a general increase in the duties imposed on peasant society in rural centres ruled by lords, and to a new capacity for the accumulation of agricultural surplus on the latter’s part. This process occurred through the imposition and formalization of rights of command that were far broader than those en force in the previous period. The forms of coercion and exaction that crystallized in this period would appear to have been more pervasive and effective at the local level compared to the prerogatives typically associated with landed lordship, or trad­ition­al ways of exercising public power. Confining ourselves to this observation, however, would be simplistic and essentially misleading. To stop at the surface of this change affecting lordship is to overlook the forms acquired by local societies, which is to say the concrete contexts in which human beings lived at the time—their day-to-day social, political, and economic relations. Rather, we must investigate and identify the nature of the transformations triggered by changes in lordship patterns within village societies. In other words, it is necessary to analyse how these changes affected social and economic relations and networks, reshaping local hierarchies and modes of social mobility for groups and individuals.1 Territorial lordships must be seen not merely as a means to exact material and symbolic resources, but also as a means to redistribute these resources within local society. Precisely by virtue of these dynamics, territorial lordships restructured and remodelled social space, to varying degrees, depending on the context. This is a fundamental aspect to bear in mind if we are to understand their capacity not only to affirm themselves but also to acquire a stable form and impose themselves for an extended period of time as the main political model for rural power balances. While the use of force and coercion no doubt played a significant role in the process of reaffirmation of territorial lordships in this troubled age, it is obvious that it was not the only element at play. The process of internal rearrangement of subject communities, which is closely connected to the redistributive aspect of the dominatus loci, proved crucial for

1  On these processes, in general, see Carocci, Lordships, pp. 325–490. The Seigneurial Transformation: Power Structures and Political Communication in the Countryside of Central and Northern Italy, 1080–1130. Alessio Fiore, Oxford University Press (2020). © Alessio Fiore. DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198825746.001.0001

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

Inside the Lordship  75 building the kind of local consensus that every authority requires in order to successfully perpetuate itself over time.2 As regards the specific issue of social balances within village societies in the late eleventh and early twelfth century, over the last two decades Italian scholarship has been deeply influenced by the model proposed by Chris Wickham in his landmark study on the communities of the Lucca plain, which marked a real turning point in the study of local social and economic structures and networks.3 However, the model proposed by this British scholar can only partially be applied to communities governed by territorial lordships. Indeed, this model is based on empirical evidence from a specific area, the Sei Miglia (Six Miles) of Lucca, strongly marked by proximity to the city (and by the political influence of its nascent urban commune), even though the rural centres it encompassed—as in the case of Moriano—were subject to lords. So while this model provides essential guidelines for understanding the forms and structures of rural territories that are highly integrated with urban contexts, it must be used with much greater caution when we shift further away from the cities, into genuinely seigniorial areas, which remained predominant in the Italian countryside up until at least the late twelfth century.4 In order to intuitively grasp the rift between the ‘Lucca Plain model’ and the reality of seigneurial centres, we need only consider the fact that, according to the former, the military aspect was weak in village elites, or even non-existent, whereas the central role played by milites becomes immediately evident in any analysis of documents pertaining to rural communities subject to actual domini. And it is precisely this element that I would like to take as my starting point in order to evaluate the extent to which local power balances were redefined by changes in lordship patterns, before moving on to an analysis of the lower strata of village society.

4.1  Village elites and their militarization The process of the redefinition of social space triggered by the rise of territorial lordships unfolded within the framework of the increasing local unrest I have previously described. In turn, this inevitably influenced the crystallization of new power balances in the decades around 1100. As we have seen, the spread and generalization of the dominatus loci in the countryside was closely connected to the substantial rise in military activity that occurred from the last decades of the eleventh century. Within a context of endemic warfare, what acting on the local political scene meant for the lords was primarily defending themselves 2  Collavini, ‘Signoria ed élites rurali’; see also Fiore, Signori e sudditi, pp. 248–63. 3 Wickham, Community and Clientele. On the influence of this book over Italian scholarship, see Provero, ‘Dalla realtà locale’. 4  The author was well aware of this; see Wickham, Community and Clientele, pp. 209–26, on differences between local frameworks in Italy.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

76  The Seigneurial Transformation against their enemy, extending their influence to the detriment of their neighbours, and affirming their power over subjects who were not always compliant. All these actions required a considerable use of human resources for the purpose of warfare. The domini had the utmost need for well-trained reserve warriors that could easily be mobilized to effectively meet these requirements. This was much more the case now than in the past, when the level of local violence had been far more limited, as had been the military dimension of power.5 The change in lordship patterns entailed not only a militarization of local societies, but a transformation of their inner hierarchies, which made it possible to maximize the number of armed men in the domini’s service: a key element to understand the modes and outcomes of this process. One first vantage point that can enable us to grasp the degree of militarization of the elite within village society at the turn of the 1100s is the semantic shift of the expression boni homines. Traditionally it referred to local notables, both at a strictly local level and at a supra-local one; it described a prominent role that was publicly acknowledged, even by royal officials.6 This label was applied to those individuals who, with a position of some prominence, attended the placita held by public officials; but it was also applied to the estimatores (estimators) who took part in the transfer of ecclesiastical institutions by assessing the actual value of the properties involved. In other words, these people were the acknowledged guarantors of local order, by virtue of their prominent position within village society. In our period, in rural seigniorial centres in central Italy, the expression instead became a perfect synonym for milites: it was used to describe a group of mounted warriors closely connected to their lord, often by bonds of personal fealty, precisely by virtue of their military prowess.7 The available sources are numerous and very explicit on this matter, so a couple of examples should suffice to illustrate this close identification. In establishing a series of burdensome material obligations related to the building of the new monastic church, in 1097 the abbot of Farfa Berardo (II) only made an exception, among his subjects, for the ‘bonos homines idest equitum personas’.8 In the same years, within the domains of the Marchiones, in northern Umbria, the holders of seigniorial feora (fiefs) were collectively described as boni homines.9 A rather vague characterization, based on their distinguished position in the local context and on ownership and relational dynamics, gives way to one defined by bonds of vassalage. By the end of the eleventh century, pre-eminence within village society and a military profile had come to be perceived as two inextricably connected features. As we shall see in greater detail 5  Military characterization of elite is undetectable around Poggibonsi, in Tuscany, in the first three decades of eleventh century; see Collavini, ‘I beni fiscali in Tuscia’. 6  Szabo, ‘Zur Geschichte des boni homines’. 7  This issue is discussed in Brancoli Busdraghi, ‘Masnada e “boni homines” ’. 8  Il Regesto di Farfa, V, n. 1154 (a. 1097 c.), p. 158. 9  Documenti per la storia di Arezzo, I, n. 289 (a. 1098), pp. 395–6; see Tiberini, ‘Origini e radicamento’, pp. 510–12.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

Inside the Lordship  77 later on, in the years after 1080, in the pacts and charters of franchise regulating the relations between a local community and its dominus loci, a clear distinction emerged with regard to the former, between milites and peasants: a view of the social context that is instead completely foreign to texts of this sort from the previous period.10 In this respect, one important structural element to be taken into account is the fact that, generally speaking, the brutal coercion of subjects, as a crucial means for lords to impose and consolidate their power, was easier to ensure if the group exercising the violence was clearly distinct and separate from the mass of the subject population. The more marked the social and status gap between the two groups was—i.e. the higher the degree of segmentation of a village community—the easier it was to control the local society. A tight-knit and compact community, capable of autonomously expressing and managing its military potential, was capable of successfully resisting seigneurial rule, especially it if carried con­sid­er­able demographic weight. There are plenty of examples of this for our period: from the bellicose homines of the Val di Scalve, who succeeded in wresting certain Alpine centres away from the bishop of Bergamo, to the communities of rural centres in southern Piedmont such as Gamondio, Marengo and Novi, who successfully affirmed themselves as independent political actors despite the op­pos­ition from enemies of the calibre of the local Aleramic margraves.11 The turbulent decades around 1100, with their ever-shifting balances of power, must have actually fostered processes of this sort, as we shall see in greater detail in the next chapter. What is most noteworthy here is the fact that, precisely by virtue of the existence of autonomous communities of this sort, lords must have been well aware of these developments and must have sought to prevent them. To do so, from the perspective of the domini loci, it was crucial to develop, within village society, a specific class possessing military capacities (but also, more generally, a capacity for social control) that would identify itself with the lord and share his view of social and power relations. This group was to derive (material and symbolic) profit from this proximity to the domini, so as to cut itself off from the bulk of peasant society. As we shall see later on, when analysing the structural role of violence in the reproduction of the lordship system, not just mounted combat but also the often brutal use of force against subject peasants was an important shared moment that brought together the lords and their milites—who were otherwise separated owing to their different degrees of wealth and power—by establishing them on a different level from the rest of rural society.12 The material benefits accruing from membership of this group were of two kinds: the concession of estates and other properties; and complete or partial exemption from the kind of levies imposed on peasants. The tax benefits would 10  For a discussion of this issue, see section 4.2. 11  For an ample overview, see section 5.2. 12  See Chapter 10; on this issue a convenient guide is Collavini, ‘Sviluppo signorile’.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

78  The Seigneurial Transformation appear to be closely connected to the provision of mounted military service for the dominus loci. The purchase and upkeep of a horse and of war equipment was expensive, and taking part in military actions entailed considerable risks. In return for this servitium, the lord would offer complete (or almost complete) exemption from regular taxation. This link between military service and tax bene­fits is clearly affirmed not just in several written pacts, but also in other texts, such as records of the services owed to a dominus.13 The 1125 agreement between the abbot of Nonantola and the ‘homines de Sancto Mariano qui milites dicebantur’ clearly specified that if the latter failed to upkeep their horses and fulfil their military duties, they would be treated like all other men ruled by the abbot, who were subject to corvée and to the payment of taxes ‘secundum usum nostrorum operariorum hominum’.14 In any case, they were still required to pay the tithe. Likewise, the estates granted in feudo militibus by the bishop of Pistoia were exempt from the kind of levies imposed on the lands of mere peasants.15 As regards the concession of properties, this could occur both in a feudal way and via other systems (emphyteusis, temporary grant, etc.). Even in the same place an individual miles could receive lands from his lord in different forms. In the first half of the twelfth century, in a castle belonging to the Este, various members of the village elite had some mansi granted them in feudum and other ones assigned to them according to different legal formulas (and which presumably could more easily be revoked by the lord). Thus one Umbertus bastardus enjoyed usufruct of seven mansi in total, of which only four were held de feudis.16 The extension of the goods held in concession varied considerably from case to case, even within the same location. The Nonantolan milites of San Mariano held estates of the standard size of 100 perticae, each of twelve feet, yet this uniformity would seem rather exceptional.17 In the aforementioned Este castle, the local milites held in concession estates varying from five to eight mansi (households), each of which was sublet to a family of farmers.18 A far more extensive and largely uncultivated estate was given in emphyteusis by the bishop of Fermo to two of his boni homines, Guarmusa and Corrado, in 1135: it covered a surface of no less than 200 modia, inhabited by a dozen mainade hominum (households).19 Besides, it is more than plausible that such an extensive landed patrimony included, in

13  Like the brevis about Pernina, in eastern Tuscany, drawn up in the early twelfth century, and edited in Fabbri, Statuti e riforme, n. 2, pp. 344–6; the text is discussed in Carocci, ‘Le lexique du prelevement’. 14 Tiraboschi, Storia dell’augusta badia di Nonantola, n. 236 (a. 1125), p. 236; on this, see Keller, Signori e vassalli, pp. 74–5. 15  Regestum chartarum pistoriensium, Vescovado, n. 21 (a. 1132), pp. 22–35; these mechanisms are discussed in general in Provero, Le parole dei sudditi, pp. 129–31. 16  Codice diplomatico padovano, II, n. 525 (a. 1150 c. but early twelfth century), pp. 382–3. 17 Tiraboschi, Storia dell’augusta badia di Nonantola, n. 236 (a. 1125), p. 236. 18  Codice diplomatico padovano, II, n. 525 (a. 1150 c. but early twelfth century), pp. 382–3. 19  Liber iurium, n. 295 (a. 1135), pp. 536–7.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

Inside the Lordship  79 addition to the farmsteads belonging to individual peasant families, also estates belonging to the local lord and put to good use through the peasants’ corvées. And again, around 1110 even a humble scutifer under the authority of a direct vassal of the bishop of Padua held a feudal benefice that included a small curtis, in which peasants under his authority offered their services.20 However, the clearest indicator of the milites’ wealth is the number of peasant families. While sometimes—as we have seen—there were half a dozen of such families, in certain cases the families were far more numerous. Thus in 1105 the brothers John and Albert, residing at Poggio San Giuliano, were granted in emphyteusis by the bishop of Fermo no less than twenty-one peasant caseate (households) with the attached land, located in the territory of the important episcopal castle.21 In 1117 Petrus de Sulico held per feudum no less than fifteen casae massariciae (houses of tenants) within the major castle of Porto, in the southern Veneto.22 On the other hand, the sources from Farfa pertaining to the decades around 1100 present the equites residing in the castles of the monastery as being always ready to take advantage of the tensions in the upper echelons of the abbey in order to wrest the local peasant tenants (angariales) away from the monks and place them under their own control, to the significant detriment of the congregation’s revenue.23 We should not forget that lands and the rights over the men cultivating them were not the only economic resource for this group, as is shown for example by the concession of mills—which must have constituted another major source of rev­ enue in the rural context of those years—and, to a lesser degree, of river ports.24 As already noted, the benefits that this social group derived from its relationship with a lord was not limited to the acquisition of economic resources. The connection with the dominus also gave milites access to non-material and symbolic capital, which enabled them to redefine their status within the village community. From this perspective, one central element is represented by the exercising of power over men, which brought them closer to the local lord while distancing them from all other subjects. This is not a matter only of the power they exercised as reserve soldiers or officials of the dominus, but also of their rights to exercise personal lordship over the peasants under their authority.25 The feudal, emphyteutic or lease-based grants by which these individuals were rewarded also included the

20  Codice diplomatico padovano, II, n. 526 (a. 1150 c.), pp. 383–4; the witnesses collected in this text describe events from the early twelfth century and, in this specific case, from the years of Paduan bishop Peter (second decade of the century). 21  Liber iurium, n. 276 (a. 1105), pp. 506–7. 22  Codice diplomatico padovano, II, n. 88 (a. 1117), pp. 70–2. 23  Il Chronicon farfense, II, pp. 299–313. 24  Liber iurium, n. 224 (a. 1095), pp. 415–6 (mill); n. 292 (a. 1140), pp. 533–4 (mill); n. 87 (a. 1104), pp. 185–6 (third part of a portus); Le carte di Sassovivo, I, n. 127 (a. 1100), pp. 194–5 (vasallus of a church who has as grant a mill). 25 Carocci, Lorships, pp. 466–90, has stressed the importance of this point, with reference to southern Italy.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

80  The Seigneurial Transformation services of the peasant families working in the lands granted to them: payments in coinage or kind, and labour. As we have seen, the number of families attached to each miles (through beneficia, grants, and/or allodia, full properties) could range from just a few to over a dozen, which suggests significant economic variations. But what matters here is the fact that, on the whole, the members of the group exercised prerogatives of this sort.26 Moreover, they were exempt from the humiliating and physically taxing corveés (in fields or fallow lands) that were instead imposed on mere peasants. This is not to say that the milites were not required to provide other services to the dominus, in addition to strictly military ones; however, all such services affirmed their distinct status, as in the case of the hospitality they were expected to show the lord or his envoys, their role as heralds, and the payment of low and merely symbolic rents (such as a few eggs, or a flat bread). In other words, the services in question were all intended to symbolically and publicly express the milites’ dependence upon their lord, as well as to prevent an allodialization of the estates held in benefice.27 Thus in Poggio San Giuliano, in the Marche, those individuals required to servire in hoste episcopo were also expected to pay an annual census of two flat breads and a chicken, in addition to keeping a bed in their homes to offer the members of the bishop’s entourage during his recurrent visits to the castle.28 While the ultimate purpose of these two duties was to confirm the milites’ dependence on the dominus, they also highlighted the particular status of this group within local society. However, it was precisely the main duty imposed on the milites, which is to say their participation in mounted military activities alongside their lords, that represented a decisive element from the point of view of the symbolic construction of the group’s collective status. Within a political context in which armed clashes between bands of knights and acts of violence targeting churches and peasants were the means by which the dominatus loci was imposed, frequent military expeditions involving the lord and his retinue constituted a foundational moment for the construction of identity.29 These expeditions reinforced the bonds between men, united by their desire for pillage and plunder, by physical risks, and by the exercising of violence, while separating them from the rest of rural society. In these contexts, the marked differences in status between free warriors and warriorserfs, between scutiferi (esquires) and milites, between domini loci and mere boni homines became blurred, at least temporarily, in the face of the strong ex­peri­ence they all shared, and which created a feeling of camaraderie. This feeling would endure, albeit in muted form, even when the expedition was over and the warriors 26  In 1105 two brothers were granted twenty-one peasant households with their holdings by the bishop of Fermo: Liber iurium, n. 276 (a. 1105), pp. 506–7. 27  A short overview on these processes in Fiore, Signori e sudditi, pp. 401–3. 28  Liber iurium, n. 31 (post a. 1138, but aa. 1125–35 c.), pp. 56–8. For the date of the document it must be stressed that in the text are mentioned as active and adults the sons of men mentioned in n. 276 (a. 1105), pp. 506–7. 29  On the ‘affective’ relationship generated in such contexts, see Bisson, The Crisis, pp. 73–9.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

Inside the Lordship  81 returned home, where they would remain until further notice. Recurrent warfare, with its most savage and brutal aspects, translated into the construction of a dichotomy between ‘knights’ and peasants, between those exercising violence and those enduring it. Farmers, who in theory could be wealthier than milites, were excluded from this identity-building moment and from its repercussions in terms of personal status. Increasing warfare, therefore, emerges as a decisive factor in the trans­form­ation of rural social contexts, leading to a significant redefinition of existing power balances. The need for mounted warriors, with their costly equipment, led lords to alter social balances in villages in such a way as to acquire the broadest possible following of milites, which was necessary to ensure their own success on the local political stage (and the supra-local one as well, in the case of great lords). Extensive estates were redistributed and given in concession; and the beneficiaries of this policy were not just members of the local elite, but new men as well. Mechanisms of social mobility emerged that distanced the individuals swelling the ranks of lords’ armed groups from the rest of the population. At Biandrate, an important castle and the eponymous centre of a powerful dynasty of counts, as early as 1091 the agreements between subjects and lords clearly reveal a marked differentiation between the members of the group of milites and the mass of subjects, who had a very different social identity.30 At a short distance, the two groups struck two separate agreements with the counts, which clearly reveal the different status and social weight of their members. Likewise, in the letters of privilege issued at Guastalla in 1102 the key distinction drawn within local society is between those keeping war horses and the agricolae (farmers), who were instead required to make substantial payments and to provide significant labour services, from which the milites were utterly exempt.31 This policy adopted by the lords, and designed to restructure local society in such a way as to maximize its capacity to provide contingents of knights, undoubtedly proved successful. A rural centre of average size such as Antignano, in central Umbria, was able to furnish the Monaldi counts of Foligno, its domini, with a contingent of no less than twenty equites (riders).32 The number of knights sent to the aid of Milan in its war against Como by seigneurial centres such as Guastalla and (especially) Crema was fully comparable, at any rate in the eyes of the author of De bello comacino, to that of the troops despatched by cities such as Parma and Alba.33 The lords, however, did not limit themselves to endorsing and reinforcing the rather fluid hierarchies that already existed by promoting and consolidating the 30  Andenna, ‘Formazione, strutture e processi’, pp. 154–8. 31  Le carte cremonesi, II, n. 248 (a. 1102), pp. 64–6. 32  Archivio storico del comune di Todi, Fondo Trinci, n. 1 (a. 1100 c.). 33 Anonimo Cumano, De bello. On the great number of milites supplied by a great castle like Modigliana, ruled by the Guidi, see Collavini, ‘Le basi economiche’, pp. 341–2; on this issue see the letters about military services between the community of Modigliana and the counts published in Wieruszowski, ‘A Twelfth-Century “Ars Dictaminis” ’, pp. 382–93, nn. 12–13.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

82  The Seigneurial Transformation role of local notables, and militarizing their profile. The redistribution they operated at least partly overturned established balances and redefined them. Through their relationship with the local lord, individuals of servile rank (servi) could acquire a leading role in their community, eclipsing families of freeholders and even small or medium landowners. Sources from the last decades of the eleventh century clearly show the importance of servi within the group of individuals most closely connected to the local lord. Numerous agreements and pacts from this period, by which a given lord committed himself not to infringe upon a neighbour’s property (often a church), include for the first time the significant formula ‘nostri homines liberi aut servi’: for it was these men who were materially responsible for the kind of abuses to which the lord promised to bring an end.34 When around 1080 the Aldobrandeschi counts forcibly took control of some centres previously under the authority of the abbey of Monte Amiata, they assigned military responsibilities to some of the monastic servi residing there. It should be noted that when governed by the abbey they had not been entrusted with any such responsibility—in fact, they would appear to have played a rather limited role. Individuals of this sort played a leading role in the later military operations against the monks—in the course of which several of the abbey’s milites were killed—and in the effort to consolidate the counts’ power over the new castles: an action that no doubt added insult to injury in the eyes of the anonymous monk who drafted the querimonia thanks to which these facts are known to us.35 The affirmation of the Aldobrandeschi’s power therefore went hand in hand with the definition, within the servile population of the centres conquered, of a smaller core of individuals who could be raised in status by assigning them military responsibilities and, more generally, by involving them in the exercising of local power. The close connection established between the counts and these in­di­vid­uals was to make the latter the staunches champions of the Aldobrandeschi’s rule: the milites helped the counts foil monastic counter-offensives and earn the new lords local consensus, probably by also providing a counterbalance to local groups traditionally more closely connected to the Monte Amiata monastery. Mounted armed service thus involved both free individuals and ones of humbler social origins. The latter were selected precisely by virtue of their lowly social status, which made them a crucial source of fidelity for their benefactors within the context of a local society that was undergoing significant changes, and in which established privileges and balances were being radically called into question.36 One example of social ascent on the part of individuals of humble origin is 34  There are many examples; for a convenient guide see Carte di Fonte Avellana, I, n. 66 (a. 1085), p. 159. For an overview, see Brancoli Busdraghi, ‘ “Masnada” e “boni homines” ’. 35 Kurze, Codex Diplomaticus Amiatinus, II, n. 309 (ante a. 1084), pp. 261–3. On this important text, see Collavini, Honorabilis domus, pp. 132–7. 36  On social differentiation among this social group, see the work about the scutiferi by Menant, ‘Gli scudieri’.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

Inside the Lordship  83 ­ rovided by Gentile, the famulus (slave) of a family of counts from the Orte area. p In 1105 count Gentile di Ranieri manumitted him (along with his daughter and children) through the traditional ceremony of the quadrivium; on the same occasion, the count confirmed the alodium which Gentile already possessed in the territory of the castle of Attigliano and granted him full ownership of three plots of land he had previously held in fego (in fief).37 The deed we have, therefore, con­ firms the process of social ascent experienced by this individual, who thanks to his lord’s favour had already acquired some estates both as his own property and as benefices, and grants to him his full freedom. Yet even without attaining freedom, individuals of subordinate social rank could acquire considerable ma­ter­ial and social capital. This is the case with the famulus Albert, who in the first decade of the twelfth century played an important role within the entourage of the Cadolingian count Ugolinus. He held extensive estates in fief, some of which he sub-leased to other warriors.38 Cases of social ascent of this sort must have been relatively common at the time. Within a few decades—probably through matrimonial ties as well—they generally led to increasing homogeneity in terms of status within the lords’ military clientele. It is noteworthy that references to milites and military vassals of servile rank become more and more rare after the early decades of the twelfth century, with the exception of very few areas, such as the northern Veneto, where they become even more numerous in the first half of the thirteenth century. This is particularly (but not exclusively) the case in areas traditionally controlled by the powerful Da Romano family.39 In most cases, manumissions, marriages and—more generally—the tendency towards the standardization of the composite world of the boni homines probably led to a pro­ gressive merging of the two sectors of the military clientele, with the obliteration of the servile status of an originally significant portion of its members. These processes of social development and ascent, however, sometimes went hand in hand with reverse trajectories for the members of local elites, who for various reasons could prove incapable of finding a place in the new networks of clients and power relations. The querimonia drafted shortly after 1100 by a wealthy landowner residing in a castle in the Volterra area shows that he and the farmers under his authority had become increasingly subject to acts of violence (woundings and killings) attributed to members of the local elite. These acts culminated with the expulsion of the entire group from the village and with the seizing of their patrimony (houses, vineyards, and fields): an event no doubt to be viewed within the context of the process of the establishment of the dominatus loci in the village in question.40

37  Le carte di Sassovivo, I, n. 159 (a. 1105), pp. 236–8. 38  Brancoli Busdraghi, ‘ “Masnada” e “boni homines” ’, p. 308. 39  Scarmoncin, ‘Tra comune e signoria’. 40  Cavallini, ‘Vescovi di Volterra’, n. 129 (twelfth cent. but a. 1100 c.), pp. 81–2.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

84  The Seigneurial Transformation In envisaging village society and its internal hierarchies we should not draw any fixed boundaries. There existed a considerable degree of social fluidity, which nonetheless coexisted with a significant distinction between mere peasants— however wealthy they may have been—and the milites who fought alongside their lord, imposed censi and corveés for him, and exercised power on his behalf as reserve soldiers and viscounts. This close relationship with the lord enabled milites to reinforce their economic role at the local level, through the plunder from military expeditions, the acquisition of full ownership over estates they had previously held in benefice, and the granting of new lands. At an initial stage, it seems as though the vast majority of estates were given in benefice, while alodia play only a secondary role and in certain cases are even quite absent. In this respect, it is clear that the lords sought to establish a close connection with the milites, but also to continue influencing the members of their military clientele over time, so as to prevent them from acquiring too much autonomy. A good example of this tendency is provided by the will drawn up around 1100 by a miles in the service of the counts of Foligno, the Monaldi. This individual, who in his will refers to his involvement in military expeditions in the service of his lords and to the plunder he earned, would only seem to have owned movable assents of various kinds (horses, weapons, money, clothing, cattle, grain, etc.). He apparently did not own any of his estates, which must have been granted to him in concession and hence could not be disposed of in his will.41 However, over time the full acquisition of estates by milites became increasingly common, despite local variations. The development of allodial landed patrimonies must have proven easier in those areas where the local lord, while being the main landowner, did not control most of the land. In these cases property transactions must have taken a far more dynamic form, enabling milites—through their (partial or complete) exemptions as well as the direct revenues from their military services—to more easily acquire the kind of capital required to operate on the market.42 As already noted, while some equites were appointed from the servile strata of local society, others must have hailed from the ranks of local notables, and hence are more likely to have already owned some estates. Thus in the agreements struck at Biandrate in 1093, mention is made first of the allodial land of the milites, which the counts promised to safeguard, and then of the land granted in benefice.43 Sometimes the lords themselves turned their loyal men into

41  The text—copied in a coeval book preserved in the library of San Fortunato of Todi, in Umbria— was published in Ceci, Todi nel medioevo, p. 49. at n. 2; it must be stressed that in the will the miles tells that one of his three horses was a spoil of war, and was obtained during a military expedition near Nocera, made alongside his lords. 42  On landmarket in seigneurial societies, see the important discussion in Carocci, ‘Poteri signorili e mercato’. 43  Andenna, ‘I conti di Biandrate e le loro clientele’.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

Inside the Lordship  85 property owners by converting—either entirely or in part—the estates granted to them into alodia, in return for particularly significant services they had rendered.44 Another notable aspect in the relation between lords and milites, and one dir­ ectly connected to the dynamics of patrimonial development, is the direct service provided by the latter as officials of the dominus. The exercising of such offices was associated with the granting of additional land, which could be sublet, and with a share in the payments collected from subjects (in particular fines).45 Furthermore, it was precisely from within this social group that the lords appointed their most prestigious officials, such as viscounts, who were entrusted with the administration of whole castles in the most important territorial lordships. As previously noted, putting nobles belonging to families of domini loci as warden of castles was considered risky on account of the possibility of ap­pro­pri­ation of the appointment; hence, lords tended to prefer simple milites, who could more easily be controlled and—should the circumstances require it—be removed.46 Besides, the role of official offered those who were already members of the village elite further opportunities in terms of social ascent, once again connected to services to the dominus. It allowed them to directly share the power the lord exercised over his subjects, thereby increasing the local prestige of those holding such offices. One significant example of these tendencies is provided by Nerlo of Signorello, a viscount in the service of the Cadolingi, most probably in the castle of Montecascioli, between the late eleventh and early twelfth century. Even though Nerlo did not belong to any influential local family, the office he held for several years allowed him to lay the foundations for the future prosperity of his family.47 In addition to taking part in various transactions on behalf of the Cadolingi and the monasteries under their control, Nerlo was able to significantly increase his personal landed patrimony, in all likelihood through the revenues (and social relations) ensured by his office. His descendants, the Nerli, while never becoming part of the restricted group of lords of the castle, would appear to have owned—around the mid-twelfth century—a large number of lands across a relatively extensive area,

44  Codice diplomatico Padovano, II, n. 5 (a. 1104), pp. 4–5; Le carte di Sassovivo, I, n. 159 (a. 1105), pp. 236–8. 45  See Collavini, ‘Signoria ed élites rurali’ (focused on Tuscany); and Fiore, Signori e sudditi (on Umbria and Marche). On this issue see also, more in general, Bisson, Tormented Voices; and Berkhofer III, ‘Abbatial authority’. 46  Il Regesto di Farfa, V, n. 1122 (a. 1090 c.), p. 123; see section 1.3. As regards the possibility that the ministri governing the villages controlled by the abbey of Monte Amiata around 1080 may have belonged to this social class, one important clue is provided by the ransom that two of these ministri were required to pay when captured by the Aldobrandeschi: respectively, 100 and 50 solidi, the price of five mansi, and of two and a half mansi. Another example from the Po Valley is the custos guarding the castle of Ostiglia on behalf of the abbey of San Zeno (whose fidelis he was) around 1100: his son owned local lands with a few serfs (in all likelihood inherited from his father). See ‘Appendice’, to Castagnetti, Il processo per Ostiglia, n. 1 (ante a. 1151), p. 367, witness Markesus of Verona. 47  On Nerlus and his descendants, see Cortese, Signori, castelli, pp. 195–7.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

86  The Seigneurial Transformation which enabled them to play a prominent role in the commune of Florence, the city they emigrated to. The participation of military vassals in their lords’ power is quite evident and is not confined to the holding of offices or military activities. It becomes particularly noticeable in moments of discontinuity or dynastic crisis within the upper echelons of lordships.48 Thus in the Lucca area in the late eleventh century, when the local lord was a still a minor, power was collectively exercised on his behalf by the fideles and homines of Montemagno domus (house), who de facto filled his place on the political level. This activity went far beyond ordinary administration, and included military operations, negotiations, and agreements with other local actors.49 Likewise, the sources from Farfa illustrate the crucial role played by the military clientele of the abbey. In the late eleventh century and early decades of the twelfth, the Farfa abbots would swear before their election to preserve the bona consuetudo of the monastery, which concerned not just disciplinary matters but also the management and use of its substantial material assets. This sacramen­ tum was taken before a large group of monks, but also before some lay fideles who represented the interests of the military clientele of the abbey. In the case of Berardo (II), in 1090, the oath was taken before twelve monks and three equites (knights). Immediately after his election, as a sign of approval from the latter, Berard was escorted to the monastery by a magna caterva aequitum.50 In the immediately subsequent years, it seems as though the Farfa milites came to play an even more prominent role, favoured by the increasing conflict between the various claimants to the title of abbot who sought their support. By 1120 or thereabout the military clientele of the monastery proposed the aristocratic Adenulfo as a candidate, precisely because he was regarded as being more warlike and closer to their own positions compared to the recently defunct abbot, a lover of pacem et quietem. The equites’ will thus proved so staunch and decisive that within a short time they were able to overcome the strong reservations harboured by the monks, who were loath to accept as their superior an individual whose ancestors had repeatedly clashed with the monastery.51 This close symbiotic relationship ought not overshadow the frequently conflictual turn that the relation between a lord and his milites could take, especially in more extensive lordships, where the physical absence of the dominus and the looser control he exercised could foster in village elites a tendency towards autonomy and an aspiration to independently exert power, as opposed to merely sharing it with the local lord. In the complex period of warfare that emerged after 1080, several groups of milites sought to take advantage of such turmoil, and of 48  On these issues, see Brancoli Busdraghi, ‘Genesi e aspetti istituzionali’. 49  Die Urkunden und Briefe der Markgräfin Mathilde, n. A8 (a. 1099), pp. 484–7; the text is discussed in Brancoli Busdraghi, ‘Genesi e aspetti istituzionali’, pp. 15–7. 50  Il Regesto di Farfa, V, n. 1122 (aa. 1090–9 c.), p. 123. 51  Chronicon farfense, II, pp. 308–9.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

Inside the Lordship  87 the military conflicts which their domini loci were engaged in, to acquire full autonomy—by breaking away from all forms of subordination—or at any rate to unlawfully extend their prerogatives to the detriment of their lords. The examples in this respect are numerous; here I shall only mention a few. In 1086, after an open conflict, a dozen boni homines from the major castle of Agello ac­know­ledged the rule of the bishop of Fermo and committed themselves to no longer challenging his power, either through violent actions or by legal means.52 Some fifteen years later an unsuccessful revolt against the bishop of Pistoia was organized by the military elite of Sambuca, in the mountain area between Tuscany and Emilia.53 To these specific episodes we may add the recurrent and violent tensions between the equites from the castles directly under the authority of the abbey of Farfa and the monastic community, as described in pained terms in Gregorio of Catino’s Chronicon (already previously mentioned).54 These unavoidable conflictual aspects aside, the local elite, which by this period had become strongly militarized, generally appears to have been characterized by a marked integration within the system of seigniorial power. Its members shared the same system of values as the domini loci, a system based on the use of arms and the exercising of power. These men were the main beneficiaries of the policy of redistribution of material and symbolic resources implemented on a local scale by the lords. A very different situation emerges in relation to the mass of the rural population, the object of the next section.

4.2  Peasantries: a differential society The emphasis placed so far on the rift line running between the group of milites attached to a lord and the majority of his subjects should not lead us to conclude that the latter constituted an indistinct mass, with essentially homogeneous and levelled-down social and economic strata, either before or after the general extension of the territorial lordship model in the Italian countryside.55 One of the findings made by the research conducted in recent decades, with regard to the medieval period as a whole, lies precisely in the profound reassessment of the differences existing within individual village societies. Indeed, these differences in economic and personal status were among the defining features of medieval society and carried significant importance for its members.56 One first possible field in which this view can be put to the test is provided by pacts and letters of privilege. Yet, by their very nature these texts tend to present 52  Liber iurium, n. 43 (a. 1086), pp. 78–80. 53  Regesta Chartarum Pistoriensium. Vescovado, n. 13 (a. 1104), pp. 13–4. 54  Chronicon farfense, II, pp. 299–313. 55  Collavini, ‘La condizione dei rustici/villani’. 56 Wickham, Community and clientele, esp. pp. 110–60.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

88  The Seigneurial Transformation an oversimplified picture of local society, offering an ideological rather than pragmatic reading of it. In 1058, in an early pact between the monastery of Nonantola and the local inhabitants, the latter were divided into three different categories, maiores, mediocres and minores, corresponding to three socio-economic levels.57 This was hardly an innovation: it was a traditional and well-established way of envisaging the social body, rooted in Late Antiquity.58 However, it is important to note that this tripartition, while being ideological in nature, had concrete repercussions: the penalty imposed for the breaching of their agreements with the abbot was a fine of three librae for maiores, of two for mediocres, and of twenty solidi (i.e. one libra) for minores. These figures suggest that the differences in wealth between the three groups were significant, yet not huge. By contrast, if we move a few decades forward and consider the agreement between the monastery of San Sisto and the men of Guastalla, what we find is the emergence of a bipartite view of local society that is quite new compared to previous models: one based on the opposition between milites (or curiales) and rustici (or agricolae).59 A similar bipartition between ‘knights’ and peasants also emerges in the well-known pacts drawn up in 1093 between the counts of Biandrate and the inhabitants of the village, as well as in several other coeval texts.60 Within a few decades, by the turn of the 1100s, the ideal model of representation of local society had changed and become simplified: it was no longer based so much on people’s level of wealth, but rather on their social role, the discriminating factor being the capacity for mounted combat. As we have seen in the previous section, the process of mili­tar­ iza­tion redefined the very way of interpreting the local social structure in the countryside. Whereas for the monks of Nonantola in 1058 subjects fell into three traditional categories based on their wealth, a few decades later, in 1125, in another Nonantola document already mentioned, the opposition is between mili­ tes and operarii homines (workers).61 Certainly, we should not straightforwardly assume that a simplification of the concrete stratification of local society occurred as a consequence of the seigneurial change. Nevertheless, the evidence we have is highly revealing—and not just from an ideological perspective either—of the changes underway in this period. In the seigneurial context, the key rift within society became that between mounted warriors and all other subjects. It is no coincidence that the ‘tripartite’ model of society survived longer in autonomous rural communities—which is to say, ones not subject to any lords, such as Novi, 57 Muratori, Antiquitates Italicae Medii Aevi, III, col. 241; the text is discussed in Cammarosano, Le campagne, pp. 34–6. 58  On the tripartition of society and its late-antique origins, see Bougard, Bührer-Thierry, Le Jan, ‘Les élites du haut Moyen Âge’, pp. 1079–94. On the use of tripartition in high medieval Italy, see Bordone, Società cittadina, pp. 143–59. 59  Documenti cremonesi, II, n. 248 (a. 1102), pp. 64–5. 60  I Biscioni, I/2, nn. 279–80 (a. 1093), pp. 120–2; even in the sources about the castles under Farfa’s lordship, there is an opposition between equites and angariales; on this Il Chronicon farfense, II, pp. 299–313. 61 Tiraboschi, Storia dell’augusta badia di Nonantola, n. 236 (a. 1125), p. 236.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

Inside the Lordship  89 in southern Piedmont, as late as 1135—or even, outside the countryside, in urban communities.62 An analysis of pacts and franchises confirms that in our period a (rather fluid) division emerged between a military elite and the mass of peasants. However, it tells us precious little about the internal stratification of the latter. So in order to assess whether and to what degree the general extension and consolidation of the lords’ power in the rural context influenced the social structure and status levels of subordinate strata of village society, it is necessary to move beyond this ideologically highly defined domain and investigate the dynamics at work in the countryside by focusing on deeds more connected to practical matters, such as records of services or property deeds, as well as archaeological data. Regrettably, the sources pertaining to our specific time period do not allow us to conduct any in-depth enquiries in this direction, owing to the dearth of documentary evidence. Yet while it is difficult to interpret specific cases, we do have a series of data—however scattered and patchy—that enable us to grasp, at least in general terms, some of the features of peasant society and, in particular, to catch a glimpse of the ways in which the processes of transformation of local political power influenced existing balances in the rural world. In order to carry out this operation, it is necessary of course to examine the situation at least from the early eleventh century, in such a way as to ascertain to what extent our period was marked by changes and whether these simply represent a further development in ongoing dynamics, or whether new tendencies emerged. In this respect, one element worth stressing is the fact that, despite the distortions caused by the heterogeneous nature of the surviving sources—which reflect not just the contexts in which they were produced but also the specific situ­ations of the (almost invariably religious) institutions that have transmitted them—such a wide-ranging and general view reveals the existence not just of considerable differences at a local and micro-local level, but also of regional divergences. It would be futile to attempt to paint a detailed picture of central and northern Italy as a whole: extensive areas are too under-represented in the surviving sources to formulate anything more than hypotheses. Moreover, many of the areas richest in sources are located close to cities, and hence—for the aforementioned reasons—cannot be regarded as representative of rural developments in general, precisely because they were conditioned by the proximity of the urban centres with which they were closely integrated from an economic and social perspective (see section 5.1). I will focus, then, only on rural centres, which at least from the turn of the 1100s onwards were subject to territorial lordships.

62  I Libri iurium di Genova, I,1, n. 47 (a. 1135), pp. 77–81 (divites, mediocres et pauperes); a similar tripartition is mentioned in another autonomous rural community, Gamondio, in 1106; on this Gasparolo, Memorie storiche di Sezzè Alessandrino, II, n. 2 (a. 1106), pp. 8–10.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

90  The Seigneurial Transformation One first area of investigation concerns the ownership of small landed estates and in particular of allodial lands by peasants. It is a matter of ascertaining whether and in what way the change in lordship patterns affected the class of small landowners, who were entirely or at least partly economically independent. But what must also be assessed is the sub-leasing of land by peasant leaseholders (and hence not boni homines) to other peasants, an element which is an im­port­ant indicator of the complexity and stratification of village society. As regards the western subalpine area, while the data we have is rather limited, we find a marked presence of large estates (both lay and ecclesiastical). The high Roya Valley was home to three large, neighbouring rural communities which just after the mid-eleventh century would appear to have been still dominated by small landowners, protected by public authorities that took a fully traditional form.63 What emerges from the (scanty) sources pertaining to these specific areas in this period is a social picture characterized by the presence of a large number of small landowners (around a hundred in the case of Saorgio) whose social status is revealed not just by their property ownership, but also by their collective patronage of the local chapel. To this group we should add that of tenants (manentes), who would appear to have had a subordinate social status and role.64 Moving east, the Milan and Como area, even outside those territories closest to the two cities, would appear to be marked by a significant presence of small landowners. These coexist with large landowners, who experienced a phase of expansion from the Carolingian age onwards.65 It is worth noting that even in certain centres subject to powerful lords—such as Varese, which was under the archbishop of Milan, and Cologno, Comabbio, and Origgio, which were under the monastery of Sant’Ambrogio—small landowners did not at all disappear in the decades at the turn of the year 1100: we still find some farmers owning allodial lands.66 However, the documentary evidence pertaining to the sale or donation of land in these centres is much scantier than for autonomous communities in the same area, which is to say communities that were not subject to lords and in which power was collectively exercised by the local elites, as in the case of Isola Comacina and

63 Panero, Terre in concessione; on the area of Asti see Bordone, Città e territorio; on high Roya Valley, see Daviso, ‘La carta di Tenda’. 64  The church of Santa Maria del Poggio was donated by its owners (a hundred of freemen from Saorge) to the abbey of Lerins; see Codex diplomaticus Langobardiae, II, n. 417 (a. 1091), coll. 696–9. The presence of manentes, alongside freemen, is remembered in the so-called ‘charter of Tenda’. 65 As shown in the case of Cologno Monzese, near Milan, discussed in Rossetti, Società e istituzioni. 66  On Varese, under the lordship of the archbishop of Milan, see Atti privati milanesi, IV, n. 582 (a. 1078), pp. 59–60; n. 670 (a. 1085), pp. 220–1; n. 720 (a. 1088), pp. 310–1; n. 731 (a. 1089), pp. 328–30; n. 851 (a. 1097), pp. 552–4; Le pergamene della basilica di S. Vittore di Varese, n. 31 (a. 1109); n. 49 (a. 1125); on the lands of Sant’Ambrogio see Le carte del monastero di S. Ambrogio di Milano, III/1, n. 5 (a. 1104); n. 23 (a. 1113); n. 26 (a. 1114); n. 31 (a. 1123); n. 41 (a. 1138). On Origgio (where there was peasant propriety), in a later period, see the classic Romeo, ‘Il monastero di Sant’Ambrogio’.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

Inside the Lordship  91 Chiavenna.67 So it is quite clear that in centres marked by dominatus loci small landowners featured far less prominently. However, it should be added that some peasant landowners received so much land from their lords that they could sublease it to their less wealthy neighbours.68 This shows how the complex stratification of local society was not limited to the simple dichotomy between landowners and lords’ tenants. It should be said that in other areas controlled by lords, such as the subalpine area to the east of Brescia, the peasant alodium is widely attested at least up until the early 1080s, with plenty of deeds recording transactions between prosperous peasants, but then essentially disappears around the mid-1090s. While this does not necessarily imply the complete obliteration of small landowners in the area, it does suggest that the drop in their numbers was far more significant than in the territories around Milan and Como.69 In the Veneto, the Padua area is one of the best documented ones and presents an extremely complex picture.70 The evidence pertaining to the Saccisica district— the site of a large royal curtis later acquired by the prelates of Padua, who in our period consolidated their rights as territorial lords over the whole territory—reveals a significant presence of peasant-owned land, with a genuine real estate market and frequent transactions at least up until the early decades of the twelfth century.71 It is worth emphasizing that a drop in the number of small landowners would appear to be suggested by the transformation of at least some of the arimanni into holders of territorial lordships (the holder of a feudum arimanniae was expected to provide military service as scutifer to the bishop or one of his higher-ranking vassals).72 What we see, however, is not simply a flow of landed properties from small to large landowners, but rather a dynamic system of exchanges between small and medium lay landowners, who came to acquire single-family farmsteads, along with smaller properties.73 Even though aristocratic land ownership would appear to have been on the rise, it did not monopolize local exchanges: minor 67  For a discussion about autonomous communities, see section 5.2 (with the references to the sources about Chiavenna and Isola Comacina). 68  Le carte del monastero di S. Ambrogio, III/1, n. 27 (a. 1116). 69  The area is enlightened by Le carte del monastero di San Pietro in Monte; on peasant ownership see esp. n. 47 (a. 1076), pp. 92–4 (sale between lay owners); n. 48 (a. 1078), pp. 94–5 (lease between peasants); n. 49 (a. 1081), p. 95 (sale between peasant owners); n. 50 (a. 1081), pp. 96–7 (sales between lay owners); n. 51 (a. 1085), pp. 97–9 (donation); n. 52 (a. 1086), pp. 99–101 (exchange between a church and lay owners); n. 53 (a. 1095), pp. 101–3 (donation). This impression is confirmed by the analysis of the documents of another important church of the same sub-region, that of Santa Giulia of Brescia, which, with regard to this specific issue, show very similar patterns and chronologies; see Le carte del monastero di Santa Giulia di Brescia, I, passim. 70  On the territory of Padua, see Rippe, Padoue et son contado, pp. 161–77. 71  Castagnetti, ‘Arimanni e signori’; Rippe, Padoue et son contado, pp. 161–88. 72  See the witnesses edited in Codice diplomatico padovano, II, n. 526 (a. 1150 c.), pp. 383–4; the witnesses about the feudum herimanniae recall events of the 1100s. 73  Some sales seem to concern only prosperous peasants, but without absolute certainty; see Codice diplomatico padovano, II, nn. 55–56 (a. 1112), pp. 44–5. In other sales the buyers could be peasants or elite members, but the sellers are little owner without sons, and in need of cash: n. 39 (a. 1108), pp. 32–3; n. 40 (a. 1109), p. 33.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

92  The Seigneurial Transformation landowners would seem to have endured, notwithstanding the fact that the local elites connected to the lords apparently contributed to this process of land acquisition to the detriment of such minor landowners.74 As late as the early decades of the twelfth century, the local communities, while subject to lords, owned some common estates which they held in alodium, and produced local officials (marici) who worked alongside those representing the interests of the dominus loci (gastalds).75 Again in the Padua area, but outside the Saccisica one, we find very different situations: large rural communities (such as Monselice) in which large landowners were few and the class of medium and small landowners was economically and socially dominant; other areas (such as Pernumia) which, alongside small and medium allodiaries, had some large aristocratic landowners; and, finally, centres (such as Porto) where the local lord owned most of the land.76 By contrast, in almost all of Tuscany the peasant alodium displays a con­sid­er­able degree of resilience despite a certain drop in numbers compared to the first half of the eleventh century. This is the case not just in those areas where the imposition of dominatus loci was weaker and less effective, but also in those areas, such as the Casentino one, subject to powerful lords like the Guidi.77 More generally, almost the whole region would seem to have had a lively peasant society that was highly differentiated from an economic perspective, as is also shown by the frequency of leases and subleases among peasants. One exception, in this respect, is constituted by the south of Tuscany, and in particular by the areas subject to the Aldobrandeschi, where we find a close link between territorial lordships and large landed estates. Here too the evidence does not rule out a certain degree of stratification of local society, with different levels of wealth, but it is likely that such wealth depended to a far more significant degree on concessions of land on the lords’ part.78 Umbria is marked by significant differences both at the sub-regional and micro-regional level. Centres in which peasant alodia seem to play a prominent role, as in the case of the Apennine area to the south and east of Spoleto, coexist with other areas, such as the one around Foligno, where peasant properties and 74  Codice diplomatico padovano, II, n. 3 (a. 1102), p. 3; n. 36 (a. 1108), p. 30; n. 37 (a. 1108), p. 31, seem to be acquisitions by local elite members from little owners. 75 The marici had to be elected cum consilio et consenso of the lord or of his missus; see Codice diplomatico padovano, II, n. 74 (a. 1116?), p. 61. On landed properties of rural communities, see Codice diplomatico padovano, II, n. 102 (a. 1118), p. 83; n. 192 (a. 1129), p. 154. 76 Bortolami, Territorio e società; Bortolami, ‘Monselice’; Codice diplomatico padovano, II, n. 88 (a. 1117), pp. 70–2; even in the territory of Verona the situation was quite similar, and was characterized by a strong local differentiation; on this see Le carte del capitolo di Verona, I, n. 4 (a. 1101), pp. 9–10; n. 13 (a. 1107), pp. 28–9; n. 38 (a. 1117), pp. 78–9; n. 39 (a. 1117), pp. 80–1; n. 40 (a. 1118), pp. 81–2; n. 63 (a. 1132), pp. 127–9; n. 67 (a. 1134), pp. 134–5; Archivio di Stato di Verona, S. Maria in Organo, Pergamene, n. 46 (a. 1078); n. 67 (a. 1115); n. 67’’ (a. 1116) (these last three mentions are all about peasant allods in the seigneurial village of Pontepossero). 77  On the Casentino, see Wickham, The Mountain and the City, pp. 221–68; on seigneurial villages around Lucca, see Wickham, Community and Clientele; on area around Florence: Conti, La formazione della struttura agraria; Moretti and Pirillo (eds.), Passignano in Val di Pesa; Pirillo and Zorzi (eds.), Il castello, il borgo. 78 Collavini, Honorabilis domus.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

Inside the Lordship  93 aristocratic estates occur side by side, without it being possible to determine which of the two was more prevalent, despite some evidence suggesting an expansion of seigneurial property.79 Nevertheless, we also have centres like Stalblamone, which show almost no trace of large aristocratic estates. Here the land was un­even­ly distributed among over a hundred local owners, in an apparently similar way to the aforementioned rural centres in the high Val Roya.80 Large aristocratic and ecclesiastical estates (most probably of fiscal origin) would instead seem to have been prevalent in the southern stretch of what is now the Marche, the only well-documented area in this region, where we find practically no traces of small peasant properties.81 Property transactions and donations, including ones involving emphyteusis, concern large and compact estates, while smaller plots of land are only mentioned in relation to leaseholders.82 For example, whereas the Farfa cartulary records several donations made to small and medium landowners in Umbria and Latium, we find nothing of the sort in the Marche, despite the fact that the abbey of Farfa owned much more land in this region.83 Besides, the absence of any autonomous communities in this area—at least up until the late twelfth century—confirms the picture of a territory marked by the presence of large estates, where free peasants are inconspicuous and economically dependent on more powerful figures.84 What emerges from this cursory overview, then, is a varied scenario clearly characterized by a drop in the number of peasant alodia, even though these did not completely disappear in any area following the rise of territorial lordships, if not in certain limited contexts. Undoubtedly, however, the expansion of the territorial lordship undermined the property rights of peasants, who became more vulnerable to the confiscation of their land. Although the documentary evidence shows that most of those who had enough land to sublease it belonged to the military elite, some were prosperous farmers. The peasant class, therefore, was 79  The area of Foligno, known thanks to the rich archive of the abbey of Santa Croce di Sassovivo, is characterized by a strong presence of peasant allod; we can perceive a drop of peasant ownership after 1080, but not a terminal crisis; see Le carte di Sassovivo, I, n. 96 (a. 1094), pp. 147–8; n. 125 (a. 1100), pp. 191–2; n. 141 (a. 1102), pp. 212–13; II, n. 17 (a. 1118), p. 21; n. 23 (a. 1118), p. 29; n. 24 (a. 1119), pp. 30–1; n. 40 (a. 1121), pp. 50–1; n. 48 (aa. 1109–1123), p. 60; n. 118 (a. 1143), pp. 143; for an ex­ample of acquisition of peasant land by a territorial lord (without monetary compensation), see Le carte di Sassovivo, II, n. 117 (a. 1143), pp. 142–3. 80  Il regesto di Farfa, V, n. 1167 (a. 1113), pp. 170–1. 81 For a general overview see Bernacchia, Incastellamento e distretti, pp. 177–222. It must be stressed that, just a couple dozen kilometers north, in Camerte area, the documentary evidence of peasant allod, quite strong until 1070s, has a sharp drop in following decades, and ceases after 1119; see Le carte del monastero di S. Vittore, n. 44 (a. 1047), p. 32; n. 48 (a. 1061), p. 33; n. 55 (a. 1072), p. 35; n. 58 (a. 1082), p. 36; n. 73 (a. 1090), p. 41; n. 90 (a. 1106), p. 47; n. 95 (a. 1119), p. 48. 82  See for example Liber iurium, n. 45 (a. 1134), pp. 83–4; n. 309 (a. 1129), pp. 557–9; n. 337 (a. 1091), pp. 604–5. 83  Some example of donations to Farfa by little and medium owners: Il Regesto di Farfa, IV, n. 981 (a. 1067), pp. 360–1; V, n. 1194 (a. 1104), pp. 190–1. 84  I will discuss politically autonomous rural communities in section 5.2. The only probable exception in the Marche is Fabriano, not surprisingly located in the Camerte, the only area where peasant allod was strong before the 1080s.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

94  The Seigneurial Transformation highly diversified, albeit in ways that varied depending on the context. In this regard, it is important to emphasize the fact that, at the current state of research, these differences are not yet visible in the archaeological record. It is more than likely that, landed property aside, the different levels in status and wealth within peasant society were marked by material elements that cannot be detected through excavations, such as the ownership of cattle, sophisticated clothing, currency and iron farming tools, in addition to the consumption of products such as wine and meat, as is evident for instance from the will drawn up by the aforementioned miles from Foligno.85 The lack of archaeological traces left by peasant wooden houses, which are still predominant throughout our period, combined with the serious challenges in terms of dating, makes it impossible to use evidence pertaining to the size of dwellings as markers of local status. It is likely that in the coming years the growing awareness of such problems among archaeologists and the development of innovative excavation techniques will provide new, crucial data on these issues. But for the time being, the question remains open.86 In order to further investigate this topic, we must leave aside the material evidence and get back to our written sources, approaching them from a different angle. Another perspective that might help understand the kind of socio-economic changes at work in the countryside is constituted by the fate of servi/mancipia (slaves) in our period.87 Mentions of genuine servi in relation to the ownership of farmsteads and castles are still relatively common until 1050 but become rarer in the following period, only to vanish almost completely in the decades around 1100, when in the documents the term servi is replaced by the far more generic one homines.88 These mentions should not be interpreted as mere 85  On the use of archaeological data, see Molinari, ‘Siti rurali’; and Carocci, ‘Archeologia e mondi rurali’. On the ownership of animals as a local status indicator, see Codex Diplomaticus Amiatinus, II, n. 309 (ante a. 1084), pp. 261–3, where bene valentes peasants from settlements previously belonging to the abbey of Monte Amiata strike an agreement with the Aldobrandeschi precisely with regard to cattle. Note that the taxes imposed by urban communities on rural centres (including seigneurial ones) acknowledging their authority were calculated precisely on the basis of the number of oxen (boves) owned by each tax-payer—hence the term bovateria. A less burdensome substitute tax (zappaticum, from zappa, hoe) was applied to families without any cattle, which confirms the existence of different levels of wealth among the rural population: see the testimonies on 1120s preserved in Documenti per la storia d’Arezzo, I, n. 389 (aa. 1177–80 c.), pp. 565–73. With regard to bovateria, I shall refer to the discussion below, in section 5.1. On the importance of meat consumption (from a quantitative as well as qualitative standpoint) as a means to define hierarchies in villages between the tenth and the early eleventh century, see Salvadori, ‘Zooarcheologia e controllo’; as the author notes, from the period we are investigating we still lack large assemblages of animal remains that might en­able a detailed analysis, of the sort that are instead available for the immediately preceding phase. 86  For a discussion, see Molinari, ‘Siti rurali’. 87  On these problems, see Panero, Schiavi, servi e villani; and Collavini, ‘La condizione dei rustici/ villani’. 88  Mentions of servi, ancillae and manicipia in Umbria, in the first half of the eleventh century: Il Regesto di Farfa, IV, n. 682 (aa. 1029–31), pp. 85–6 (about four estates with castles between Perugia and Todi); Le carte di Valdiponte, I, n. 7 (a. 1050), pp. 14–16 (castles of Collicello e Castiglione, in the territory of Gubbio); Papsturkunden 896–1046, n. 625 (a. 1045), pp. 1172–5 (castles controlled by the abbey of San Pietro, in the territory of Perugia); ‘Appendice’ to, Mochi Onory, Ricerche sui poteri, n. 13

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

Inside the Lordship  95 formulas, devoid of any real content. The documents from a monastery such as that of San Tommaso in Reggio Emilia clearly show that in monastic farms servi— who constituted the majority of the residents of monastic lands in the tenth century, as is shown by a late polyptych—were still a prominent presence in the following century.89 As late as the mid-eleventh century, at Cannobio, an ancient fiscal curtis on the banks of Lake Maggiore which belonged to the monastery of Breme/Novalesa at the time, the population was made up of servi, most of whom were exclusively employed as craftsmen and woodsmen, according to the ancient mos (consuetudo) governing royal estates. The monk who drafted the Chronicon novalicense regarded this specialized employment as an exception, related precisely to the fiscal origin of the curtis of Cannobio, but apparently was not in the least surprised by the servile status of its inhabitants.90 Over the course of the eleventh century, and particularly in its second half, a process of progressive equalization occurred between servi casati (landholder slaves) and the lower class of leaseholders (such as manentes and angariales), as lords extended their rights over the latter and the dominatus loci spread. Events like the bishop of Gubbio mass manumission of the servi residing in his castles and their (almost certain) transformation into leaseholders provide evidence of this process, which nonetheless must have unfolded more through the progressive and pragmatic levelling of the condition of lower-status peasants than through any specific measures.91 Records of homines being bought or sold, even individually, along with the land they farm, become increasingly numerous. Their obligations are explicitly stated to be hereditary; but what is most striking is that although in certain cases the object of the transaction is the land to which the farmer is ‘attached’, often what is being sold (or donated) is the man himself, with the land only playing a secondary role. In extreme cases an homo is sold along with his alodia.92 While in none of these cases the term servus is used, it is evident that the

(a. 1058), pp. 217–8 (territory of Perugia). See also Pier Damiani, Die Briefe, II, n. 109 (a. 1064), p. 203 (reports a mass emancipation of the servi living in a castle in the territory of Gubbio, happened few years before). 89  S. Tommaso di Reggio, pp. 193–8 (382 servi and ancillae against forty-one manentes and eighty massarii). On the long-term presence of servi in the lands of San Tommaso, see Le carte degli archivi reggiani, n. 1 (a. 1051), pp. 1–2; n. 46 (a. 1060), pp. 90–3. There were also many servi and famuli working the lands of the bishop of Genoa in the second half of the eleventh century; the documentary evidence is rich, see for example Il registro della curia arcivescovile di Genova, p. 201 (a. 1026); p. 169 (a. 1060); p. 281 (a. 1061); pp. 282–3 (a. 1062). 90  La Cronaca di Novalesa, pp. 282–5. 91  Pier Damiani, Die Briefe, II, n. 109 (a. 1064), p. 203; see Fiore, Signori e sudditi, pp. 265–6. 92  See for example Le carte di Sassovivo, I, n. 104 (a. 1095), pp. 160–1 (lands with their peasant and his dues and levies); n. 129 (a. 1100), pp. 196–7 (person and land); n. 140 (a. 1102), pp. 211–2 (Maio di Giovanni is given with his allods and his services); II, n. 73 (a. 1127), pp. 91–2 (persons and lands); Liber iurium, n. 276 (a. 1105), pp. 506–7 (persons and lands); n. 307 (a. 1127), pp. 554–5 (persons and their servitia). For a useful comparison with the situation in southern Italy, see Carocci, Lordships, pp. 336–9.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

96  The Seigneurial Transformation status of these individuals was not so different from that of the people to whom the label had previously been applied, even though the individuals in question were not always descendants of the old servi casati. In the Castle of Morleschio, near Perugia, the local custom in the second half of the twelfth century was to divide the tenants of lords into two distinct categories, bound to different duties. The category subject to the most burdensome duties was that of manentes vel servos, the other one being the class of homines per capitantiam: the process of complete merging with servi casati, therefore, did not concern all lords’ tenants, but only some of them.93 This opposition between a class of leaseholders burdened with heavy duties and entertaining a close and harsh relationship with their lord, and another class of peasants subject to lighter duties (and consisting of leaseholders and/or small landowners, depending on the context) repeatedly occurs in the documentary evidence. This clearly suggests a diversification and stratification of  peasant society, which at times was strong enough to create genuine local categories.94 This is not to say that the status of servus/ancilla vanished, as is evidenced not just by the references in our sources and by the manumissions, but also by voluntary servitude, which is sporadically attested as late as 1140 or there about.95 However, by our period it seems as though this notion had chiefly become associated with spheres such as that of domestic servitude, or the fulfilment of duties in a lord’s familia—hence the name famuli often used to describe these individuals.96 Besides, the condition in question was a very different one from that of mere peasant; direct contact with a lord favoured the preservation of his traditional full ownership of individuals, but also provided certain opportunities in terms of social mobility that were quite unknown to peasants, as illustrated in the previous section.97 We have seen how the technically servile condition among farmers was prac­ tic­al­ly obliterated and how this largely coincides with the general extension of the dominatus loci model. It is important to emphasize this connection and to reflect on its implications not just from a material perspective, but also in terms of social identity and personal status. As previously noted, the privatizing of jurisdiction 93  Le carte di Valdiponte, II, n. 112 (a. 1175), p. 21. 94  See for example Le carte di Sassovivo, I, n. 29 (a. 1084), pp. 46–50 (angariales and liberiores homines); Liber iurium, n. 77 (a. 1055), pp. 167–8 (colonitii and castellani); n. 313 (a. 1130), pp. 563–5 (commendati and castellani). 95  Le carte di Sassovivo, II, n. 1 (a. 1116), pp. 1–2; ‘Le carte di Gubbio’, n. 168 (a. 1140), p. 277 (self donation of a woman (and of her future offspring) as ancilla of a count). 96  For example the servi of Santa Fiora of Arezzo, recorded in a genealogy composed around year 1100 seem to be connected (at least partially) with household service; among them there was a family of cooks: Documenti per la storia d’Arezzo, I, n. 293 (a. 1100 c.), pp. 400–2; in the land of Farfa the famuli were cooks, specialized craftsmen (tanners, carpenters) and muleteers, as results from Il Regesto di Farfa, V, n. 1320 (a. 1119), p. 314. On the famuli in the territory of Verona, see Brugnoli, ‘Pares illorum famuli’; on the great presence of famuli in northern Italy in early eleventh century an important witness is Oberto dell’Orto; see Lehmann, Consuetudines Feudorum, VIII, 11. 97  See section 4.1, and the rich documentary dossier about the territory of Verona, discussed by Brugnoli, ‘Pares illorum famuli’.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

Inside the Lordship  97 that characterizes territorial lordships made it possible to extract the surplus in a different way compared to earlier times: not just through land rents, but also through the imposition of taxes.98 Likewise, the dominus loci could require services (often very burdensome ones) not on the basis of the lands he had granted or the rights he exercised over certain individuals, but rather on the basis of their residing in an area under his political jurisdiction, as is evident for instance in the Farfa case discussed in the previous chapter.99 In other words, peasants were expected to obey their lord also—and especially—because they were subjects of his, and not just because they were his property or farmed his land. No doubt, landed properties and the possession of strictly personal rights constituted a significant source of revenue for lords and provided a valuable means to more deeply influence local processes. However, strictly speaking, they were not crucial for the establishment of a territorial lordship, as is clearly illustrated by the case of Casciavola, a village of small free landowners.100 Nor is this an exceptional situ­ ation: we know of several cases in which the dominus loci was utterly bereft of any allodial lands or owned very few—as in Stablamone, in Umbria, and Biandronno, in Lombardy.101 It is evident that in this context of territorialization of power serfdom lost the strategic function it had exercised in the eyes of aristocrats and ­powerful men up until the first half of the eleventh century: it simply dissolved into the medley of relations of dependence and patron-client ties that pervaded local societies at all levels. It is no coincidence that in the (rare) places where groups of servi/famuli employed as farmers are attested well into the twelfth century, local jurisdiction was in the hands of individuals other than those men and women’s masters. In Cannero and Oggiogno, on Lake Maggiore, where the chapter of Santa Maria di Novara owned considerable landed estates and a few dozen servi (along with several free leaseholders), power nonetheless lay in the hands of the abbey of San Graziano of Arona, and the chapter’s tenants preserved their servile status up until the early thirteenth century, not least on account of the control maintained by the dominus loci over the chapter’s properties.102 Erasing these people’s 98  See section 3.2. 99  See for example Il Regesto di Farfa, V, n. 1154 (a. 1097 c.), p. 158; Le carte del capitolo di Verona, I, n. 48 (a. 1121), pp. 96–9; Codice diplomatico padovano, II, n. 74 (a. 1116?), p. 61. See also Tabarrini, ‘Le operae e i giorni’, on the importance of peasant corveés and dominical reserve in the late twelfth century. 100  See section 3.2. 101  In all likelihood, the Rapizoni counts owned only marginal properties at Stablamone, where up until 1113 they had imposed their lordship, based on long-established comital rights over the comitatus tudertinus: see Il Regesto di Farfa, V, n. 1167 (a. 1113), pp. 170–1. For a reconstruction of the complex context of this document, concerning the transfer of seigneurial rights to the abbey of Farfa, I will refer to Fiore, ‘Strategie dinastiche’. The situation appears to have been much the same with the counts of Ventimiglia in the upper Val Roya: see Daviso, ‘La carta di Tenda’. At Biandronno all landed properties were divided between the three leading aristocratic families of the area, while jurisdictional rights were in the hands of a fourth family: see Le carte di S. Maria del Monte Velate, II, n. 135, (twelfth cent., but a. 1170 c.), pp. 184–90; on this latter text see Keller, Signori e vassalli, pp. 47–8. 102 Panero, Servi e rustici, pp. 149–57.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

98  The Seigneurial Transformation condition would have meant significantly curtailing the rights exercised by Santa Maria over its tenants, insofar as the chapter could not make up for this loss through any jurisdictional rights. Likewise, in Liguria, from as early as 1060 the bishop of Genoa could rely on a large number of famuli to farm his land. By the early decades of the twelfth century these were only attested (in some cases still in the order of dozens) in those centres, like Molassana, governed by other social actors, whereas no famuli were to be found in centres, like Ceriana, where the dominus loci was the prelate himself.103 Naturally, situations of this sort were only possible where the person exercising territorial power had an interest in protecting the rights of servi-holders, as in the two cases just mentioned. Cases in which the dominus loci took advantage of his power to obliterate the servile status of other lords’ men, so as to exploit them more freely, must have been far more common. For example, this is what the Aldobrandeschi did with the servi depending on the monks of Monte Amiata in the centres under their control.104 All in all, territorial lordships undoubtedly played a leading role in the redefinition of forms of personal dependence and subjection in the rural context. As we have seen, there are certain regional differences, although significant divergences can also be found from one place to the next within the same area. While in certain villages in a given area all land belonged to the territorial lord and peasant alodia were simply non-existent, in other villages, for instance in the Verona area, allodial lands featured quite prominently. This is not simply due to the presence of ‘strong’ or ‘weak’ lordships: for in some places where the domina­ tus loci was apparently well established, such as Marzana in the Valpantena, alodia endured despite the significant economic pressure exerted by lords through their jurisdictional rights.105 Still, it is undeniable that where a lord controlled most of the land, his hold over rural society was even stronger and contributed to the limiting of his subjects’ scope for economic as well as social action.106 In such contexts, given the lack of possible alternatives, the establishment of a patronclient relationship with the local lord was crucial for any attempt to affirm or promote oneself and one’s family.107 That said, we should not conclude that the ownership of most lands by the dominus loci necessarily entailed the exercising of a stifling and oppressive power. As late as the thirteen century, two villages of this sort, both of which had been ruled by urban monasteries for the past couple of centuries, and who were certainly inhabited by the descendants of servi, ­entertained opposite relations with their lords: Casalina, in Umbria, resisted the

103 Panero, Schiavi, servi e villani, pp. 331–8. On Ceriana, see Liber privilegiorum ecclesia ianuensis, n. 10 (a. 1124 c.), pp. 25–6. 104  Codex Diplomaticus Amiatinus, II, n. 309 (ante a. 1084), pp. 261–3. 105  Le carte del capitolo di Verona, I, n. 48 (a. 1121), pp. 96–9. 106  As was the case in Montecerro and Castelbaldo, in the north of the Marche (but also in several other villages of the same area); on this Fiore, Signori e sudditi, pp. 77–110. 107  Other examples in Balda, ‘Una corte rurale’; Collavini, ‘Signoria ed élites rurali’.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

Inside the Lordship  99 lord’s power and sought to free itself from their rule by all means, including the use of force, whereas Ceresia, in the southern Marche, was perfectly compliant with its monastery, whose rights it acknowledged and even sought to protect against the claims made by other political actors.108 This example shows the high degree of variability at the local level, even in contexts that are apparently similar from a structural point of view. One last point that bears mention concerns the very status of peasant, which is to say the way in which they perceived themselves and were perceived by people outside of their social group. As regards this specific point, there is no doubt that, leaving aside the variability in terms of individual economic and social levels, our period in general witnessed a worsening in peasants’ status. The small freeholder had a different subordinate status compared to the past, often expressed through the language of violence. One example should suffice here. Whereas in Carolingian society beatings, as a socially humiliating practice, were only reserved for actual servi, to mark a lord’s full ownership of their body, things were very different in our period.109 The freeholders in a community such as Casciavola repeatedly endured beatings from those who sought to impose themselves as their new lords, the San Casciano nobles and their myrmidons.110 Not only that, but the ritual beatings the latter inflicted on the bodies of peasant women in the process of childbirth were more than an act of meaningless violence: they amounted to the staging of a genuine ritual of possession of the subjects’ bodies, right from the moment of birth. In other cases the acts of the domini and their henchmen were even more ruthless: as we shall see in greater detail later on in the book, the beating and whipping of subjects was common and (in rare cases) could even lead to death; the hospitality that farmers were expected to provide in their homes could be extended to the (often systematic) demand for sexual favours from its women; and the seizure of land through the arbitrary exercising of justice was not at all infrequent. Anyone who tried to resist the lords’ power, even without resorting to force, would incur severe penalties, even torture and mutilation.111 Brutal practices which hitherto had been reserved for the lowest stratum of peasant society, on account of their individual status of utter subordination, were now applied to peasant society as a whole, in virtue not of their condition of personal subjugation, but of their being subject to a lord as residents in a given territory. The very fact that these rituals of subjection were at least partly modelled after those once 108 See respecively Galletti, ‘Evoluzione dei rapporti di dipendenza’; Bartocci, ‘Il monastero di Sant’Angelo’. 109  Albertoni, ‘Law and thepeasant’. 110  Lettere originali, I, n. 18 (aa. 1098–1106 c.), p. 156. On violence as language of power, see the discussion in Chapter 10. 111  See for example Codex diplomaticus Amiatinus, II, n. 309 (a. 1084), pp. 261–3; and most of all Archivio capitolare di Treviso, Rotoli senza data, sec. XII, Breve recordationis (aa. 1100–35), edited in Biscaro, ‘La polizia campestre’, p. 51; these practices and the connected sources will be discussed in section 10.1.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

100  The Seigneurial Transformation reserved for servi is revealing of how the lords viewed their subjects and of how the latter might perceive their own condition.112 Certainly, this is not to say that all rural communities always lived under a regime of terror and oppression. However, this was hardly only a possibility. It all largely depended on local power relations, on the political context, and on the personal attitudes of the lords themselves. Yet even in those situations where the lord exercised his power in a milder and more regulated fashion, his subjects must have been well aware of the (at least theoretical) possibility of such nefarious outcomes, and of their precarious condition as subjects. If to this we add the insecurity caused by the state of endemic warfare (and the occasional ravages this implied), the heavy corveés associated with the building and restoration of fortifications and, finally, the increase in expropriations through the imposition of taxes, which de facto—in the best of cases—prevented peasants from reaping any benefits from economic growth by redistributing any surplus to the lords and milites, what emerges is a far from rosy picture. This, in turn, helps explain why wealthy peasants aspired, wherever possible, to become milites themselves, as in San Cassiano. The general rural extension of territorial lordship around the year 1100, therefore, had a significant impact on the balances governing peasant society: peasant alodia dwindled in numbers (although rarely disappeared); a rift—albeit a bridgeable one—emerged between the class of wealthy peasants and milites, who enjoyed considerable tax benefits and were expected to provide services of a different nature; and traditional serfdom was almost entirely obliterated, as the descendants of servi casati merged with the lowest class of freeholders. Overall, the situation did not worsen for all peasants—in fact, for some individuals seigneurial power offered highly significant avenues for social advancement, even more so than in the past, precisely because of the possibility of establishing a personal relation with the dominus loci. However, generally speaking, the condition of the vast majority of peasants did indeed take a turn for the worse, in various respects, albeit with considerable differences depending on the local framework.

112  On how lords looked down upon their subjects and tended to view them in much the same terms as the servi of old, see the still useful remarks by Bloch, Slavery and Serfdom, pp. 151–201.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

5

Collective Powers Political Actions of Urban and Rural Autonomous Communities

In the last two chapters I have specifically focused on territorial lordships and their functioning. However, as already repeatedly noted, although this was the dominant form of power, it was not the only one in rural Italy in the period under consideration. Before moving on to the second section of the book, specifically devoted to an analysis of the interrelation between practices and languages in the seigneurial world, I feel it is crucial to complete the picture outlined so far by investi­ gating in greater detail the structural role played by those ‘collective powers’ that were active in the countryside—and which I have already mentioned on repeated occasions. I use this expression to describe urban and rural communities as autono­ mous political actors, which actually vary considerably in terms of the influence they exerted on political organization at a local level. Communities of cives (citizens) would appear to have played a very significant role from the turn of the twelfth century and affected increasing stretches of the countryside. By contrast, autono­ mous rural communities had a far less noticeable impact on the overall political situation, and their influence (most likely) waned, at least until the end of the period under consideration. However, it is necessary to carefully examine both forms of power if we wish to fully grasp the political structure of the countryside in this age and hence the context of development and spread of the dominatus loci. Territorial lordships found themselves interacting in various (practical and ideological) ways with these at least partly alternative models for the organizing and functioning of local power, which cannot be overlooked, even within the context of an enquiry specifically focusing on lordships. I will begin my investigation from urban commu­ nities and their mode of operating at a local level, as they are obviously better known and documented. I will then move on to consider the more elusive—and appar­ ently less significant—mode of operating of independent rural communities.

5.1  Urban proto-communes The theme of urban communes features prominently in the grand narrative of the Italian Middle Ages, at least up since the first half of the nineteenth century. Given The Seigneurial Transformation: Power Structures and Political Communication in the Countryside of Central and Northern Italy, 1080–1130. Alessio Fiore, Oxford University Press (2020). © Alessio Fiore. DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198825746.001.0001

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

102  The Seigneurial Transformation these premises, it is rather surprising that the very first phase in the political autonomy of citizen communities has not been the object of numerous studies, at any rate compared to the vast scholarship devoted to subsequent periods, as Chris Wickham has emphasized in his recent volume on this particular topic.1 Within this rather limited scholarly context, studies focusing on the political relations between cities and the countryside in the period under consideration are even less numerous. This is due not only to a lack of specific interest but also, or per­ haps especially, to an actual dearth of sources. We should not forget that, with few exceptions, the vast majority of studies on Italian communes are monographs on individual cities. Within this context, it is difficult to develop detailed analyses, given that sources on the governing of local areas are very scarce—when they exist at all—until the 1130s, and only become more frequent, at any rate in certain areas, in the age of Frederick II.2 However, if we examine the overall documentary evidence pertaining to this topic up until around 1130, we find that, while not particularly abundant, it is not discouraging.3 In the following pages I will endeavour to provide a first, partial, overall reading of this material, in an attempt to further broaden the picture of the political situation in the countryside that I have outlined so far. Urban communities operate within the rural context in ways that are only partially akin to those typical of lords. This peculiarity must be emphasized and investigated, if we are to fully grasp the complexity of local pol­it­ ical contexts and the forms of interaction between their actors. One widely known fact worth recalling by way of premise is that as late as the end of the 1120s, with few exceptions, communal institutions had yet to take an established form. Therefore, in the following pages I will avoid using the term ‘commune’, which refers to better structured and more mature polities; instead, I will be using the less binding expression ‘proto-commune’ to describe any com­ munity of cives operating as a specific political actor. This is not to say that com­ munities of cives were incapable of engaging in autonomous political action, often in cooperation with traditional local authorities (most notably bishops, and more rarely margraves and counts), as in the case of Milan and Pisa, or in open

1 Wickham, Sleepwalking, pp. 8–13. 2  Among the most noteworthy exceptions to the predominance of monographs in the scholarship on communes, see Maire Vigueur, Cavaliers et citoyens, and Bordone, La società cittadina. A valuable overview of communal jurisdiction, with a special focus on the decades around 1100, is provided by Milani, ‘Lo sviluppo della giurisdizione’. 3  A particularly useful source in this respect is to be found in some extensive collections of witness statements (or summaries thereof) pertaining to the jurisdiction exercised over the countryside by urban communities. The documents in question date from the second half of the twelfth century, although some witnesses recount events from the very first decades of the century. See Documenti degli archivi di Pavia, nn. 45–8 (a. 1184), pp. 72–193 (on some centres in the Oltrepò area disputed between Pavia and Piacenza); Gli atti del comune di Milano, n. 73 (a. 1170), pp. 103–7 (on the Seprio area dis­ puted between Milan and Como); n. 74 (a. 1170), pp. 108–11 (on some centres in the Como area, again disputed between Milan and Como); and ‘Appendice’, to Castagnetti, Il processo per Ostiglia, n. 1 (ante a. 1151), pp. 317–69, on Ostiglia, a castle disputed between Ferrara and Verona.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

Collective Powers  103 opposition to them, as in the case of Cremona, Arezzo and Turin.4 Here too, the crisis of public forms of government in the 1080s brought about a sudden and strong acceleration of existing processes and dynamics, providing urban commu­ nities with avenues for autonomous action that hitherto would have been quite unthinkable. Before moving outside the city walls, however, it is worth emphasizing that even within cities the dynamics of power were quite different from those described in the previous chapters. Urban space would appear to be marked by a greater degree of continuity in terms of the everyday exercising of power; the leading actors changed (from the old public officials to the most prominent representatives of the urban community), yet the practices adopted show a con­sid­er­able stability, as they continued to revolve around those forms of collective action typical of the previous phase.5 Even where we do not witness an early establishment of com­ munal institutions and where the bishop continued to play his trad­ition­al role (as in Fermo, Volterra, or Ascoli), he nonetheless remained a civic leader, without ever acquiring despotic power. Rather, the bishop continued to operate within a long-standing tradition of public power, frequently reinforced by the growing centrality of the arengo, or citizens’ assembly.6 However, precisely this significant degree of continuity in the concrete, everyday management of power that charac­ terizes the urban context can help us better understand the gap between cities and (most) rural centres. Very few urban communities engaged in forms of rule akin to those regarded as quite normal in the countryside. When this occurred, as in several cities of Latium and in northern Italian centres governed by German imperial podestates in the 1160s, it constituted a real shock for the cives.7 The best documentary evidence we have for this specific topic is probably the one con­ cerning Terracina, in the area of Latium under the Roman pontiff. While it dates from the second half of the twelfth century, it leaves no doubt as to the dramatic nature of the change of regime, not only for local political balances, but also for the everyday life of local inhabitants.8 By this I certainly do not mean to argue that cities, and urban communes, were violence-free. In fact, the research conducted over the last few decades has strongly emphasized the importance of the military element in urban life, the

4  On these dynamics in general, see Wickham, Sleepwalking. 5  Wickham, ‘The “feudal revolution” ’. 6  This is particularly evident in the case of Parma, on which see Schumann, Istituzioni e società a Parma. 7  On the imperial podestas and their action, see Güterbock, ‘Alla vigilia della Lega’; and Diplomata Friderici I., II, n. 444 (a. 1164), pp. 343–4 (on Treviso); see also Bisson, The Crisis, pp. 316–9. On the cities in Latium, see Carocci, ‘La signoria rurale’, pp. 190–5. 8  The rich text in question has been published, with numerous errors, in Contatore, De Historia Terracinensi, pp. 52–5; a useful and emended, if partial, edition is provided in the appendix (no. 3) to Carocci, ‘Le lexique du prélèvement seigneurial’. I will be getting back to this important source in greater detail in the second part of the book, devoted to violence (section 10.2).

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

104  The Seigneurial Transformation militarization of urban elites, and the harshness of the conflicts between different cities and, even more so, within cities.9 However, in my view this is a different kind of violence, which fits within a profoundly different context, in which power remained—from both an ideal and practical standpoint—something that was shared and based on the community and the building of consent. Violence within cities was essentially connected to conflicts over power;10 rural violence was (also) connected to the very exercising of power.11 If we instead move from the urban milieu to the countryside over which the proto-communes sought to impose their power, a very different picture emerges. Certain differences compared to the seigneurial world are evident and worth noting. On the one hand, the texts pertaining to actions within the context of conflicts over the control of an area reflect modes of warfare that are in all respects akin to those adopted by lords’ gangs. What proves particularly revealing in this respect is the content of De bello et excidio urbis Comensis, written by an eyewitness viv­ idly describing the bloody war between Como and Milan in the decade between 1118 and 1127.12 We read of raids, villages plundered and set fire to, rapes, vil­ lains put to the sword and, more generally, acts of violence of all sorts, in addition to savage open clashes and attacks against castles: the sort of actions we might expect to find in some of the more gruesome seigneurial querimoniae. Protocommunes, then, engaged in warfare with just as much ruthlessness and fierce­ ness as lords. By contrast, in the rather limited sources we have about the relations established with rural communities directly under the control of urban communes we find no trace of the kind of brutality and violence associated with the everyday exercising of power on the lords’ part.13 For example, we find no mention of arbi­ trary beatings or lashings of villains, less still of rapes. Communal officials cer­ tainly knew how to behave assertively towards local inhabitants, but it would seem as though their action was far more restrained than that carried out by rural noble­ men. We will be getting back to this important issue later on. Before addressing it, it is necessary to examine in greater detail not just the concrete forms of the political action taken by proto-communes in the countryside, but also the various stages of their process of expansion, which finds its crucial moment of gestation and later of development in the period under consideration. Through the breakdown of traditional royal power structures and the disinte­ gration of marches, but also through the marked internal conflicts between urban communities and pro-imperial or, more rarely, pro-papal bishops (leading to the

9  The reference is Maire Viguer, Cavaliers et citoyens. 10  On Genoa see esp. Filangieri, Famiglie e gruppi dirigenti; and Inguscio, Reassessing civil conflicts. 11  On this characteristic of seigneurial power in the countryside, see the discussion in Chapter 10. 12  Anonimus Cumanus, De bello. 13  Gli atti del comune di Milano, n. 73 (a. 1170), p. 106 (on the Seprio area, disputed between Milano and Como); and ‘Appendice’, to Castagnetti, Il processo per Ostiglia, n. 1 (ante a. 1151), on the castle of Ostiglia, disputed between Ferrara and Verona.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

Collective Powers  105 expulsion of the prelates, sometimes for many years), the civil war period provided communities of cives with hitherto unthinkable avenues for action. Free from epis­ copal tutelage, they could independently organize themselves and take into their own hands the task of urban government and, more generally, the safeguarding of urban interests, even in the countryside. The rapid rise of urban communities as autonomous political actors is already evident in the diplomas issued by Henry IV for Lucca and Pisa in 1081, as well as in the charter issued only a few years later for Mantua. From the very beginning, in several cases this new prom­in­ence was associated with the exercising of forms of political control over the country­ side surrounding individual urban centres.14 Certainly, with few exceptions, at this very early stage the actual ability of proto-communes to project their political power into the countryside must have been limited to a distance of a few kilometres away from the city walls. However, it would be a mistake to underestimate the role played by proto-communes in the rural context already before the year 1100. In 1095 the citizens of Asti gained control of the important castle of Annone, located within 10km from the city walls.15 In 1097 Matilda of Canossa granted the representatives of the comunum of Cremona—in exchange for military help in the war against Henry IV—comital rights over the Insula Fulcheria, a vast area between the Serio and Adda rivers, some 20km north of the city. The inhabitants of Cremona attempted to bring these rights into effect the following year, spark­ ing a violent war with Crema and the Gisalbertini counts.16 In the years after 1100 the evidence concerning the political action of protocommunes in the countryside becomes (relatively) more abundant, allowing us to grasp two distinct phenomena. On the one hand, there was a sharp rise in the number of urban communities engaged in the countryside; on the other, a signifi­ cant difference emerged in the capacity of individual centres to influence their environs. Already as early as 1110 Milan had started expanding outside its (very large) diocese, destroying Lodi and seizing practically all of its territory.17 Besides, in the same years it seems as though the cives of Piacenza and Pavia were capable of regularly escorting the cargo ships travelling the river Po within their diocese with contingents of milites, in such a way as to ensure the flow of commercial goods in times of war.18 In those same years, Como strengthened its hold over the surrounding area by subjugating centres like Mendrisio and Civenna, located a dozen kilometres away, and then sought to forcefully bring under its control the autonomous rural communities and territorial lordships in the northern stretch of its diocese, as is evidenced by the war against the Isola Comacina, located 14  On Mantua, Diplomata Henrici IV, n. 421 (a. 1091), pp. 563–4. 15  Codex Astensis, III, n. 94 (a. 1095), p. 651. 16  Le carte cremonesi, II, n. 242 (a. 1098), pp. 53–4; see Menant, ‘La prima età comunale’, pp. 201–10. 17  Landolfo Seniore, Historia mediolanensis, p. 37. 18  Documenti degli archivi di Pavia, nn. 45–58 (a. 1184), pp. 72–193.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

106  The Seigneurial Transformation almost 30km away from the city.19 Again in the 1110s Florence was engaged in a regional conflict such as the ‘Prato War’. In 1119 it destroyed the old Cadolingian castle of Montecascioli—defended by the imperial margrave of Tuscany Rabodo, who died in the clash—and located a dozen kilometres away from the city. Between 1104 and 1106 Pisa and Lucca fought over the Ripafratta castle, a dozen kilo­ metres away from either city.20 A few years later the community of Pisa extended its power as far as Piombino, while Genoa, after bringing the surrounding area under its rule, established a military garrison in far-off Portovenere and seized a few castles in the Apennines in order to gain control of the routes connecting it to the Piedmontese and Lombard plain. From this brief overview it is quite evident that the earliest autonomous c­ entres, capable of swiftly projecting their power even dozens of kilometres beyond the city walls, were located in the heart of the Po Valley or in the immediately sur­ rounding areas, as in the case of Milan, Pavia, Brescia, Piacenza and Como (despite some significant differences, and even though this does not apply to all centres in the area), along with the two major ports of Pisa and Genoa. In those same years, the field of action of other proto-communes, such as Lucca, Florence and Asti, would appear to have been far more limited, not least because of the presence of particularly powerful local competitors, such as the Monferrato and Del Vasto lords for Asti, and the Guidi for Florence. Another factor was Henry V’s interven­ tion, especially after 1116, when through the inheritance of Matilda’s lands the imperial government acquired a dense network of castles throughout most of northern Italy. Moreover, we should not forget that the last Salian emperor, while acknowledging many urban communities as autonomous political subjects, took harsh military action against the cives of Arezzo and Novara, who were judged guilty of having attempted to strip pro-imperial bishops of their established polit­ ical prerogatives.21 It was nonetheless the failure of Henry V’s policy, which was already evident by 1120 and took definite form after 1125, that really paved the way for the expan­ sion of proto-communes into the countryside. In 1115 Bologna was still seeking to forcefully affirm its autonomy, by destroying the imperial urban stronghold; only eight years later, it proved capable of conquering three castles located some 30km away, in the Apennines, and in 1131 it subjected far-off Nonantola.22 19  Gli atti del comune di Milano, n. 73 (a. 1170), pp. 103–7; on other villages (such as Mandello, Lierna, and Civenna) directly controlled by Como, and passed under the rule of Milan in 1120s, see Gli atti del comune di Milano, n. 74 (a. 1170), pp. 108–11. 20  Ronzani, ‘L’affermazione dei Comuni’. 21 Delumeau, Arezzo, pp. 1005–10; see Ekkeardus, Chronicon, p. 244. The reasons under the destruction of Novara (1110) are less clear, but are probably connected with the frictions between the citizens and the pro-imperial bishop; on this Ekkeardus, Chronicon, p. 244. 22  In 1123 the Apennine castles of Rodiano, Sanguineto, and Gavriglia fell directly under the power of the urban consuls: see Savioli, Annali Bolognesi, I.2, p. 173 (a. 1123). On the first stage of Bologna’s territorial expansion, see Siciliano, ‘Bologna nella prima età comunale’; and Hessel, Storia della città di Bologna, pp. 12–57.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

Collective Powers  107 In 1118 the inhabitants of Cremona seized control of Soncino, over 20km north of Cremona, turning it into their military outpost against Crema and its counts.23 In 1120 the inhabitants of Brescia gained direct control of the castle of Orzivecchi, located some 15km away from the city, while the following year they destroyed the imperial castle of San Martino di Gavardo, garrisoned by German troops, some 20km away from Brescia.24 By the late 1120s Pavia had strengthened its hold over much of its diocese, while practically the whole plain around Piacenza acknowledged the hegemony of the urban government, which was also capable of military intervention in the Parma area.25 In this case Milan also stands out: in addition to its own diocese and most of that of Lodi, it also controlled much of the Como area, after the destruction of the city in 1127. By then rural centres such as Mandello and Civenna, located some 60km north of the city, on the banks of Lake Como, had fallen under the direct control of the consuls of Milan.26 From the 1120s onwards, Ferrara successfully affirmed its rights over Ostiglia, a lord­ ship owned a Veronese ecclesiastical institution, and located over 40km away from the city. Ferrara would regularly despatch its officials to collect the fodrum, taxes on mills, and (at least) partly the teloneum (toll) on cargo boats, which was par­ ticularly profitable, as this centre was located along a leading waterway.27 Even a community such as Siena, which would not appear to have developed particularly early on, was so confident of the control it exercised over its diocese by 1128 that it imposed a tax on all its residents, which led to an armed uprising of all the major lords in the area and to a temporary yet definite curtailment of the city’s sphere of political hegemony.28 In other areas in the north of Italy—especially across much of Piedmont, the Veneto, and Romagna—and even more so in central Italy, the degree of political autonomy acquired by urban communities relatively early on was rarely associated with an equally swift capacity to influence power balances in the countryside, which remained in the hands of rural lords, at least up to the 1130s (and often even later). Among these domini loci, bishops played a very significant role, but they too could act largely independently of the cives—and sometimes even in open opposition to them—through politics entirely foreign to the agenda of their urban community, well into the twelfth century. The cases of Ivrea, Acqui, Arezzo (up until 1130) and Ravenna, to mention only some of the many possible ex­amples, would appear to fit this model perfectly. Not only that, but in central Italy in certain cases, such as those of Volterra, Fermo and Ascoli, from as early as 1200, 23  Le carte cremonesi, II, n. 273 (a. 1118), pp. 106–9 (Soncino). 24  Liber Potheris, n. 2 (a. 1120), coll. 9–10; Annales Brixienses, p. 812 (s.a. 1121). 25  Documenti degli archivi di Pavia, n. 45–48 (a. 1184), pp. 72–193. 26  Gli atti del comune di Milano, n. 74 (a. 1170), pp. 108–11. 27  ‘Appendice’, to Castagnetti, Il processo per Ostiglia, n. 1 (ante a. 1151), pp. 317–69; on this specific issue see the analysis by Castagnetti, Il processo per Ostiglia, pp. 229–60. 28  Documenti per la storia d’Arezzo, I, n. 389 (aa. 1177–80 c.), pp. 565–73. On the political expan­ sion of Siena, see Scheider, Siena.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

108  The Seigneurial Transformation bishops succeeded in constantly reaffirming their full powers over the city itself, preventing the urban community from displaying any real political au­ton­omy.29 What are rarer, at any rate after the collapse of the great lordships of the Canossa and Arduinici families, are urban centres directly governed by lay lords. These are essentially limited to Ventimiglia and some towns in Latium, such as Palestrina, even though in contexts such as Verona, Pistoia and Savona local dynasties of counts or margraves continued to play, to varying extent, a far from marginal role as late as the first decades of the twelfth century.30 Having completed this succinct overview, we must now examine in greater detail the modes of action of proto-communes in the countryside. From the perspective of urban communities, the rural context was not an undifferentiated whole; rather, it is necessary to carefully distinguish between different areas of intervention. The first is the peri-urban area, which is to say the area located within a few kilometres of the walls (usually no more than a dozen). The second area coincided with those rural centres directly governed by the proto-communes, without any intermediation of lords, and located further away from the city. The last area coincides with those territorial lordships that acknowledged the political superiority of the urban community; their lords could be cives, urban ecclesias­ tical institutions, or even domini loci completely foreign to the urban context yet nonetheless closely dependent upon or subordinate to the city. Let us begin our enquiry, then, by focusing on the peri-urban area, where urban communities displayed the greatest and most compelling capacity for political action. The presence of a rural area in the environs of cities and closely connected to them was acknowledged in many royal and imperial charters addressed to bishops from the early decades of the tenth century onwards.31 For example, when in 962 Otto I issued a charter for the transfer of public prerogatives over Parma to the city’s bishop, these rights also extended to the rural area within three miles of the urban walls.32 Much the same privileges were granted by Otto III to the bishops of Acqui, in southern Piedmont, in 996.33 The extent of this periurban area varied from case to case, probably depending on local political con­ figurations, but it almost invariably ranged between three and six miles, which is 29 Pinto, Ascoli, pp. 38–43; and Pirani, Fermo, pp. 40–6. 30 On Latium, see Carocci, ‘La signoria rurale’; on Ventimiglia and its counts see Ascheri, ‘Ventimiglia’; on the cities of Liguria at least partially governed by the Del Vasto family, see Provero, Dai marchesi del Vasto, pp. 50–3; on Verona and the counts of San Bonifacio see Simeoni, ‘Le origini del comune’, pp. 87–8 and 143–6; on Pistoia and the significant role played by the Guidi family, see Canaccini (ed.), I conti Guidi. Finally, it is worth adding that as late as 1130 the Savoy succeeded in establishing themselves as the lords of Turin—if only briefly, given Lothar III’s intervention shortly afterwards (1136); on this see Sergi, Potere e territorio, p. 75. It is important to stress that between 1132 and 1150 counts and margraves lost all (or almost all) their power over Verona, Pistoia and the cities of Liguria. 31  This issue is discuted in Sergi, I poteri temporali. 32  Diplomata Ottonis I, n. 239 (a. 962), pp. 333–4. 33  Diplomata Ottonis III, n. 191 (a. 996), pp. 599–600.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

Collective Powers  109 to say between 5 and 10km.34 When in 1081 Henry IV acknowledged the autonomy of the cives of Lucca, he de facto assigned them a territory within six miles of the urban walls, banning the building of castles within it. In doing so the emperor was following an established trajectory: all he did was acknowledge the autonomous role acquired by citizens, who by then no longer needed to rely on the bishop as an intermediary.35 However, this connection was not merely political in character: the rural area within 5–10 km of the city was also the area where citizens’ landed property was concentrated and where the food crucial for the city’s survival was produced. As such, it was closely integrated with the urban space, not just from a political perspective, but also from an economic and social standpoint, as Chris Wickham has shown in his analysis of the Lucca area.36 In the peri-urban area proto-communes struggled to prevent the building of castra and to destroy existent ones. The presence of castles, by now associated with the exercising of jurisdictional prerogatives, was perceived as a threat to the city’s political hegemony and control of its environs, not least in economic terms. The most famous case in this respect is provided precisely by the Sei Miglia (Six Miles) of Lucca, the area almost completely devoid of castra surrounding the city, but similar phenomena may be observed in many other cases, as shown by Elena Maria Cortese’s recent and systematic analysis.37 One element which appears to distinguish these areas, and at least some of the more remote ones that were nonetheless directly governed by cities, is the seemingly non-military character of their local elites, in sharp contrast to those centres subject to lords. This is evident both in the Sei Miglia around Lucca and in the rural centres under the authority of Pavia and Piacenza. I would argue that there are two reasons for this. On the one hand, through its integration with the urban centre, much of the local land was in the hands of the city’s militia, who received revenue from it; this made it harder (and in some cases impossible) for residents to collect enough land to pur­ chase horses and armour. On the other hand, even those members of the com­ munity who somehow managed to acquire sufficient economic resources to achieve military status were clearly drawn to the city, as they were integrated within its economic and political network. This hypothesis helps account for the large number of milites among the urban population, as highlighted in Maire Vigueur’s important book on the topic.38 Moreover, quite often the estates of 34  As early as in 916, Berengar I concessed to the bishop of Cremona the territory within five miles of urban walls: I diplomi di Berengario I, a. 112 (a. 916), pp. 285–9. 35  Ronzani, ‘L’affermazione dei Comuni’. 36 Wickham, Community and Clientele; a similar (but with some significant differences) pattern can be observed around Rome; see Wickham, Medieval Rome, pp. 35–88. 37 On the Sei Miglia, see Wickham, Communities and Clientele. Fort a general overview, see Cortese, ‘Incastellamento e città’. 38  Maire Viguer, Cavaliers et citoyens. On the land of the urban militia in countryside in this period, see Gardoni, ‘Élites cittadine’, pp. 304–48, focused on the analysis of the group of arimanni mentioned in the first ‘consular’ document from Mantua, in 1126.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

110  The Seigneurial Transformation ­ eople residing in the city were not subject to regular taxation, but only to emer­ p gency levies, which encouraged the emigration of local landowners.39 This may explain the exemptions that the authorities of Cremona granted to the inhabitants of certain centres under their control which lay in critical areas of the countryside from a military point of view, and in which milites played a prominent role. The aim was probably to bring the tax burden for the local elite in line with that for urban landowners, in such a way as to discourage them from moving within the city walls.40 As regards the presence of fortifications, however, the peri-urban area must be divided into two different sectors, which are actually identified as such in many charters: the three-mile (c. 5 km) area and the five/six-mile (c. 10 km) one. In the immediate environs of the city (the area within 5km) fortified structures were almost exclusively seen as a threat to the power of the urban community—with only a few exceptions, due to the geomorphological configuration of certain areas. The vast majority of settlements around Genoa, while presumably centralized, would appear to have had no fortifications at all around the year 1120. Nonetheless, we find two castra under the direct control of the city: Carignano, strategically located on high ground close to the city, and Manzasco, located on a hill about 4km away from the harbour41. In the outermost area (between 5 and 10km away), castles instead constituted a crucial means of projecting the city’s power. One well-known and early example is the castrum of Annone (formerly belonging to the margraves of Turin). Located around 9km from Asti, in 1095 it was granted as a benefice to the urban consuls by the city’s bishop.42 While this very early mention of consuls may be a later interpolation, the substance of the act—which is to say the bishop’s granting of rights over the city to the citizen community—is almost certainly genuine. For their part, the inhabitants of Asti did not demolish the fortifications originally built by the margrave, and located along an important route, but made them the linchpin of their strategy to extend their control over the surrounding area. Moreover, fortifications in the hands of subjects well integrated with the urban community were allowed to stand, as they could be used in the event of war. This is illustrated by the case of Mosezzo, belonging to the canons of Novara,

39  On the tax exemption granted to the cives of Genoa and their estates in centres under the pol­it­ ical control of the urban community, see I Libri iurium di Genova, I,1, a. 4 (ante a. 1139), pp. 11–12. In Milan the cives were almost certainly exempt from ordinary taxation; when they were required to pay regular taxes under the imperial podestà, after Barbarossa’s destruction of Milan, this was experienced as a very traumatic event. See Fasola, ‘Una famiglia di sostenitori’. 40  As results clearly from the renewal of the old privileges of the castle of San Bassano; see Le Carte cremonesi, II, a. 373 (a. 1157), pp. 292–4. 41  I Libri iurium di Genova, I,1, n. 4 (ante a. 1139), pp. 11–12. 42  Codex Astensis, III, n. 94 (a. 1095), p. 651; on which, see Bordone, Città e territorio, pp. 356–8.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

Collective Powers  111 and that of Ripafratta, located in a strategic position between Lucca and Pisa, and controlled by a noble family that for decades had found a place in Pisan society.43 In all those settled areas located outside the peri-urban area yet still falling under the direct control of a city, the urban community regarded castles as the cornerstone of its political and military action. The highly uncertain and fluid situation at the time and the recurrent episodes of warfare made it essential to establish a network of fortresses as dense as possible, by analogy to what was hap­ pening with large lordships. Within such a context, proto-communes could even promote the building of new castles or the incastellamento of open settlements in such a way as to strengthen their own presence in an area. One example is provided by the construction of new fortifications by the authorities of Pavia at Parpanese, a border area where their power was being challenged by the au­thor­ities of Piacenza: the inhabitants of neighbouring villages were despatched to Parpanese in order to erect a new tower.44 In certain strategic areas the fortifications were controlled not by the local communities but by officials (described as castellans in the sources, or more rarely as viscounts), who controlled small permanent garrisons stationed there by the proto-commune and paid by it.45 Not least thanks to the wealth of its sources, Genoa provides some early examples of this phenomenon. One such area was Portovenere, a military stronghold in enemy territory, where an armed citizen garrison was stationed.46 Another similar case from the Genoa area is Fiaccone, situated along the crucial Apennine route connecting the city to the Po Valley. The renewal of Vicecomes Lanfranc’s appointment as the castellan of Fiaccone shows that he was at the head of a small permanent garrison of ten war­ riors. The maintenance of the whole stronghold cost the Genoese eighteen lire a year, which were paid out to the castellan, who was responsible for the soldiers’ remuneration and provisions.47 However, the presence of permanent officials in the area would appear to have been an exception, not the rule. What concrete form, then, did the power of urban communities take in relation to rural centres directly under their authority, whether they be located in the immediate environs of the city or (as was more 43  On the castle of Mosezzo, see Le carte dell’archivio capitolare di Novara, II, n. 366 (a. 1150), pp. 269–70; on Ripafratta, see Ronzani, ‘L’affermazione dei Comuni’, pp. 24–5. 44  Documenti degli archivi di Pavia, a. 54 (a. 1184), pp. 153; a strengthening of the concrete struc­ tures of the castle is remembered by the testimonies collected in Liber Potheris, a. 31 (a. 1192), col. 92. 45  In addition to the Genoa cases, mechanisms of this sort (with a rapid turnover) are attested in relation to the important border castle of Volpino, near Brescia, at least from the early 1150s (but plausibly already before that date); the testimonies from various custodes of this castle have been pub­ lished in Liber Potheris, n. 31 (a. 1192), coll. 90–93; these sources also suggest that, after conquering the castle in the 1150s, the authorities of Brescia continued to manage it through temporary governors and a garrison. 46  In those years, Genoese castellans (with permanent armed garrisons) were probably active in Voltaggio, Fiaccone and San Remo; see I Libri iurium di Genova, I,1, n. 141 (a. 1130), pp. 208–10. 47  I Libri iurium di Genova, I,1, n. 89 (a. 1145), pp. 143–4. The activity of Genoese castellan/vis­ counts in Fiaccone is mentioned before 1137; on this, see I Libri iurium di Genova, I,1, n. 43 (a. 1137), pp. 69–71.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

112  The Seigneurial Transformation rarely the case) further afield? The data we have, which chiefly pertain to some centres in northern Italy, present a rather uniform picture, at any rate for the very early decades of the twelfth century.48 First of all, unlike what occurred in ter­ri­ tor­ial lordships in the same period, the cives’ authority was not exercised through permanent officials (such as viscounts and gastalds). Urban missi and legati were only occasionally despatched to convey orders, collect taxes, or enforce oaths of sworn fealty and military duties. Ordinary administrative matters were in the hands of local officials appointed by members of the rural community (deans, consuls, etc.). One interesting case, in this respect, is that of Mendrisio, a town north of Milan, in what is now Switzerland. From as early as around 1100 this centre had been governed by Como, located a dozen kilometres away.49 Its inhab­ itants paid their taxes to this city, while also providing military and transporta­ tion services. However, the sources do not mention the authorities of Como as being responsible for the administration of justice in the area. After 1118 Mendrisio, like many other centres in the area, fell under the rule of Milan, which continued to exercise the same prerogatives.50 In 1140, when two aristocratic families sought to lay claim to the village (as well as nearby Rancate), on the basis of old imperial charters, it was the consuls of Milan who settled the dispute, in the city.51 While the lords relied on their charters, it was clear from witnesses that neither of the two families had exercised any real jurisdiction over the area in the previous dec­ ades, and that only one of them actually enjoyed some property rights. By contrast, what was clear (and largely undisputed) was the fact that the vicini (i.e. the inhab­ itants of the two villages) autonomously governed themselves (se distringere) through decani (deans) appointed by them, notwithstanding the fact that they were both subject to Milan.52 A similar form of domination has been recorded in relation to the communities (not territorial lordships) disputed between Pavia and Piacenza. Within these contexts, it would seem as though (at least in some cases) the consuls were appointed by urban envoys, simply because no local inhabitant was willing to accept the appointment out of fear of reprisal from the other city. Only from the 1150s or 1160s onwards did the appointment of rural consuls by communal missi become the standard practice.53 Before then, urban envoys would merely acknowledge the consuls chosen by the local community. Urban power, therefore, was exercised by making local elites involved in the process as intermediaries. A guarantee was offered by the solemn oaths which 48  Documenti degli archivi di Pavia, nn. 45–48 (a. 1184), pp. 72–193; Gli atti del comune di Milano, n. 73 (a. 1170), pp. 103–7; ‘Appendice’, to Castagnetti, Il processo per Ostiglia, n. 1 (ante a. 1151), pp. 317–69. 49  Gli atti del comune di Milano, a. 73 (a. 1170), pp. 103–7. 50  Gli atti del comune di Milano, n. 73 (a. 1170), pp. 103–7. 51  Gli atti del comune di Milano, n. 5 (a. 1140), pp. 9–11. On this text, see Rossetti, ‘Le istituzioni comunali’, pp. 92–3. 52  Gli atti del comune di Milano, n. 21 (a. 1150), pp. 32–3. 53  Documenti degli archivi di Pavia, nn. 45–48 (a. 1184), pp. 72–193.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

Collective Powers  113 local inhabitants would swear to the urban proto-commune.54 In describing the situation of communities governed by Como, the author of De bello et excidio repeatedly refers to the iura sacrata binding rural centres to the city. As is shown by some surviving examples of these oaths (from Lombardy and elsewhere), they essentially entailed the provision of military aid and the regular paying of taxes (in money and/or in kind).55 The De bello et excidio instead makes no mention of castles governed by officials from Como, except in one rather ambiguous case.56 Besides, as late as 1139 the inhabitants of Isola Maggiore, a centre on Lake Trasimeno, swore a very similar oath to the consuls of Perugia. They committed themselves to paying the colta, in addition to an annual donativum of a thousand tenches, to give ostem et parlamentum (military and political assistance) when­ ever the authorities of Perugia required it, and to welcome and offer hospitality to the urban envoys tamquam domini (like [their] lords). By contrast, no references are made to permanent officials or to the administration of justice, which evi­ dently must have remained in the hands of the local community.57 An interesting text regarding the rights exercised by cities over their immediate environs comes from Genoa, one of the earliest urban communities, which was among the first to establish itself as a political space. The document was certainly produced before 1139, perhaps in the 1130s, although there is not enough evi­ dence to safely date it.58 The document records the sentry duties assigned to the residents of the rural centres closest to Genoa and directly governed by it. The inhabitants of half a dozen settlements were required to provide such services on the ramparts of the castrum of Genoa, a fortress located within the urban walls and adjacent to the harbour. The only inhabitants excluded were the famuli (unfree) and the donecati (leasers) of Genoese citizens. The inhabitants of a dozen other centres were instead required to facere guardiam at a series of strongholds controlled by the Genoese, such as the castles of Calignano and Manzasco, and the lighthouse towers located at the harbour entrance. The inhabitants of thirtyodd other centres were not required to perform sentry duties, probably because they lived too far from the Genoese fortifications, but were instead expected to pay taxes in money or in kind (especially oil and chestnuts, but also timber). In this case serfs and those living in estates owned by cives were exempt from these duties, which fell on local free citizens. It is almost certain that other, more bur­ densome duties were also enforced, connected with participation in the hostis and the paying of taxes. Up until 1152 the inhabitants of the village and castle of 54  See for example the charter of Orzivecchi, with the castle granted by the consuls of Brescia to local elite; see Liber Potheris, n. 2 (a. 1120), coll. 9–10; and the pact, quite similar between the milites of Soncino and the citizens of Cremona, in Le carte cremonesi, II, a. 273 (a. 1118), pp. 106–8. 55  On communal taxation the reference is Mainoni, ‘Sperimentazioni fiscali’. 56 Grillo, ‘Una fonte per lo studio’. 57  Codice diplomatico del comune di Perugia, n. 1 (a. 1139), pp. 3–5; a riguardo si veda Grundman, The popolo at Perugia, pp. 10–15. 58  I Libri iurium di Genova, I,1, n. 4 (ante a. 1139), pp. 11–12.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

114  The Seigneurial Transformation Portovenere must have been expected to pay the Genoese a very significant share of their harvest, since that year—as a melioramentum (improvement)—the con­ suls decreed that the share of blavis et fructibus to be handed over to the castellan appointed by the commune to control the local area would be reduced by three-fourths.59 This should not be taken to suggest a complete disinterest in the judicial sphere on the part of the proto-communes—quite the contrary. If we examine the first consular trials held in Milan between 1117 and 1150, we will note that many of the cases pertaining to the countryside concern not individuals but actual institu­ tional subjects (local communities, churches, and lords) in mutual conflict. This is the case with the bishop of Lodi, who requested the annulment of the beneficia his predecessors had assigned to various lay families; with the counts of Seprio, who entered into conflict with the men of Mendrisio over the royal fodrum; and with the church of San Bartolomeo, who entered into a dispute with the abbess and men of Cairate regarding their rights over the waterways.60 In this respect, the consuls acted as representatives of the political community of Milan, so as to maintain order within the area where it exercised its authority. Yet consular just­ ice also dealt with the resolution of conflicts on a much smaller scale. In 1138 the court settled a land litigation between some residents of Sesto, regarding estates with an overall value of around twenty lire; in 1141, a lawsuit concerning the ownership of a building at Rosate disputed between a local inhabitant and one of the city’s churches; and in the same year a litigation between an inhabitant of Cairate and a church over the ownership of a mill at Lonate.61 Nevertheless, it is important to note that only matters of some economic sig­ nificance were discussed by the city’s consuls, and that this always occurred in Milan, whereas lesser disputes must have been dealt with locally.62 In other words, it was probably up to the litigants themselves to turn to Milanese consular just­ice— just as a community or lord not ruled by Milan might choose to do—if the Milanese tribunal was perceived as being a more neutral arbiter, as in the case of the Calusco peasants and the church of Sant’Alessandrio in Brescia in 1130.63 In other words, resorting to the urban court’s judgement was almost certainly an alternative, or follow-up, to the judgement pronounced by the dominus loci or rural consuls.64 Particularly for a weak party such as a local community in conflict with lords or 59  I Libri iurium di Genova, I,1, n. 88 (a. 1152), pp. 142–3. 60  Gli atti del comune di Milano, n. 1 (a. 1117), pp. 3–5; n. 8 (a. 1142), pp. 13–14; n. 17 (a. 1148), pp. 27–8. On the exercise of justice in Milan (and its territory) in those years, see Padoa Schioppa, ‘Aspetti della giustizia milanese’. 61  See respectively Gli atti del comune di Milano, n. 4 (a. 1138), p. 8; n. 6 (a. 1141), p. 11; n. 7 (a. 1141), p. 12. 62  A similar pattern is observed also in Genoa, until the middle of twelfth century; on this see Vallerani, ‘La riscrittura dei diritti’, pp. 74–85. 63  Gli atti del comune di Milano, n. 3 (a. 1130), pp. 6–8. 64  On these mechanisms, see Wickham, Courts and Conflicts.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

Collective Powers  115 churches, resorting to the consular tribunal was an attractive option. Thus within a few years the men of the comunantia of Velate in the Varese area brought before the Milanese consuls first the archbishop of Milan (1148) and then the church of Santa Maria of Monte Velate (1153), in both cases over issues concerning the use of public land, whereas other disputes in the same area were resolved locally.65 Of course, this was only one possibility; sometimes it was the more powerful side that systematically resorted to the communal court, as in the case of the archbishop of Genoa, who systematically resorted to the consul’s judgement in order to have his rights as a territorial lord in the area ac­know­ledged in the 1140s—apparently, with great success.66 However, we should be wary not to unduly apply these data to all autonomous urban communities attested in this period. Many of them had real difficulties in effectively projecting their power only a short distance away from the city walls. The proliferation of castra in the hands of subjects not directly controlled by the proto-commune in the peri-urban area may be regarded as a clear indication of the weakness of its political projection. A good example in this case is provided by Alba, in southern Piedmont, which is worth examining in some detail. Up until 1091 this area fell within the political sphere of the march of Turin. In add­ition to fiscal estates and ones in the hands of the lay aristocracy, a considerable number of estates were in the hands of two monastic institutions located outside the area in question, namely the abbey of Fruttuaria and that of Breme, which owned several villages and castles, based on a series of donations.67 The civil war period, however, brought about a significant redefinition of local power balances. The Fruttuaria estates were usurped by local noblemen (in all likelihood, they were at least partly acquired by the heirs to the concessionaires of these properties), whereas the bishop expanded his political power, mostly to the detriment of Breme. The two castles of Verduno and Roddi, located a few kilo­ metres away from the city, fell into the hands of the prelate of Alba, who also controlled several other centres in the immediate environs of the urban centre.68 Breme only kept the castle of Pollenzo, located a dozen kilometres away from 65  See, respectively, Le carte di Santa Maria del Monte Velate, I, n. 123 (a. 1148), p. 211; and Gli atti del comune di Milano, a. 28 (a. 1153), pp. 44–6. On the latter deed, see Padoa Schioppa, ‘Aspetti della giustizia milanese’, p. 540. One example of a conflict being resolved at the local level, without the consuls’ involvement, may be found in Le carte di Santa Maria del Monte Velate, I, n. 86 (a. 1126), pp. 150–1. 66  Vallerani, ‘La riscrittura dei diritti’; see the documents collected in Il registro della curia arcivescovile di Genova, passim. Note that the first document pertaining to the Genoese consuls’ exercising of justice in the countryside dates from as early as 1104–5, and concerns the area near Portofino, some 30km away from Genoa, where local power was in the hands of churches and urban noble families rather than the urban community; see Wickham, Sleepwalking, pp. 243–4, n. 5. 67  On the considerable properties owned by the abbey of Fruttuaria in the area (including the curtes scilicet castella of Serralunga, Borgomale, Barbaresco, Colombero and Montorsino), see the charter issued by Henry II: Diplomata Henrici II., n. 302 (a. 1014), p. 381. On the ownership of Verduno and Roddi by the monastery of Breme, see La Cronaca di Novalesa, pp. 290–2; on Pollenzo see pp. 290–3. 68  Albesano, ‘La costruzione politica’, pp. 90–100.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

116  The Seigneurial Transformation Alba and, probably, that of San Giorgio, in the immediate vicinity of the other castrum. Shortly after 1110 we also find the first clear signs of autonomous action on the part of the community of cives in Alba, which had already manifested itself to some degree a few decades earlier, with the expulsion of the pro-imperial bishop Benzone.69 In 1118 the Albenses, along with the Astenses, Vercellenses, Ypporegenses (the citizens of Asti, Vercelli and Ivrea), and the curia of margrave Bonifacio Del Vasto, were involved in the resolution of a conflict between two leading political actors, the bishop of Turin and the viscounts of Baratonia.70 Moreover, in the 1120s the Albenses took part in the war against Como by providing the Milanese with a contingent of milites, although no mention is made of their bishop being involved in the conflict.71 So while the community of cives displayed clear signs of political autonomy from the early twelfth century, it was only in the second half of the century that it succeeded in projecting its power beyond the peri-urban area. Located immedi­ ately beyond this 2km area extending from the city walls was a dense network of castles controlled by different authorities, among whom the most prominent—as already noted—was the bishop of Alba, who for many decades, down to the violent clashes of the late twelfth century, was largely responsible for keeping the hege­ monic action of the commune in check. These castles, moreover, were not located only on the hills surrounding Alba, but also in the fertile river plain, where the urban centre was located which largely controlled it. The castle of Colombero, owned by the lords of Monforte, was located on the opposite bank of the Tanaro River from the city and only a few kilometres away from the walls, and it was still standing in the early thirteenth century.72 The castrum et villa of Oriolo, situated at the foot of a hill about 3km away from Alba, would appear to have been governed by a small group of lords. The bishop, moreover, owned the castles of Roddi and Piano, both of which were located a short distance away from the city and encom­ passed broad stretches of the fluvial plain. In addition to these we find Diano, Guarene and Rodello, located in the hills within a few kilo­metres from Alba and, a little further afield, Castagnole and Verduno. So while the urban community of Alba displayed early signs of political action, at least up until the 1170s its projec­ tion into the surrounding countryside was practically non-existent.73 69 Bordone, Città e territorio, pp. 336–8. 70  Documenti di Scarnafigi, n. 5 (a. 1118), pp. 24–5. This text is discussed in Bordone, ‘ “Civitas nobilis et antiqua” ’, pp. 29–31. 71  Anonimus Cumanus, De bello. 72  Albesano, ‘La costruzione politica’, pp. 101–6 (to which I will refer also for what follows, unless otherwise noted); it would appear that by 1181 the castle had long been held in fief by its lords from the commune of Alba; however, it is significant that the authorities of Alba had not been able either to demolish the castrum or to take direct control of it. 73  On the process of territorial expansion of the commune of Alba, see Fresia, Comune Civitatis Albe. It is worth noting that up until the 1170s we have no sources from the commune of Alba, but even then—and up until the end of the century—the action of the commune would still appear to have had very limited territorial extension.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

Collective Powers  117 A rather similar case is that of Imola, in Romagna. Here the urban community also affirmed its autonomy in the turbulent context of civil war, which especially affected this areas, disputed as it was between Matilda of Canossa and the arch­ bishop of Ravenna, one of the main supporters of the imperial party. In 1084 the bishop of Imola granted the cives of Imola all public rights over the city, including the toll rights. He also gave them privileged rights to use the important river port of Conselice, located some 20km away from the urban centre.74 The bishop’s rights over the city must have been a rather recent acquisition, given that only a decade earlier they had been (peacefully) disputed between the Roman pontiff and the prelate of Ravenna. However, it is almost certain that one of these two figures had then transferred them, a few years before the event, to the local bishop, in order to win his support in the war.75 While the deed makes no men­ tion of consuls, the political autonomy of the urban community is very evident, as is its commercial spirit (as illustrated by the granting of the rights to collect tolls and make use of the port of Conselice, but also by the treatise which the commu­ nity signed a few years later with Venice). Indeed, trade at least partly accounted for the prosperity of the inhabitants of Imola. Nevertheless, the bishop remained fully in control of the castrum of San Cassiano, adjacent to the city and housing its cathedral, and of a range of mostly distant fortifications in the surrounding area. Moreover, in 1126–30 Honorius II granted the local prelate a privilege that con­ firmed not just the rural castles he owned but also the very rights on the urban centre which he had de facto renounced in 1084.76 We do not know whether the bishop used this document to concretely impose his power on the city, or whether he only threatened to do so in order to prevent the urban community from taking any further action against his rural properties, starting from San Cassiano. Certainly, the situation between the cives and the bishop was a fraught one, as is witnessed in those same years by a series of attacks launched against the castle of San Cassiano by the urban milites, which led to its first destruction in 1132. The castle was then rebuilt by the bishop, who relied on the pontiff ’s support, and then by new attacks on the citizens’ part. However, here I would like to emphasize a different point: despite an early formal acknowledgement of the self-government of the urban community, from as early as 1084, half a century later the city was still struggling to project its power into the surrounding area, including its imme­ diate environs.77 Just as in Alba, the bishop’s power continued to pose an insur­ mountable obstacle. Alba and Imola should not be regarded as exceptional cases; rather, they may be taken as useful case studies to understand much broader

74  Cantarella, ‘Imola’, p. 156. 75  On this conflict, section 7.1. 76  Archivum Mensae episcopalis, II, n. 726 (a. 1126–30), p. 292. 77  On the relationship between the bishop of Imola and the citizens, see Pallotti, Pubblici poteri, pp. 91–104.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

118  The Seigneurial Transformation phenomena, at least up until the mid-twelfth century, when ‘weak’ urban com­ munities were still numerous, at any rate outside the central area of the Po Valley. It is necessary, however, to focus our attention again on more mature and enterprising proto-communes, in order to understand how the forms of political control they exercised over increasingly extensive stretches of the countryside interacted with the local territorial lordships, in particular in the areas more dis­ tant from the city. Here such centres of power were far more numerous than in the peri-urban area, where for the most part they constituted an exception. One element worth emphasizing right from the start is the fact that the dominatus loci and the power of the urban community were never mutually incompatible. Nevertheless, the way in which individual urban communities interacted with it varied considerably. The exercising of power in the countryside was clearly a thorny matter, and a cruxes of urban politics in this period, even though it took very different forms depending on the context. In order to appreciate the degree of divergence in the approaches adopted, we can consider the two widely different cases of Pisa and Milan. As regards the specific case of Pisa, for good reasons scholars have even hypothesized that in the 1080s a civil war broke out, with the urban elite being divided into two factions: those seeking to establish territorial lordships in the countryside by forcefully subjecting the peasants, and those who instead aimed to preserve more traditional (and collective) forms of power in the countryside and who favoured a maritime expansion.78 This conflict would have been solved by archbishop Dagoberto’s famous lodo delle torri (arbitrament of the towers), which witnessed the victory of the ‘collectivist’ faction over the ‘seigneurial’ one, bring­ ing an end to the forms of lordship that were beginning to emerge in those years even in the rural areas closest to Pisa, such as the Valdiserchio. However, this did not amount to a general hostility towards the dominatus loci within the area politically controlled by the city. Many lordships endured, yet only in areas located far away from the city and in the hands of either families (whether of urban origin or not), who had been acquiring prerogatives of such kind for some decades, or of urban churches, particularly the episcopal one.79 A very different case is offered by Milan, where the community did not inter­ fere with the traditional lordships held by local capitanei (citizens with seigneurial rights in the countryside) or urban churches, even in centres very close to the city, such as Linate. Rather, the community only sought to ensure that the holders of these lordships would acknowledge the superiority of the city and would not adopt any policies hostile to it. Even the lordships in those areas progressively taken over by Milan were protected, as in the case of the lordships of the bishop of Lodi.80 Indeed, it is more than plausible that even in the Milan area the turn of the 78 Ronzani, Chiesa e ‘Civitas’, pp. 246–7. 79  Cortese, ‘Aristocrazia signorile e città’. 80  Gli atti del comune di Milano, a. 1 (a. 1117), pp. 3–5.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

Collective Powers  119 1100s witnessed a strengthening and formalization of the rights of local domini over their subjects in centres controlled by lords, as argued by Hagen Keller.81 In many cases new territorial lordships were created from scratch precisely under the political aegis of the commune of Milan, based on pre-existent tithe and lord­ ship rights, over the course of the twelfth century.82 Not only did the protocommune not prevent these processes, but it probably favoured them as a way to strengthen Milan’s hold over the countryside. Besides, the importance of the sei­ gneurial (and feudal) dimension for the Milanese elite is already evidenced by the role played by the dominatus loci in Milanese customs (which were redeveloped and broadened in 1216, although their core was much older), as well by the inter­ est that an urban jurist like Oberto dell’Orto showed in the world of personal and power relations in the countryside—indeed, the treatises he composed were later to serve as the basis for the Libri feudorum.83 Feudal and seigneurial relations, therefore, were an integral part of the intellectual horizon of the ruling elite, including those sections of it that, as in Oberto’s case, did not concretely enjoy such rights in the countryside. Through the expansion of the rural power of many proto-communes over the course of the 1110s and 1120s, a growing number of lordships, often in the hands of figures with no significant connections with urban centres, came to fall within the political orbit of the latter. One means to lend juridical form to these annexations was the oblate fief, as is especially evident in sources from Piacenza and Genoa, along with the pact of citizenship and other forms of submission. Besides, these forms of subordination were not purely the­ or­et­ic­al, but entailed very concrete military and fiscal duties, as we shall soon see in some detail.84 Although in all likelihood these processes of incorporation were not always peaceful and painless, they were not based merely on the use of force or the threat of military intervention on the city’s part. For smaller local lords, subordination to a proto-commune must have been no worse than subordination to a ‘prince’; and in a context such as that of the 1120s, while the lord who con­ trolled between five and ten castles might hope to preserve his autonomy, the only possible choice for the holder of a territorially restricted lordship was to decide to whom he should submit. The capacity of proto-communes to rapidly earn the consensus of rural aristocratic elites is quite evident. Around 1120 the urban authorities of Piacenza, precisely through the open support of local lords, had successfully repelled the margrave Pelavicino, who with his escort of knights had come to assert his high jurisdiction based on albergaria, from centres located

81 Keller, Signori e vassalli. 82  Grillo, ‘Una fonte per lo studio’. 83 Wickham, Sleepwalking, pp. 57–62. 84 Fiefs de reprise: Il Registrum Magnum, n. 53 (a. 1126), pp. 102–4; n. 153 (a. 1141), pp. 319–22; I Libri iurium di Genova, I,1, n. 41 (aa. 1132–3 c.), pp. 64–6 (Frascaro); nn. 48–50 (a. 1141), pp. 81–6 (on Fiaccone). Other forms of sujection: I Libri iurium di Genova, I,1, nn. 8–11 (aa. 1138–9 c.), pp. 68–72; Il Registrum Magnum, n. 34 (a. 1132), pp. 59–60.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

120  The Seigneurial Transformation over 40km away from the city, near the diocesan border with Pavia.85 While not structurally integrated within the society of Piacenza, which had only recently asserted its power, the local lords chose to remain loyal to the latter rather than to side with Pelavicino. Finally, it is worth stressing the fact that many of these lordships belonged to urban churches, especially bishops, who almost invariably constitute the main holders of territorial lordship right within the area dominated by the community. In this respect it must be noted that from as early as the very first decades of the twelfth century a clear distinction emerged between rural centres directly gov­ erned by an urban community and ones in which the dominus loci was the prel­ ate. The cases of Pisa, Lucca, Como and Milan are particularly revealing in this respect.86 There is no confusion here, but rather an evident distinction, even in the framework of the collaborative relationship between the community and its prel­ ate, as in the cases of Pisa and Milan. While in the peri-urban area as a whole (and in the city) most of the time the community replaced the bishop as the holder of established jurisdictional rights, as in Cremona, this did not occur in most rural centres.87 Within the area closest to the city the bishop could continue to control seigneurial enclaves, as in the case of Moriano and Aquileia in the Six Miles of Lucca, yet these were isolated presences, which stood out within a broader area governed by the urban community. By contrast, in 1110 the cives of Arezzo sought to take control of the episcopal lordships in city’s environs by force of arms. The outcome of this operation was a swift and brutal repression, carried out by Henry V’s troops with full support from the prelate. However, the citizens did not give up but made another—this time successful—attempt one generation later, in 1130.88 We cannot therefore speak of a single approach adopted by (proto-)communes towards lordships, since the approach varied depending on local political and social configurations, as Chris Wickham has compellingly emphasized in his recent book on the origins of communes.89 We must now ascertain what concrete prerogatives were exercised at this early stage by cities over those lordships that acknowledged their political superiority. A first crucial sphere, of course, was the military one. The most obvious obligation in this sense was to defend the local castle on behalf of the city, which sometimes entailed the specific requirement of allowing urban military contingents to guard it and occupy it, should the need arise. Offensive duties were often added (hostis et cavalcata), in the form of participation in any military expeditions led by the 85  Documenti degli archivi di Pavia, n. 54 (a. 1184), pp. 150–1; and n. 55 (a. 1184), p. 161. 86  On the lordships of the archbishop of Pisa, see Ceccarelli Lemut, ‘Terre pubbliche’; on Milan and Como see Grillo, ‘Una fonte per lo studio’; and Keller, Signori e vassalli; on Lucca, see Wickham, Community and clientele. As late as the early 1160s, the bishop of Piacenza fully exercised jurisdictional rights over his castles—in complete agreement with the consuls—even in the environs of the city: see Il Registrum Magnum, n. 273 (a. 1162), pp. 556–7. 87  Menant, ‘La prima età comunale’. 88 Delumeau, Arezzo, pp. 1005–10. 89 Wickham, Sleepwalking, 189–94.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

Collective Powers  121 city’s army.90 However, the cities’ scope for intervention was much broader and soon extended to the sphere of taxation, which—much like today—constituted one of the main spheres of governance, along with war and justice.91 While possible traces of special levies imposed by urban communities on rural centres (and their lords) are to be found as early as the late eleventh century, by the 1120s we find certain evidence of policies designed to impose forms of taxation on (almost) all centres subject to a proto-commune, including those in which the domini loci, while acknowledging the superiority of the city, de facto continued to exercise full jurisdiction over the area.92 In Siena, where we essentially know nothing of the political activity of the urban community at this stage owing to the lack of docu­ mentary evidence, we learn of these dynamics through some depositions made shortly before 1180. Several witnesses—who were questioned in connection to an ecclesiastical dispute between Siena and Arezzo—recall that towards the late 1120s Siena introduced the bovartera, a tax of roughly twelve denarii for each pair of oxen and seven for each plough that applied throughout the comitatus senensis (the sources do not entirely agree as to the exact sum to be paid). This levy was introduced to cover the considerable expenses of the dispute between the two cities, which was taken to the papal tribunal. However, the reaction of local society to the new tax suggests that it was not merely a one-off occurrence, or at any rate that it was probably regularized. Upon receiving the news, the local comital families, the Berardenghi, Asciano, and Scialenghi—in all likelihood joined by other minor noblemen—took up arms against the urban au­thor­ities, finding military support from the bishop of Arezzo. The levy was perceived as an intolerable breaching of the lords’ priorities over the centres subject to them. Regardless of the catastrophic outcome of the attempt to impose the new tax, it is significant that at the time the cives of Siena were so confident of their power that they did not hesitate to introduce such a substantial tax in all centres under their authority

90  Two examples concerning respectively Genoa and Piacenza in I Libri iurium di Genova, I,1, n. 41 (aa. 1132–1133 c.), pp. 64–6; Registrum magnum, n. 22 (a. 1141), pp. 36–7. 91  On Italian communal taxation Patrizia Mainoni’s studies are the point of reference; on the earlier period, that we are discussing here, see esp. Mainoni, ‘Sperimentazioni fiscali’; and Mainoni, ‘A prop­ osito della “rivoluzione fiscale” ’. 92  It is worth noting that from as early as the first years of the 1090s the agreements between the abbess of Luco and a noble family of Mugello foresaw the possibility of occasional levies being raised (to the detriment of the monastery) not just by the king and the margrave but also by the civitate (clearly, Florence); this would be the earliest reference to levies being imposed by an urban commu­ nity—and this, in an area a few dozen kilometres away from the city and at the expense of rural lord­ ships. See ‘Appendice’, to Annales camaldulenses, III, n. 68 (a. 1090, but actually 1092), col. 99. This document (the original copy of which survives in the Diplomatico of the Archivio di Stato in Florence) was used by Davidsohn, Untersuchungen, p. 63, who however made rather too much of it: he pre­ sented it as proof that Florence already regularly exercised political and fiscal control over (almost) the whole diocese in this period. This untenable thesis probably contributed to the subsequent lack of historiographical interest in this significant document. However M.E. Cortese casts some doubts on the authenticity of the document, suggesting a later date (early twelfth century); see Cortese, Signori, castelli, p. 187.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

122  The Seigneurial Transformation (de facto, the whole diocese), including those belonging to the most well-established lordships in the area.93 Besides, this is not an isolated episode. Depositions from the border area between the territories of Pavia and Piacenza show that, roughly in the same period, these northern Italian proto-communes also introduced the bovateria in all centres under their control (even though in this case we do not know what the payment amounted to—some sources from the Piacenza and Pavia area suggest that the payment was in kind). In this case the tax also affected both communities directly governed by the city and ones controlled by local domini.94 What’s more, the levy would not appear to have been a one-off occurrence: in several acts of submission of lords to Piacenza, from the very early 1140s, it is specified that the inhabitants subjected to the domini loci would henceforth be required to pay the bovateria, in addition to the levies imposed by the local lords.95 Again in the same period an analogous form of taxation had entered into force—almost certainly a few years before—in most rural centres governed by Cremona, or at any rate in those centres directly controlled by the proto-commune. Only the inhabitants of certain rural castles, while being governed by the urban community without the intermediation of any lords, were spared the tax in virtue of the considerable mili­ tary aid they provided.96 They were expected to pay the bovateria only if this was also required of the cives of Cremona (who normally must have been exempt from it), which is to say in truly exceptional circumstances. From very early on, therefore, the bovateria was conceived as a regular annual tax, and not an occa­ sional one (if not in the case of land owned by citizens and of a few privileged individuals). It affected not just communities directly governed by the protocommune, but also seigneurial castles (or villages) that acknowledged its hegemony.97 Finally, it is interesting to note that from as early as the 1120s the proto-commune of Ferrara exercised jurisdictional rights over Ostiglia, a sei­ gneurial centre belonging to a Veronese ecclesiastical institution, and located over 40km away from the city, by imposing taxes, and collecting fodrum and teloneum. It is important to stress that these rights were (successfully) laid claim to even in relation to a centre subject to a lord—whose power was not actually disputed— and stood in perfect continuity with the prerogatives previously exercised there

93  Documenti per la storia di Arezzo, I, n. 389 (aa. 1177–80 c.), pp. 565–73. 94  Documenti degli archivi di Pavia, nn. 45–8 (a. 1184), pp. 72–193. 95  Registrum magnum, I, n. 22 (a. 1141), pp. 36–7; n. 89 (a. 1141), pp. 183–5; n. 152 (a. 1142), pp. 316–18. 96  As results clearly from the renewal of the old privileges of the men of San Bassano; see Le carte cremonesi, II, n. 373 (a. 1157), pp. 292–4. 97  Here I disagree with the opinion voiced in Mainoni, ‘Sperimentazioni fiscali’, according to which all levies were only of an occasional nature until the second half of the twelfth century. Besides, some witnesses clearly affirm that Como was collecting the royal fodrum from many rural centres under its authority already before the war with Lodi, which is to say in the first decade of the twelfth century at the latest. See Gli atti del comune di Milano, n. 73 (a. 1170), pp. 103–7; n. 74 (a. 1170), pp. 108–11

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

Collective Powers  123 by the traditional holders of public authority (Matilda of Canossa and later Henry V).98 In the (rare) deeds of submission of lords to have reached us from those years, no mention is usually made of levies imposed on subject centres, but only of their subjection (Piacenza and Genoa being early exceptions). However, it is most likely that fiscal burdens of this sort were widespread, albeit probably not in all those seigneurial settlements that acknowledged the hegemony of a city, at least from the 1120s onwards.99 We must now ascertain exactly what prerogatives the proto-communes enjoyed over those areas in which they were able to impose their power or at least achieve some form of hegemony. It is plausible (if not likely) that cities—at any rate in those rural centres directly subject to them, where urban rule was not mediated by any lords—adopted, at least at first, forms and modes of power more in line with traditional ones. The cases of Pisa and Lucca would seem to point precisely in this direction, although in this specific case the reason may have been the early charters issued by Henry IV, which from the 1080 provided the basis for the establishment of urban power. More generally, this attitude possibly also depended on the lower degree of legitimacy assigned to the power exercised by proto-communes over their environs, at any rate during the first stage of their expansion, compared to the power of lords. This gap was filled by a greater con­ tinu­ity in modes of power compared to those typical of the old public order. Some important clues in this sense also emerge from the little documentary evidence we have from this period pertaining to rural centres directly subject to urban communities in northern Italy, such as Pavia, Piacenza, and Milan.100 Having reached the end of this brief overview, let us draw some (provisional) conclusions of a general sort with regard to this crucial topic, which requires more specific investigations in order to be better understood. The data examined allows us to rethink and more accurately define the role played by cities in the countryside up until 1130 at least, and in many respects even up to 1150. In present-day Lombardy and in some urban areas just outside its boundaries (such as Tortona, Piacenza, and part of the Veneto), as well as in Genoa and in the triangle 98  ‘Appendice’, to Castagnetti, Il processo per Ostiglia, n. 1 (ante a. 1151), pp. 317–69; the local rule of Ferrara was the result of a military action against imperial forces which previously controlled the area. 99  On Piacenza see Registrum magnum, I, n. 22 (a. 1141), pp. 36–7; n. 89 (a. 1141), pp. 183–5; on Genoa I Libri iurium di Genova, I,1, n. 79–80 (a. 1145 c.), pp. 131–3 (respectively the lords of Lagneto and Passano), where submission to the city entails, in addition to defensive military duties, offensive ones (in oste et cavalcata), by land and by sea, and the payment of taxes and levies. 100 What we have, in particular, are some extensive collections of depositions (or summaries thereof), pertaining to jurisdiction over the countryside. They date from the second half of the twelfth century, but the witnesses recount events which took place from the very first decades of the century onwards. The documents in question are: Documenti degli archivi di Pavia, nn. 45–8 (a. 1184), pp. 72–193 (on some centres in the Oltrepò area disputed between Pavia and Piacenza); Gli atti del comune di Milano, n. 73 (a. 1170), p. 106 (on the Seprio area, disputed between Milan and Como); and ‘Appendice’, to Castagnetti, Il processo per Ostiglia, a. 1 (ante a. 1151), pp. 317–69, on Ostiglia, dis­ puted between Ferrara and Verona.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

124  The Seigneurial Transformation formed by Pisa, Lucca, and Florence in Tuscany (with the addition of Siena a little later), within a few decades the proto-commune successfully established itself— most often, yet not always, also through its effective collaboration with local ­bishops—as the main centre of power within its diocese. Already by 1120 it was capable of exercising direct control over an area extending for a few miles outside the city, where the presence of lordships was very limited and bound to the urban community. But the proto-commune was also able to project its power much fur­ ther by directly controlling some more distant castles, often located several dozen kilometres away from the urban walls, as in the case of Portovenere for Genoa or Soncino for Cremona. Moreover, it was capable of exercising effective hegemony over much of the diocese and, far more rarely, even beyond it. The 1120s witnessed a consolidation of these dynamics, favoured by the dis­ appear­ance of the principality of Canossa and by the inability of the Empire to successfully establish itself as its heir. Moreover, it was probably in this period that several proto-communes (especially in northern Italy) started imposing lev­ ies on (almost) all the centres under their authority, including lordships: a fact that bears witness to their increasing political control over the countryside. By contrast, no direct connection is to be observed between the early formalization of consular institutions and the capacity of proto-communes to deeply influence local pol­ it­ ical balances, as is shown for instance by a comparison between Florence and Arezzo. Outside these still limited areas, the situation would appear to be marked by very different patterns. We find exceedingly few centres outside the immediate environs of a city in which the urban community was able to impose its power; in fact, in many cases even the area closest to the city walls is marked by the presence of lordships, which strongly limited any access to the territory and its resources. In different cases, almost exclusively concentrated in central Italy, we find no trace at all of the political autonomy of cives up until the second half of the century (and sometimes even beyond this date), as the b ­ ishops—and, especially in Latium, some seigneurial families—continued to exercise (sometimes almost absolute) control over the strictly urban space. In other words, around the year 1130, despite the unquestionable progress made over the two previous decades, the impact of proto-communes on the countryside was still relatively limited, except in the heart of the Po Valley and in a few other areas. Even in those regions where cities had become politically dom­in­ant, the com­ munities under their control nonetheless constituted a small minority, and were almost exclusively concentrated in the immediate environs of the city, whereas in the rest of the countryside power generally remained in the hands of lords, even though they were often subject to a proto-commune—if only in a limited way. However, urban institutions were not the only political bodies founded on the collective use of power to be active in the countryside at the time. As previously noted, in this period we also find various rural communities cap­able of engaging in autonomous action on the political stage, in ways frequently mirroring those typical of cities. These communities will be the focus of the next section.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

Collective Powers  125

5.2  Autonomous rural communities The choice of devoting a separate section to autonomous rural communities, which have generally been neglected or only fleetingly mentioned in studies devoted to our period, is closely connected to the choice of adopting a nonteleological interpretation of those processes which unfolded in the Italian coun­ tryside at the turn of the 1100s.101 Centres of this kind would not appear to have been very numerous and most of them had lost their autonomy by the midtwelfth century, to the benefit of urban communes and large aristocratic domains. In this respect, it is worth emphasizing the marked, albeit not absolute, dis­con­ tinu­ity between most ‘free’ rural communities active at the turn of the 1100s and autonomous castles, which were especially widespread in central Italy between the late twelfth and fourteenth century.102 The vast majority of these later polities sprang from communities that had previously been subject to lordship, and which took advantage of the latter’s crisis to assert their full autonomy in the period roughly extending between 1160 and 1260. In this respect, the most widespread model is illustrated by the well-known case of Matelica, which until 1162 was under the Attoni counts and then for a long time stood at the centre of new pol­it­ ical developments.103 Actual continuity is only to be found in a far more limited number of cases, such as that of the rural centres in southern Piedmont (including Gamondio and Marengo) which became part of the newly founded city of Alessandria, that of Norcia and Cascia in Umbria, and (probably) that of Fabriano and Spello.104 Nevertheless, in our period communities of this sort were certainly to be found and, while their autonomy was often short lived, they were not as exceptional as the available sources (preserved by the winners of this stage of competition) might lead us to think. In brief, they represent one of the possible outcomes of the redefinition of rural power structures, and offer a model alternative to that of seigneurial power or the establishment of domains centred on large urban com­ munities. By focusing on these communities, it is possible to paint a picture of the countryside in this period that is far more lively and complex than the one based on the established and simplistic dichotomy between urban contadi and 101  A recent exception is Grillo, ‘Una fonte per lo studio’. 102 A recent overview, focused on central Italy is Taddei, ‘Comuni rurali’, with further bibliography. 103  On Matelica the reference is the seminal work of Luzzatto, ‘Le sottomissioni’. For an overview on the Marche, see Maire Vigueur, ‘Centri di nuova fondazione’. 104  On Alessandria and the unification of autonomous rural communities, which led to the emer­ gence of the new urban commune, see most recently Bordone, ‘Il caso di Alessandria’. It is worth emphasizing the fact that in central Italy in the last decades of the twelfth century a large number of these communities, including Matelica, Norcia and Cascia, fell under the rule of the Staufer emperor, who—at least occasionally—governed them via temporary officials, while granting more or less sig­ nificant margins of self-government to the communal institutions. With the death of Henry VI and the collapse of the system of imperial power in 1198, these centres regained full autonomy. For a first overview of the problem, see Fiore, Signori e sudditi, pp. 114–23, with further bibliography.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

126  The Seigneurial Transformation l­ordships, a picture enriched by the presence of political entities that, while rarer, are just as significant—such as centres belonging to the royal demesne or autono­ mous communities. An analysis of the (scarce and scanty) sources that talk about these communities highlights the vitality and enterprise of the local societies I have previously described. It shows how, given favourable contexts, they were able to pursue fully independent political projects and trajectories. The origins of these centres of power are no doubt to be identified in those ­settlements marked by a strong predominance of local allodiaries. From the Lombard and Carolingian ages, rural society in central and northern Italy was characterized by the spread of allodial land, i.e. of small and medium-sized rural estates. While allods often existed alongside large landed estates, we find quite a few communities in which the latter kind of property was essentially absent (or very limited) and in which local society was de facto governed by local land­owners, sometimes labelled as arimanni.105 Already by the year 1000 or there­abouts such centres were clearly in the minority, and were unevenly distributed throughout the territory. They are more numerous in the Alpine and pre-Alpine areas (for instance around Como and in the Maritime Alps), in the Veneto, and in the Apennine area between Umbria and the Marche, whereas they are almost completely absent in broad swathes of the Po Valley and of Tuscany.106 Nevertheless, it is worth noting that by their very nature these centres are far less visible from a documentary per­ spective compared to those characterized by the presence of large landed estates; therefore, it is perfectly plausible that they were more numerous than the sources would seem to suggest. In order to better understand the aspirations of these groups within the context of the kingdom of Italy between the tenth century and the end of the following one, it may be useful to take the incastellamento as our vantage point, by analogy to the approach previously adopted for lords. The building of castles on the part of autonomous communities of allodiaries is undoubtedly a less common phe­ nomenon than aristocratic incastellamento, yet it is no less significant. We find precisely communities of this sort engaged in the building of castles, often associ­ ated with royal privileges through the granting of public rights, much along the lines of what was seen to have been the case with churches and lay noblemen. In the well-known case of Lazise, in the Verona area, in the late tenth century the local elite promoted the building of a castle and obtained toll rights and other public rights from the monarchy, as though they were noblemen.107 Again in the Verona area the inhabitants of two separate yet neighbouring villages, Montecchio and Bure, came together to build a shared castle at Montecchio.108 Many other

105 Tabacco, I liberi del re. 106  Grillo, ‘Una fonte per lo studio’; Castagnetti, ‘Arimanni e signori’. 107  Diplomata Ottonis II., n. 291 (a. 983), p. 343. 108  ‘Appendice 1’, to Brugnoli, ‘Sala, Val Salaria’ (Montecchio).

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

Collective Powers  127 examples could be adduced, such as that of the two castles of Stablamone in southern Umbria. What matters here, however, is the significance of these op­er­ ations, namely the fact that they express a desire for autonomy on the part of a local community, and its independence from seigneurial powers. Whereas for lords the building of castles was a way to express their ambition to control an area, in the case of allodiaries it expressed an aspiration to autonomy on the part of a community—or at any rate its upper echelons, its elite. Evidently, castles were one of the cornerstones of the identity of these local communities. When the latter yield to lords (such as the Pastrengo, Montecchio, and Stablamone), evidently under considerable pressure, which the surviving evidence only occasionally allows us to grasp (as in the case of the arimanni of Sacco who were forcefully sub­ jected by the bishop of Padua in the closing decades of the eleventh century), this often occurs via a donation of the local lands and castle that involves all members of the community, or at any rate the local landowners.109 This clearly bears witness to the cohesion of local society—which finds a vivid expression in the castle—even when it is forced to acknowledge the end of its experiment in autonomy. Particularly in the decades between 1080 and 1120, but often even before then, most centres of this sort fell into the hands of lords, while sometimes preserving more or less significant margins of autonomy, generally depending on their mili­ tary capacity and demographic weight. De facto, some villages remained free, particularly in Alpine and Apennine areas, where the terrain made it easier to resist seigneurial military pressure, but often even in the lowlands, as illustrated for instance by the cases of Gamondio and Novi in southern Piedmont.110 The collapse of the traditional system of public governance offered these centres an opportunity for self-government, with no interference on the part of the public officials who had hitherto exercised jurisdiction over the area. The opposition to Como shown by several of the leading communities in the environs the city, and the support they provided to the military action of Milan within the framework of the prolonged and ruinous war between the two Lombard cities, can arguably be interpreted precisely in terms of the pursuit of autonomy: as an attempt to avoid having to be subject to the dominant protocommune and to preserve the degree of independence acquired with the break­ down of the traditional political order. Besides, in the Como area armed conflicts between local communities and the cives of Como had broken out at least a ­couple of decades before the war with Milan (1118­27), in the wake of the city’s attempt to impose its power over neighbouring rural centres. In 1101, when making a pro anima donation, a wealthy inhabitant of the Isola Comacina (located around 20km away from the city) spoke—before members of the community acting as 109  See respectively: Il Regesto di Farfa, V, n. 1167 (a. 1113), pp. 170–1; (Stablamone); Castagnetti, ‘Arimanni e signori’, pp. 261–2 (Pastrengo); Rippe, Padoue et son contado, pp. 168–75 (Sacco). 110  Bordone, ‘Il caso di Alessandria’.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

128  The Seigneurial Transformation his witnesses—of ‘nostra communa vuera cum hominibus de civitate Como’.111 The communities that were stronger from a demographic perspective, which had a higher degree of self-awareness and were capable of taking effective military action, must have seen subordination to a neighbouring city (or lord) as a dangerous limitation of their horizons. In other words, while weaker rural communities— assuming they had a choice—could only choose whom to submit themselves to, in the case of stronger communities autonomy was a real option worth pursuing by force of arms, if necessary, by making the most of the local political situ­ation. While (at least in the vast majority of cases) the course effectively followed was that of gradual subordination, we should not forget that at this fluid stage other outcomes were seen as possible, and desirable, by the actors directly engaged in the field. The available sources paint a rather murky picture of the way in which com­ munities of this sort operated, forcing us to construct models based on the juxta­ position of data pertaining to what are actually different contexts. We lack the kind of collections of documents we can rely on for the late twelfth and thirteenth centuries, and which have enabled detailed and sophisticated analyses of castle communities active in that period, such as Matelica or Fabriano—the focus of Gino Luzzatto’s pioneering studies in the early twentieth century.112 One im­port­ant exception in this respect, which lends some concreteness to what might other­wise seem like a too abstract and model-based picture, is the aforementioned Isola Comacina, a centre on the shores of Lake Como that encompassed, in add­ition to the small island of the same name, a stretch of the lake and of the surrounding elevations.113 If we examine the documents from the late eleventh and early twelfth century pertaining to the Isola, and which have for the most part been preserved in the archives of the local parish church of Sant’Eufemia, what emerges is a largely coherent picture. The community is a tight-knit one, led by an elite of boni homines (also including some iudices).114 The group of vicini is cap­able of acting collectively to initiate a litigation against the neighbouring community of Lenno over control of the church of San Benedetto, to which the parishes of the two centres lay claim. The church of Sant’Eufemia is therefore brought under the protection of the whole community, that acts in unison to defend its interests.115 The size (three naves) and fine craftsmanship of the romanesque church of Sant’Eufemia, dating precisely from the eleventh century, bear eloquent witness to the wealth of the institution (in which several presbiteri officiate and which is repeatedly described as a canonica) and of the community behind it.116 While the church in question is undoubtedly the leading ecclesiastical institution in the 111  Le carte di S. Maria dell’Acquafredda, n. 18 (a. 1101). 112  Luzzatto, ‘Rustici e signori’; and Luzzatto, ‘Le sottomissioni’. 113  On Isola Comacina in general, see Gianoncelli, Note storiche su Isola. 114  Gli atti privati milanesi e comaschi, IV, n. 642 (a. 1083), p. 170 (boni homines and iudices). 115  Gli atti privati milanesi e comaschi, IV, n. 642 (a. 1083), pp. 169–71. 116 Belloni, L’isola Comacina.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

Collective Powers  129 Isola area, it is not the only one: the complexity of local society is reflected by the range of religious buildings, as well as the number of settlements, both on the island and on the mainland.117 The members of the community appear to have a close relationship with the parish church, which over the decades receives a con­ stant stream of donations of farmland, houses and orchards.118 The donors appear to be of good social standing: these are almost invariably non-testamentary dona­ tions, which therefore only concern limited portions of their patri­monies. Alongside these transactions with religious institutions, we find various sales between lay­ men, often involving considerable sums of dozens of lire: a further indicator of the economic ebullience of the community.119 Moreover, the landed properties of the inhabitants of the Isola were not located only in the area of the lake, but were scattered across a much broader area, ran­ ging from the Valtellina to the Vercelli countryside.120 In addition to allodial land we find often extensive estates held in concession by local churches or clerics, as in the case of the numerous houses and lands that Gandulfo of Isola received in beneficio in 1077, and which were located in the nearby Lenno.121 The members of the local elite dwelt in multi-storey houses (solariatae) with fine architectural features, such as the two stone staircases of the house that Genzone purchased in 1073 at the considerable cost of twenty-nine lire, which he paid in silver coins.122 The dwellings of humbler individuals, by contrast, were smaller—generally onestorey, one-room buildings, at any rate judging from the surface archaeological surveys carried out on the island, which was abandoned shortly after the midtwelfth century.123 From the mid-eleventh century, if not earlier, Isola—like other centres not subject to seigneurial powers—had a castrum, with houses, olive groves, a square and at least three churches (Santa Maria, San Faustino, and Sant’Eufemia) within its walls.124 Besides, this picture of a prosperous and populous community is confirmed by the events surrounding the war between Milan and Como, where the Isola played a prominent role, as the leader of the group of local communities

117  Besides Sant’Eufemia there were in Isola two monasteries (San Benedetto and Santa Faustina), and the church of Santa Maria; see Gli atti privati milanesi e comaschi, IV, n. 642 (a. 1083), pp. 169–71; n. 892 (a. 1100), pp. 629–30; Le carte di S. Maria dell’Acquafredda, n. 22 (a. 1113). 118 See Gli atti privati milanesi e comaschi, III, n. 433 (a. 1062), pp. 169–70; IV, n. 571 (a. 1077), pp. 39–40; n. 646 (a. 1083), pp. 177–8; n. 768 (a. 1092), pp. 392–9; n. 883 (a. 1100) pp. 614–15; n. 892 (a. 1100), pp. 629–30; Le carte di S. Maria dell’Acquafredda, n. 19 (a. 1101). 119  See for example Le carte del monastero di San Faustino, n. 2 (a. 1106); Le carte di S.  Maria dell’Acquafredda, n. 20 (1110); a. 21 (a. 1112); n. 23 (a. 1114). 120  Gli atti privati milanesi e comaschi, III, a. 433 (a. 1062), pp. 169–70 (Valtellina); IV, a. 571 (a. 1077), pp. 39–40 (Valtellina); a. 768 (a. 1092), pp. 398–9 (territory of Vercelli). The lands of the men of Isola in the area around the lake were substantial, especially in the nearby Lenno. 121  Gli atti privati milanesi e comaschi, IV, n. 575 (a. 1077), pp. 47–8. 122  Gli atti privati milanesi e comaschi, III, n. 534 (a. 1073), pp. 349–51. See also Le carte di S. Maria dell’Acquafredda, a. 22 (a. 1113), with the mention of a two-storey house with interior courtyard. 123  Brambilla, Brogiolo, ‘Case altomedievali’. 124  Gli atti privati milanesi e comaschi, III, n. 545, p. 369; IV, n. 892 (a. 1100), pp. 629–30; Le carte dei monasteri di S. Maria dell’Acquafredda di Lenno e di S. Benedetto, a. 22 (a. 1113).

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

130  The Seigneurial Transformation that sided with Milan (and which included Bellagio and Menaggio). It even went as far as setting up a small war fleet consisting of seven boats assembled by local carpenters. Compared to the peaceful picture which emerges from the eleventh-century evidence, the years around 1100 must have witnessed a military turn on the part of the local elites, who were engaged in the conflict, as may clearly be inferred from the pages of De bello comacino. In parallel, a change occurred in the relations between the local boni homines and their subordinates. In 1113, in a sales contract concerning the rights over two massarii residing in the castle of Isola and over the property granted to them, the personal prerogatives of the two in­di­vid­uals are defined through the formula districtus et albergaria.125 Within the community, therefore, what emerged in parallel to the militarization of local power were forms of genuine personal lordship wielded by the boni homines (which is pre­ cisely how the buyers and sellers in the document in question are described) over their leaseholders. This is a very different situation from the one we find in the city, where the population was free, and which brings Isola (and certainly other autonomous communities too) more in line with the seigneurial world. It would be a mistake to regard these centres as islands of freedom within a countryside dominated by seigneurial oppression. Rather, we should view them as areas in which the will to rule men and the land took on at least partly different forms compared to lordships (and urban proto-communes). The local political context allowed Isola to resist Como’s attempt to impose its rule over the surrounding area, by analogy to what many other cities were striving to accomplish, and to success­ fully affirm its own autonomy; but it also led this community to attempt to affirm its hegemony over weaker centres, exactly as occurred in the Val di Scalve or in Trevi, in the mountainous Tiburtine area.126 Besides, the militarization of dominant local groups emerges as a feature shared by all these autonomous rural communities, which in this respect reflect patterns that are essentially akin to those distinguishing urban proto-communes (as well as communities subject to seigneurial powers).127 While the model provided by Isola cannot automatically be applied to other communities, another autono­ mous centre located a few dozen kilometres away, Chiavenna, presents a perfectly comparable situation—albeit a less detailed and complex one.128 Even the more 125  Le carte di S. Maria dell’Acquafredda, n. 22 (a. 1113). 126  The territory politically controlled by the ‘homines abitatores de loco Insula’ was called iusticia in a document of 1136; see Le carte di S. Maria dell’Acquafredda, n. 26 (a. 1136). 127  The author of De bello comacino remembers with admiration and respect the courage of a miles from Piuro and his comrades, allied with Como, in the first great battle of the war against Milan; see Anonimus Cumanus, De bello, vv. 20–80. 128  On Chiavenna see: Gli atti privati milanesi e comaschi, IV, n. 595 (a. 1079), pp. 82–3; n. 622 (a. 1081), pp. 130–1; n. 636 (a. 1082), pp. 160–1; n. 656 (a. 1084), pp. 196–7; n. 660 (a. 1084), pp. 202–4; n. 702 (a. 1089), pp. 347–8; n. 771 (a. 1092), pp. 403–4; n. 784 (a. 1093), pp. 428–9; n. 799 (a. 1094), pp. 453–4; n. 808 (a. 1094), pp. 469–70; n. 833 (a. 1096), pp. 518–20; n. 840 (a. 1096), pp. 531–2; n. 852

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

Collective Powers  131 limited documentary evidence pertaining to some centres in the mountains surrounding Spoleto, and preserved in the Farfa cartulary, paints a rather similar, if far more fragmentary, picture of local society.129 A valley community such as that of the Scalvini, in which economic prosperity was closely linked to the local extraction and processing of iron, two centres like Gamondio and Novi, located respectively in the plain and in the low-lying hills along the major route running from the western Alpine passes to Genoa and its harbour, and a lake centre like Isola must necessarily have been different. What they have in common is an ­aspiration to complete autonomy, a capacity for military action and the presence of solid (and militarized) local elites. In this respect, they may to some extent be viewed as small-scale versions of urban proto-communes, notwithstanding their differences of course. And it is on these similarities and differences that we must now focus. The case of Trevi, in the mountains of Latium, is a useful one to understand, on the one hand, the importance of the militarization of local elites in the competi­ tion for control over local areas and, on the other, the nature of the power exer­ cised by this social group. It is most likely that the phase of instability and the crisis of pontifical power in the region translated into full political autonomy for the centre, which embarked on a policy of territorial expansion that brought it into conflict with the seigneurial powers in the area, and in particular with the powerful abbey of Subiaco, for control over villages and minor castles.130 In early twelfth-century documents from Latium, the ruling class of Trevi is simply described through the expression seniores trebenses, without the mention of per­ sonal names, thereby acknowledging its collective nature and markedly military character.131 The term seniores, as it was locally used at the time, did not carry any technically feudal connotation, but rather explicitly referred to the state of lord­ ship: the group of boni homines in Trevi perceived itself—and was perceived by its neighbours and even by pontifical authority—as a sort of collective signoria.132 It is worth recalling that while the legitimacy of urban authority was problematic, even though cities could invoke their traditional role as centres of public power, the problem must have been far more acute for rural centres. Only the capacity of (a. 1097), pp. 554–5; n. 861 (a. 1098), pp. 574–5; n. 867 (a. 1098), pp. 584–5; n. 882 (a. 1100), pp. 612– 3; n. 899 (a. 1100), p. 640. The prosperity of Chiavenna (and of nearby Piuro) was surely connected to the caves of soapstone, a valuable commodity: Santi et al., ‘Provenance of medieval pietra ollare’. 129  On the centres near Spoleto, see Il Regesto di Farfa, IV, a. 981 (a. 1067), pp. 360–1; V, a. 1194 (a. 1104), pp. 190–1. 130  Chronicon sublacense, pp. 21–5. 131  Il Regesto Sublacense, n. 47 (twelfth century but a. 1120 c.), pp. 87–8; n. 212 (a. 1116), pp. 250–1. Just later, in the second half of the century, political participation in the local community increased; in that period (a. 1161) our sources tell about universitas clericorum, dominorum et popularium of Trevi; see Carocci, ‘La signoria rurale’, p. 197. 132  On this use of the term seniores in contemporary Latium see Il Regesto di Farfa, V, n. 1303 (a. 1100 c.), p. 292.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

132  The Seigneurial Transformation these centres to negotiate their acknowledgement on their neighbours’ part on the basis of their claim to legitimacy could ensure their survival as autonomous political actors. For these communities, who at least in theory acknowledged royal power alone, with no intermediation on the part of lords, the use of violence against less fortunate neighbours became a means to express their own superior status. Particularly significant, in this respect, is a 1091 document pertaining to the Lombard Alps: a querimonia submitted by the inhabitants of Borno, a centre under the lordship of the bishop of Bergamo, against their neighbours, the Scalvini, which is to say the inhabitants of the small Val di Scalve (a valley in the Valcamonica area), an autonomous community.133 At the time the two communi­ ties were in conflict over control of Mount Negrino, on the border between their two territories. When a verdict in favour of Borno was pronounced at a placitum held in Bergamo (obviously a context very favourable to the inhabitants of Borno), the Scalvini did not give up hope but reacted energetically, laying claim to the disputed area through public actions and the erection of boundary markers. They then raised the level of the conflict by resorting to the use of violence on a wide scale. On a first raid, they killed two inhabitants of Borno, stole nine oxen, and treacherously captured the brothers of the victims, who had come to bury their bodies; on a second raid they killed another two men and wounded several more. They then set fire to Borno furtim, burning down thirty-two houses and destroyed the vineyards. Another two raids led to further murders and to the arson of around twenty houses. One final, if much less rewarding, raid, ended with the arson of just two houses. The level of violence and its repetition in the episodes described in the querimonia are striking and far beyond anything we find in most texts of the same kind in which a lord plays the part of the ‘villain’. Besides, the leading and aggressive role assigned to the Scalvini in this text is not an isolated episode, but must rather be set in relation to other armed conflicts that are less documented yet probably just as bloody and brutal. Over the follow­ ing years, the enterprising and aggressive inhabitants of the valley successfully occupied, at least temporarily, the Valle Seriana (in 1120) and the Valle Palotto (nel 1127). Both these valleys were under the authority of the bishop of Bergamo, who was forced to negotiate with the Scalvini and who was only able to impose upon them a limited form of submission in the late twelfth century, with the aid of the urban commune of Bergamo.134 The military aggressiveness of rural communities, their conscious use of force, and the importance which the latter played from a practical and symbolic per­ spective at the time, clearly emerge also from an aforementioned source, the De

133  The text is edited in Lupus, Codex Diplomaticus Bergomatis, II, p. 775 (a. 1091). 134 Menant, Campagnes lombardes, p. 493.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

Collective Powers  133 bello et excidio urbis Comensis.135 This text describes the main rural centres in the diocese of Como either as socii (allies) of the city that are bound to it by iura sacrata (oaths), or as enemies. The capacity to autonomously resort to the use of force and to rally troops is presented by the anonymous author as the chief cri­ter­ ion for autonomy. Isola, Trevi and the Val di Scalve were far from being isolated cases; as early as 1106 Gamondio, in southern Piedmont, succeeded in wresting land from the Aleramic margraves of Bosco, while over the following decades numerous cases of this sort are known, especially from central Italy.136 The dynamics at work present close similarities with the Val di Scalve, which may therefore be taken as a useful case study to understand much broader phenom­ ena, albeit still minority ones in the rural context. Of course, communities of this sort could strike mutual agreements, which varied in nature depending on the context. In the pact of submission of Novi to Genoa and Pavia, drafted in 1135, mention is made, for instance, of a previous alliance with the communis of Marengo, which was to be safeguarded by new agreements.137 Pacts of this sort might revolve around the sharing of control over minor nearby centres, at any rate in those areas in which the presence of commu­ nities of this sort was greater, as in the case of the environs of Alessandria, Spoleto, and Como. Once again in the last of these three areas, around the year 1110, a genuinely institutional union was established between Chiavenna—which was claimed by the bishops of Como, yet remained de facto autonomous at least between 1110 and 1150—and the smaller centre of Piuro. The pact entailed the creation of a joint consular college consisting of four members, one appointed by the vicini of Piuro and the rest by those of Chiavenna. Ultimately, this institution translated into a sort of covert domination of the larger community over the smaller one.138 The consuls of Chiavenna (and Piuro) exercised all the old public rights over the surrounding area and in 1151 they visited the diet of Ulm, in Germany, to have Frederick I officially invest them with the ‘comitatus de Clavenna cum suis pertinentiis’, for which they had already received a formal privilege from Conrad of Swabia, probably in 1128. The early formalization of local power at Chiavenna, whose consuls are first recorded in 1097, on the occasion of a transaction concerning the common rights of the community of vicini, can provide an opportunity to discuss the institutional 135  Anonimo Cumano, De bello. On this specific issue see Grillo, ‘Una fonte per lo studio’, pp. 59–76. 136 Gasparolo, Memorie storiche di Sezzè, II, a. 2 (a. 1106), pp. 8–10. On autonomous rural commu­ nities in Umbria and in the Marche see the overview in Fiore, Signori e sudditi, pp. 183–97, with fur­ ther references to sources and studies. 137  As it’s clear in the agreements of di Novi with Genoa and Pavia in 1135; see I Libri iurium di Genova, I,1, n. 47 (a. 1135), pp. 77–81. 138  The event, known from a trial held in 1151–5 before the consuls of Milan, has been analysed in detail by Keller, ‘La decisione a maggioranza’. Note that the first, early recording of the consuls of Chiavenna dates from the last decade of the eleventh century (see the following note).

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

134  The Seigneurial Transformation and social aspects of these communities.139 The picture emerging from our sources is a rather ambiguous one, in this respect. From the very first mention of consuls at Chiavenna, which in the early decades of the twelfth century was defined as a burgus and which also had a castle, obviously controlled by the community, a prominent role would appear to have been played by the de Curte family, who maintained a strong presence in the college throughout the twelfth century. This family must have been playing a prominent role already by 1097, considering that the member in charge at the time was a minor who had to act with his father’s con­ sent, while over the following decades several other kinship groups were involved in the consulship alongside the de Curte family. At Isola, notwithstanding the political enterprise displayed by the community, we find no traces of formalized institutional roles. The obscure funerary epitaph inscribed on the grave of one Rodulfus (d. 1131) might suggest some sort of informal leadership over the local community, and some scholars have identified this figure as the tyrannus mentioned in a passage of the De bello et excidio, who led the defence of the island during its siege at the hands of Como.140 The way in which local power operated, therefore, remained highly fluid and informal, unlike in the case of nearby Chiavenna. In fact, it may be hypothesized that the leader­ ship de facto exercised by Rodulfus to some extent contributed to preventing the crystallization of institutional roles. However, at least in the early decades of the twelfth century, a fluid political system also characterized those centres in which broad sections of society would appear to have been involved in the exercising of political power. In the deed by which the margraves of Sezzadio ceded part of their castle to Gamondio in 1106, mention is made of the populus Gamundiensis, whereas consuls are only recorded from the 1140s onwards.141 In the same deed of 1106, however, the populus is divided into maiores tam minores, which suggests a group that encompassed (at least ideally) the whole local community, regardless of social and economic differences. The situation in nearby Novi would appear to have been much the same, at least in the 1130s, by which time the local consular institutions had become for­ mally established. In the deed by which it submitted to Genoa and Pavia in 1135, the people of Novi (populus Novarum) was divided into divites, mediocres et 139  Gli atti privati milanesi e comaschi, IV, n. 852 (a. 1097), pp. 554–5. 140  The funerary inscription, which is now lost but was formerly preserved in a church in Monza, has been transcribed in Frisi, Memorie storiche di Monza, p. 225: ‘Sumque Rodulfus ego. Patrem habuit Elmandum variis gestis memorandum. Cuius ego debui habere ratum. Qua fueram natus secum regione fugatus. Umbria nos genuit Svevia nos tenuit. Victa stetit toto nobis Cumacina voto. Sed pro sorte levi parvit illa brevi. Me vaga post fata excepit Modicia grata’. The text would seem to allude to some kind of military leadership (possibly brought to an end by a rebellion) on the part of Rodolfo, an adventurer from Umbria who settled in the Como area after spending some time in Swabia: a biographical profile largely consistent with the harsh context of warfare in the area during the ‘decade-long war’ between Como and Milan. 141  I Libri iurium di Genova, I,1, n. 96 (a. 1146), pp. 152–3; in this text the territory politcally controlled by Gamondio is called districtus.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

Collective Powers  135 pauperes, as well as into milites et pedites. This formula was designed to ensure that the political deed would be a communal one; yet, at the same time, it clearly illustrates the social stratification of this large rural centre (already divided into a burgus and a castrum at the time), whose castellum—donated to Pavia and Genoa in equal shares—constituted the symbol of the political power and autonomy of the community.142 The deed was ratified by four consuls from Novi, followed by around thirty prominent figures who are mentioned by name, and by alii plures. The aforementioned case of Trevi, in Latium, instead seems to differ somewhat, at any rate as regards the period under consideration. The very formula used to present the local authorities in the documents involving them, namely seniores Trebenses, suggests that while their power was still collective in nature, it was exercised by a more restricted group of people of military rank, which was not all that different from the small groups of lords that controlled one or more rural castles (either as benefices or as allods), and which may plausibly be identified with the local milites/boni homines.143 With good reason, a model of this sort has been posited also in relation to Conegliano, a centre in the Veneto that in around 1140 controlled a rather extensive area. Its ruling elite was of military and—broadly speaking—lordly rank, while the subordinate classes were politically invisible.144 A situation of this sort, in which a ruling group of military rank practically and formally held the monopoly of local power, is also reflected by the later documen­ tary evidence from Fabriano. Here, as late as the second half of the twelfth century, the local community and its institutional expression, the con­sul­ate, were entirely governed by the group of the boni homines. These also exercised extremely harsh forms of personal lordship, involving a significant use of violence for symbolic and intimidatory purposes, on much of the local population, consisting of their per­ sonal retainers. The situation only changed following a revolt of these subordinate groups against the milites around the year 1200.145 As we have previously seen when examining the evidence pertaining to Isola, in this centre around the year 1100 the boni homines and their massarii were connected by bonds of personal dependence that were not all that different from those documented a few years later in Fabriano. Therefore, we might be dealing with a widespread, albeit not predominant, model for the functioning of autonomous rural communities. I have already noted the similarities between the small aristocratic clans that controlled territorially restricted lordships and autonomous rural communities such as Trevi, which might even be interpreted as ‘collective lordships’. However, precisely the case of Fabriano clearly illustrates a crucial difference in the way of conceiving and managing territorial power. In centres governed by aristocratic

142  I Libri iurium di Genova, I,1, n. 47 (a. 1135), pp. 77–81. 143  Regesto sublacense, n. 47 (twelfth century but a. 1120 c.), pp. 87–8; n. 212 (a. 1116), pp. 250–1. 144  On Conegliano, see Collodo, ‘I “vicini” e i comuni’. 145  The reference is the classic Luzzatto, ‘Rustici e signori’; see also Pirani, Fabriano.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

136  The Seigneurial Transformation clans, power was divided among all those (often numerous) individuals entitled to it, ideally to equal degrees, and it was subject to the usual dynamics govern­ ing patrimonies (the sharing of inheritances, sales, donations, exchanges, etc.). Moreover, these mechanisms ensured that an individual could enjoy a quota of jurisdictional rights much greater than other clan members, creating strong imbalances within the group.146 The case of Fabriano instead clearly shows that in autonomous communities, including markedly ‘aristocratic’ ones, political power was conceived as something which interested the community as a whole, with no distinctions among its members, who all equally participated in territorial power. Individuals would become part of the community (and could even be expelled from it at times), yet did not personally own any share of the public patrimony; rather, they were members of a group that held in indiviso a series of rights and prerogatives, conceived as a single whole. An altogether different case is that of the possession of landed property and of rights of personal lordship over massarii and, more generally, homines, which had a strictly patrimonial and individual character. As individuals, the boni homines of Fabriano (and of other communities of this sort) owned landed property and held rights over other individuals (some­ times dozens of other individuals, sometimes only a few). At the same time, they were members of the group, which in a collective and undifferentiated way, exer­ cised jurisdictional rights over the centre and its environs. In the mid-twelfth century, by which time the comunis Fabriani had become crystallized with the regularizing of the institution of consulship, the commune would appear to have included—at any rate formally—both boni homines and minores (certainly or­din­ ary free men and, to a less likely extent, homines subject to personal lordship). In Fabriano, for instance, the first document bearing witness to the existence of a comune Fabriani, and dating from March 1165, illustrates the direct involvement of the two categories of inhabitants, the maiores and the minores, in the commune’s affairs—specifically, a pact of submission signed by a prominent aristocratic dynasty of the area. These two groups are mentioned immediately after the consuls in the list of authorities or institutions to which the lords make their pledge.147 However, power was de facto monopolized by the military elite, until the revolt of 1200, which redefined local forms of political participation. The world of autonomous rural communities, while not vast, would thus appear to have been marked by widely divergent modes of operating and of pol­it­ical participation, at any rate judging from the little documentary evidence avail­able. Besides, this was also largely the case with urban proto-communes in the same period.148 Moreover, while the tendency to formalize local institutions modelled

146  On these patterns a recent general overview in Debax, La seigneurie collective; see also Collavini, ‘Formes de coseigneurie’ (focused on central Italy). 147  Il Libro rosso Fabriano, II, a. 61 (a. 1165), pp. 103–4; see Pirani, Fabriano, p. 97. 148  On this difference and its origins see now Wickham, Sleepwalking, pp. 189–205.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

Collective Powers  137 after urban ones represents a defining feature, the chronologies vary considerably and would not appear to be directly connected to the capacity to have a political impact on local areas. To return to the cases previously illustrated, the Isola Comacina and Gamondio represent genuine polities, even though they did not formalize their institutional roles, whereas exactly the opposite is true of Piuro. This form of power, therefore, proves particularly significant, insofar as it offers a different model for the exercising of political power compared to the dominatus loci, and one that—by contrast to urban proto-communes—has an exclusively rural character. This model would appear to be based not on the capitalization of jurisdiction, but on the collective exercising of this jurisdiction, and not merely from a formal perspective. In this respect, the communities in question under­ went a different process of evolution compared to lordships, which shows that the latter did not constitute an inevitable development of the political framework but only one of its possible outcomes.149 While the model embodied by urban polities (and, to a lesser extent, domini loci) must undoubtedly have played an important role, it is evident that the development of rural communities rested on local foun­ dations, on practices and tendencies that had been at work in the countryside for centuries, such as the collective management of property, the protection of reli­ gious institutions, and interaction with royal power. Around the year 1100, these elements experienced a new phase of acceleration and crystallization, analogous to the one that was taking place in the seigneurial domain.150

149  On the signorie of the High Middle Ages as the inevitable outcome of the process of trans­for­ma­ tion of local power triggered by the Carolingian reform of power, see West, Reframing the feudal revolution. I will be discussing this thesis and some of its implications in more detail later on, in the notes at the end of the present volume. 150  On collective forms of action in the countryside in the Carolingian and post-Carolingian age, which in a way represent the premise for the emergence of autonomous castle communities, see e.g. Mancassola, Uomini senza storia, pp. 311–85; Albertoni, ‘Law  and the  peasant’; Provero, ‘Peasant society’.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

PART 2

A C U LT U R E OF P OW E R The Dominatus Loci between Practices and Discourses

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

6

Royal Legitimation and its Crisis After the long excursus devoted to the role and action of collective powers in the countryside, in this second part of the book we will turn to consider—in an even more detailed way—the world of territorial lordships. We will do so by analysing the political discourses and power practices that distinguish this social and pol­it­ ical model. I have chosen this as my vantage point to examine relations within the aristocratic world in greater depth, as well as between lords and their subjects. The research conducted in recent decades has shown that the culture of power undoubtedly constitutes a privileged avenue for examining the formation of social and political structures.1 Public discourses of power constitute a valuable indicator to grasp the dynamics governing society as a whole, as well as its indi­ vidual strata. In this respect, an analysis of the complex system of such languages stands as an ideal counterpart to the investigation conducted on concrete social and political balances in the first part of the volume. It is a matter of understanding whether and to what extent the transformation of power structures influenced the way in which social actors interpreted the social and political situation of their day, as well as the courses of action they adopted in their attempt to shape this situation. While, chronologically speaking, the period between 1080 and 1130 will continue to be the focus of the discussion, I will draw upon later sources—always with the utmost caution—whenever they shed light on dynamics that are only mentioned or adumbrated in earlier texts. Nevertheless, particular care will be taken not to unduly project later developments into the age under scrutiny. Before embarking on our enquiry, it is worth taking a few words to clarify the nature of the operation I will endeavour to carry out in the following chapters, along with its assumptions. No doubt one of the most important research strands in the historiography produced in recent decades is the one devoted to political cultures. As regards the more specific field of Italian medieval studies, research of this sort tends to focus on the late Middle Ages, owing to the wealth of sources, which enables us to ­better follow these research trajectories.2 Over the last fifteen years, the issue of political languages has emerged as a crucial research topic in the historiography on the late Middle Ages in Italy, starting from the extensive studies conducted on 1  An important example is the recent Gamberini, The Clash of Legitimacies. 2  On late Middle Ages the scholarship is now abundant; for a first approach see Gamberini and Petralia (eds.), Linguaggi politici nell’Italia. The Seigneurial Transformation: Power Structures and Political Communication in the Countryside of Central and Northern Italy, 1080–1130. Alessio Fiore, Oxford University Press (2020). © Alessio Fiore. DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198825746.001.0001

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

142  The Seigneurial Transformation the areas under the Viscontis’ control, which continue to represent the privileged field of investigation in enquiries of this kind.3 While to this day the predominance of late-medieval studies is all too evident, recent years have also witnessed a renewed interest in the centuries prior to the fourteenth. At least as far as Italy is concerned, these centuries constitute an as yet  little-explored stage from this perspective, and one which still has much to offer, as shown by Luigi Provero’s recent volume on peasant political culture in thirteenth-century rural Piedmont.4 The period at the turn of the twelfth century has only been illuminated by investigations focusing on specific discourses, whereas we still lack a comprehen­ sive attempt to reconstruct the system of communication and political culture in the countryside. Studies have shown that the field of political languages varies considerably depending on the territorial and chronological context, and hence that it is necessary to conduct specific investigations and to avoid generalization. Shifts in social and power balances are mirrored by a different articulation of ­political discourses: the changing ways in which the various social actors related to one another constantly shaped the field of discourse.5 The latter, far from con­ sisting of shared rules and interpretations, was riddled with tensions engendered by the interaction between the various members of political society.6 Certain ­languages appear to be closely connected with specific social actors, often through an almost exclusive relationship, and the shifting role of these actors in the pol­it­ical field affects not just the relevance of their particular discourses within the broader political culture of their day, but also the very way in which such discourses are articulated. Not only that, but the choice of a specific language by one or more social actors also determines, to some extent, its concrete action, by defining ­particular courses of development while concealing others. The sphere of political discourse, therefore, is subject to a constant process of redefinition, and represents the outcome of the ongoing interaction between the various players in the socio-political field. Analysing political languages does not mean simply reflecting on lexical ­occurrences, conceptual models, and representations. Power discourses are not expressed merely in words, but also through practices (gestures and writing of documents) that constantly restructure and redefine the sphere of discourse of which they are a part, through an ongoing creative process. Discourses and actions, therefore, are inextricably connected: it is ultimately impossible to analyse these

3  Some good examples are: Gamberini, La città assediata; Della Misericordia, ‘Principat, commu­ nauté et individu’; Cengarle, ‘Immagine di potere’; Gentile, ‘La vendetta di sangue’. 4  Just recently the research is moving toward an earlier period; see Carocci, ‘Le lexique du prélève­ ment’; and Provero, Le parole dei sudditi. 5 Gamberini, The Clash of Legitimacies, pp. 1–16. 6  German scholarship has focused on the idea of ‘rules’: see Althoff, Spielregeln der Politik.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

Royal Legitimation and its Crisis  143 two frequently overlapping levels separately.7 Concrete practices are shaped by  underlying discourses, which in turn they contribute toward redefining. What we have, then, is not so much two distinct, if interconnected, spheres, but an organic system. From this perspective, investigating a political system means reflecting on a range of words, actions, and documents that point to the same sum of meaningful concepts, in perpetual tension with the stimuli ­engendered by actions drawing upon the same conceptual core and/or other languages. Besides, the documents themselves should not merely be interpreted as texts transcribing given practices, but as the product of and source for actions—indeed, as a specific type of action.8 Writing is a form of action and the need to produce a document (for instance, to certify a particular right) in turn determines a series of concrete acts, establishing a continuous process. Moreover, it is worth stressing that at times public rituals and ceremonies are constructed on the basis of written texts, as we shall see in greater detail later on.9 Certainly, while these are not particularly innovative considerations, it is important to bear them in mind if we are to approach the sources and their content in the correct way. In the light of the outcomes of the research conducted in recent years, it seems important here not just to analyse a specific language, but to try and understand how it enters into relation with other languages employed in a given context, how it influences them, and how in turn it is influenced by them. In other words, what is required is a configurational analysis.10 With a few changes, a given action can slip from one discourse into another, as in the case of collective oaths sworn to a lord, which we will be analysing in the next chapter. Isolating a specific language and analysing it separately inevitably means developing what would be at least a  partially distortive analysis of it. This also largely applies to an interpretative approach seeking to discuss the languages employed by specific social actors (e.g.  lords, urban or rural communities, the monarchy). While it is no doubt ­useful to analyse all discursive strategies employed by specific actors, it is crucial to discuss them within the broader context of the languages adopted by the other social actors of the period. Only an overall analysis of the shifting interplay of actors and the languages connected with them can fully account for discursive developments within a particular historical context.11 7  This has resulted (especially in modernist scholarship) in a strictly topographical reading of public ritual, labelling the whole set of local practices as ‘culture of ownership’, and treating with ­skepticism the possibility to analyse individual discourses. On this see the seminal work of Grendi, ‘La pratica dei confini’; and the recent and important Torre, Luoghi; more nuanced echoes of this perspec­ tive can be found in Provero, Le parole dei sudditi. 8 Torre, Il consumo di devozioni. 9  For a forceful discussion of ninth- and tenth-century West Frankish diplomas conducted (also) from this standpoint, see Koziol, The Politics of Memory. 10  On the configurational analysis the model is Elias, The Court Society. 11  On late medieval Italy, see Gamberini, The Clash of Legitimacies.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

144  The Seigneurial Transformation Therefore, in the following pages, we will consider whether and to what extent the redefinition of concrete power structures is reflected in the strategies by which the various social actors sought to legitimize their local prerogatives within the magmatic context of the decades around 1100, by the ways in which they articulated and defined their mutual relations and, more generally, by their way of operating on both the practical and symbolic levels. Each chapter will be devoted to a specific political language, which can easily be identified as such in the texts from the period. The aim is not to examine all the languages recorded in the sources, but only those which seem more relevant to the specific topic dis­ cussed in this book, namely socio-political balances, and which are more widely documented in surviving texts. For example, the discourse of the sacred (and its use as a language of power) will remain outside the field of enquiry, owing to the fact that it is not very prominent in the available sources, or at least not in the particular context we are examining.12 We will commence our investigation by examining the crisis of what had traditionally constituted the cornerstone of the systems of communication and legitimation of local power, namely royal power. Its breakdown in our period paved the way for a profound redefinition of the strategies of local actors in this crucial sphere. The subsequent chapters will instead be devoted to the four most prominent languages in our sources: fidelity, pacts, customs, and violence. By adopting these four vantage points, we will endeavour to grasp the ways in which the very matrix of political culture was reshaped in the Italian countryside at the turn of the year 1100.

6.1  Royal power as a source of legitimacy To commence our investigation, it might be useful to set out from an age in which the function of legitimation was still firmly in the hands of the monarchy: the first part of the tenth century.13 From a practical standpoint, in the first decades of this century, the action exercised by the central authorities at a local level was rather weak, as clearly emerges from a comparison between the action of ninth-century kings—in particular Louis II—and that of the rulers of the following century.14 Despite this considerable weakening, in other respects the central authorities continued to play a prominent role. Royal and imperial charters continued to constitute a key means of legitimizing local prerogatives. The forms of power

12  Just in later period the sources about this specific language became more numerous; see Provero, Le parole dei sudditi. 13  Another version of the next pages of this chapter was published in Fiore, ‘Refiguring local power’. 14  A good vantage point is offered by the lawmaking, that, after the abundance of the ninth century ends, quite abruptly, in 898, with the reign of Lamberto; on this, see I capitolari italici. On the ­relationship between aristocracies and monarchy in the tenth century see the classic Tabacco, ‘Regno, impero e aristocrazie’; and the recent Vignodelli, Il Filo a piombo.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

Royal Legitimation and its Crisis  145 exercised over individuals and the emergence of seigneurial power required l­egitimation from above, from the king, which—while increasingly ineffective on the local level—continued to be perceived as a crucial source of legitimacy, as strongly emphasized by studies published in recent decades.15 In other words, a fully accomplished process of affirmation at the local level found sanction in charters issued by the royal (and/or imperial) chancellery. If we examine the ­series of Italian royal charters from the first half of the tenth century, in particular Berengar I’s, we find frequent confirmations of ‘seigneurial’ rights to control and govern individuals and territories by sources other than the monarchy: in par­ ticular, via donations or purchases from subjects who already held and exercised such prerogatives.16 This was perceived as insufficient: the need was felt for a further guarantee, which only the central authorities could provide. Thus, after having received three villae (villages) bequeathed by the late bishop Notkerio, cum placitis et districtionibus (with rights of justice and command), the canons of Santa Maria in Verona turned to Berengar to obtain a charter confirming the rights attached to these villages.17 Similarly, in 911 the sovereign confirmed the owner­ ship of a curtis, some castles cum districtionibus, and a chapel, which the monas­ tery of Nonantola in Emilia had received from count Alberto of Verona.18 In order to legitimize power exercised at a local level, the need was evidently felt for royal sanction. One of the key sanctioning methods was no doubt the issu­ ing of charters. Obtaining a written royal grant was an opportunity to sanction the legitimacy of one’s claims, both in the eyes of subjects and of other political actors. The most recent research has highlighted the fact that charters must also be analysed as the central focus of, and catalyst for, social and ritual practices that reinforce the image of the recipient.19 Receiving a charter, even when it did not grant anything new or add anything to the power an individual already exercised, nonetheless furnished the occasion for a mise-en-scène that constituted a powerful legitimizing factor. The ceremony during which the charter was issued represented an important moment in which the legitimacy of the recipient’s claims and ­prerogatives, along with that of his political and social role, was sanctioned before other prominent political actors in the kingdom.20 This is one of the reasons why, 15 Rosenwein, Negotiating space, pp. 137–44; and eadem, ‘The family politics of Berengar’. 16  See e.g. I diplomi di Berengario I, n. 17 (a. 897), pp. 53–5; n. 46 (a. 904), pp. 132–4; n. 65 (a. 906), pp. 176–8; n. 113 (a. 916 c.), pp. 290–4; I diplomi italiani di Lodovico III, n. 4 (a. 900), pp. 11–5; n. 7 (a. 901), pp. 22–4; I diplomi italiani di Rodolfo II, n. 8 (a. 924), pp. 117–20; n. 9 (a. 924), pp. 120–2; I diplomi di Ugo e Lotario, n. 40 (a. 935), pp. 123–6; n. 63 (a. 942), pp. 184–9; n. 71 (a. 943), nn. 210–2. A forceful analysis of these diplomas in Tabacco, The Struggle for Power, pp. 151–76. 17  I diplomi di Berengario I, n. 113 (a. 916 c.), pp. 290–4. 18  I diplomi di Berengario I, n. 69 (a. 911), pp. 214–16. 19  On this, see Koziol, The Politics of Memory. 20  See Keller, ‘Die Herrscherurkunden’; and Keller, Dartmann, ‘Inszenierung von Ordnung’; a very good example which describes the ceremonial framework of the redaction of a diploma (issued by a  Staufen emperor for the commune of Cremona) is Le carte cremonesi, IV, nn. 787–8 (a. 1195), pp. 357–60.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

146  The Seigneurial Transformation whenever possible, recipients sought to have the charter drawn up in a place within the political area to which it applied. This ensured the most effective ­possible legitimation and sanctioning of an individual’s rights before the members of his political community. The choice of the location, therefore, was based not just on practical reasons that had to do with distances and expenses, but also on symbolic reasons, since an attempt was made to make the most of the charterissuing ceremony. It must also be said that, in the case of the leading actors of the kingdom, receiving a charter in the capital, Pavia, was no doubt an exercise in prestige. However, there was more to the development of ceremonial practices surround­ ing these kinds of documents. In all likelihood, this first ritual was followed by other, more local ones, whereby the text was read out and physically displayed— in all of its symbolic significance—to the subjects concerned. The texts recording practices of this sort are few and far between, at any rate as far as Italy is con­ cerned, and they essentially date from the second half of the twelfth century onwards, when central power started making a comeback under the Staufer.21 One significant exception, which shows that rituals of this sort were far older, is represented by a brevis from 879, preserved in the archives of the Milanese mon­ astery of Sant’Ambrogio, and pertaining to the curtis of Limonta.22 This text ­records a public ritual staged at Limonta and revolving around the reading out before the local community of a charter by Charles the Fat, now lost, and of an earlier, surviving one issued by Lothar in 835, whose purview was confirmed by the more recent text. The two documents sanctioned the abbot’s ownership of six mansa of mancipia (slaves), along with their residents. The abbot did not merely read out the two texts, but showed them publicly (ostendens), evidently in order to stress the profound symbolic value of the two solemn documents, on which his local power was based. The reading was followed by a ritual in which abbot Leone physically confirmed his ownership of the servi and their dwellings.23 The reading was done aloud, publicly, before the men of Limonta, some episcopal vassals, two vassals of a royal vassus, and the representatives of neighbouring communities: a socially diverse public that was highly representative of the local situation. It must be noted that the following year, the representatives of these neighbouring ­communities were summoned as witnesses in support of the Abbot in the dispute between the Milanese monastery and that of Reichenau over the ownership of Limonta.24 Therefore, the organizing of a public ritual seems like a crucial means

21  On these rituals see some of the witnesses edited in Fermo città egemone, nn. 19–20 (a. 1253), pp. 19–141; see also ‘Appendice’, to Tabarrini, Regesta Firmana, n. 3 (a. 1223), pp. 538–41. 22  Codex Diplomaticus Langobardiae, n. 291 (a. 879), coll. 495–7. The text is discussed in Balzaretti, ‘The monastery of Sant’Ambrogio’, pp. 5–6. 23 The abbot Leone (re-)toke ownership ‘per columnam de eadem casa et limite ostii seu ex ­predictis mancipiis per manus’ (Codex Diplomaticus Langobardiae, col. 496). 24 Manaresi, I Placiti, I, Inquisitiones, n. 8 (a. 880), pp. 584–5.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

Royal Legitimation and its Crisis  147 to build consensus with regard to one’s prerogatives at the local level, but the c­ entre of this ritual is the royal charter. The very fact that two vassals of a royal vassal were present is significant: while they no doubt represented local interests,25 they also represented the royal power issuing the charter, and guaranteed that its content would be implemented and respected by local representatives of the monarchy.26 The material (as well as non-material) cost which the recipient had to pay for his charter was partly offset by the possibility of creating solemn public moments ensured by the document, by which he could confirm and sanction his power. This becomes evident as soon as we turn to consider placita, and in particular the ostensio of royal (or imperial) charters during judicial hearings. Quite often the placitum revolves precisely around the solemn reading out of a royal charter, and the physical displaying of the document.27 It is not enough to possess a char­ ter: the document must be displayed in the most public and solemn possible con­ text to really ensure its efficacy.28 Ostensio becomes a way to reinforce one’s local prerogatives in the face of any local rivals as well as of more or less recalcitrant subjects. If we consider the chronology, what we find is that this procedure is widely employed in the first decades of the tenth century and (after the last, tur­ bulent stage of the independent kingdom of Italy) in the Ottonian age. In other words, a healthy monarchy goes hand in hand with an extensive use of charters in judicial contexts. By contrast, from the 1040s onwards, we witness a marked decline in such practice, which is adopted more and more sparingly. In parallel to this, the nature of the placitum changes: from being an expression of royal justice, it becomes a form of protection exercised by ‘regionalised powers possessing ­public prerogatives’.29 Naturally, in this context, charters become increasingly less crucial, until they finally disappear around 1100, with the collapse of the trad­ition­al structures of royal power brought about by the chaotic struggle over investitures. We will shortly return to this specific point. Here I wish to emphasize that the idea of the importance of sanctioning local prerogatives by the central authorities does not rule out that these forms of power often sprung ‘from below’, i.e. through a complex and variable combination of purchases, clientelism, abuses, and vio­ lence by aristocrats and churches. Processes of this sort are well known in Italy from as early as the Carolingian age, as is clearly shown by the Mantua capitulary

25  As underlined by Balzaretti, ‘The monastery of Sant’Ambrogio’, pp. 6–7 26  On the tight connection between text and speech, with a focus on the use of documents as bases for oral performances, see Geary, ‘Land, language and memory’, esp. p. 184. 27  On the ostensio cartae, see Keller, Ast, ‘Ostensio cartae’. 28  Some examples: Manaresi, I Placiti, I, n. 91 (a. 880), pp. 328–32; n. 113 (a. 902), pp. 418–22; n. 118 (a. 906), pp. 436–41; n. 136 (a. 935), pp. 506–13; II, n. 148 (a. 962), pp. 19–23; n. 152 (a. 964), pp. 37–43; n. 164 (a. 970), pp. 96–101. 29  On these shifts see Vallerani, ‘Scritture e schemi rituali’.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

148  The Seigneurial Transformation of 813.30 What are rarer (yet far from non-existent) are cases in which a royal charter created a new lordship from scratch, through the transfer of estates and prerogatives previously belonging to the publicum.31 What matters, however, is that even in the presence of the development of local hegemony ‘from below’, what individuals pursued was legitimation by the central authorities, since it alone offered any certainty with regard to the position they had acquired. One relatively late (mid-eleventh century), yet highly significant, example of this process concerns the monastery of San Zeno in Verona. Within the context of a harsh (and violent) local competition between the monastery and Boniface of Canossa, the inhabitants of the village of Montecchio, a community of free allodiaries in the Veneto, chose to bequeath all their property to the abbot of San Zeno, whom they acknowledged as their lord.32 In this case, then, the ­lordship sprung completely from below, from the (at least formal) will of the members of a c­ ommunity. However, the monastery made sure to obtain an imperial charter to sanction the new state of affairs. Within a short time, it obtained a letter of privilege from Henry III granting the monastery districtus over the village. While the homines could acknowledge the abbot as their lord, they could not transfer jurisdictional rights into his hands: as in the case of all communi­ ties of freemen, this could only be done by the central authorities.33 Likewise, around the mid eleventh century, the bishop of Padua attempted to gain control over the Saccisica—an area located near one of his allodial curtes, but inhabited by allodiaries, and hence directly pertaining to the monarchy—first by forcing the inhabitants to issue him cartas which must have been at least partly analo­ gous to that from Montecchio in terms of their content, and then by obtaining royal confirmation of his new local hegemony. However, the whole process was temporarily brought to a halt by the local residents who, after petitioning the royal authorities, obtained an acknowledgement of their prerogatives as free­ men, which allowed them to resist the episcopal claims for roughly another twenty years.34

30  Montanari, ‘Conflitto sociale e protesta’. 31  Some examples in I diplomi di Berengario I, n. 18 (a. 897), pp. 56–8 (gift of the royal curtis of Sacco to the bishop of Padova); see also n. 32 (a. 900), pp. 96–8; n. 62 (a. 905), pp. 170–2; n. 128 (a. 920), pp. 332–4. 32  The donation of the homines of Montecchio is edited in ‘Appendice 1’, to Brugnoli, ‘Sala, Val Salaria’. See also Castagnetti, ‘Arimanni e signori’, esp. pp. 261–3. 33  Diplomata Henrici III., n. 357 (a. 1055), pp. 485–6. In the same diploma the emperor confirmed to the abbot the property of Montecchio (remembering the gift of villagers) and concessed jurisditional rights (districtus) over the locality. 34  Diplomata Henrici III., n. 352 (a. 1055), pp. 479–80: ‘qualiter homines in valle que vocatur Saccus habitantes clementiam nostram adierant de iniuste servitutis oppressione in qua Pataviensis episcopus violenter eos compulerat, miserabiliter conquerente [. . .] precipimus et confirmamus ut quicquid Pataviensis episcopus per violentiam illis abstulit aut cartas ab eisdem fieri compulit integre ipsis res­ tituatur et ut deinceps ab iniusta servitute sint soluti sancimus’. See Rippe, Padoue et son contado, pp. 179–84; Tabacco, I liberi del re, p. 159.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

Royal Legitimation and its Crisis  149

6.2  The crisis and its consequences This political situation, which was already riddled with tensions owing to the extended periods of German sovereigns’ absence in the first seventy years of the eleventh century, entered into a profound crisis with the outbreak of the civil wars between the Roman reformist party and the pro-imperial one. The military conflict was accompanied by a bitter ideological polemic that translated into a mutual delegitimation of the political authorities, as well as of the traditional ways of exercising power.35 In this context, local actors soon became aware that, in a society where the old balances based on the centrality of royal power had been undermined and new balances were emerging in which local power relations and practices proved decisive, charters were no longer enough to legitimate one’s power. Indeed, at times charters could be quite worthless. To understand these dynamics, I believe it is useful to once again briefly examine a famous text such as the placitum of Garfagnolo.36 This is a text pertaining to the conflict between the monastery of San Prospero in Reggio and the so-called ‘de Vallibus men’ over the ownership of lands within the curtis of Nasseto. Here I wish to focus on the devel­ opment of judicial procedures, which clearly illustrates the crisis of royal docu­ mentation, namely of its juridical and legitimizing value. From this perspective, it is highly significant that in the first stage of the trial in which it stood against the rural community, the abbey did not invoke the imperial charters it had been issued by Charles and Otto, but only the sworn witness of tres homines curtis Nassete. In other words, it was the local witnesses who determined the first provi­ sional ruling in favour of the monastery. After the dispute raised by the men de Vallibus, who evidently were ready to produce witnesses of their own in order to further reinforce the position of the monastery, the choice was made to bring the charters to bear. The latter, in other words, were intended to provide some add­ ition­al legitimacy, but were far from constituting the linchpin of the monastery’s legal strategy. However, this was not enough, even in the eyes of Matilda’s officials, who were the experts in judicial and legislative procedures that had been appointed to resolve the dispute. The charters were not perceived as a decisive element for resolving the conflict between the ‘living’ legal sources, namely the monastery’s witnesses and those of the homines. In the face of these contrasting claims ‘from below’, no use was made of charters to sway the case this way or that; rather, the decision was taken to resort to a legal dispute. This clearly shows that by this point, in the eyes of the judges as well as of the society they represented, charters played an entirely marginal role.

35  On the military history of this conflict, see Hay, The military leadership, pp. 59–197. 36 Manaresi, I placiti, III, n. 478 (a. 1098), pp. 432–4. About this important text see the recent Santoni, ‘Fra lex e pugna’.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

150  The Seigneurial Transformation Another rather well-known local conflict, pertaining to the districtio and f­ odrum at Mendrisio and Rancate around 1140, unfolded in a very similar way, with an opposition between royal legitimation and sworn witnesses.37 On the one side stood Locarno da Besozzo, who laid claim to juridical rights over the area on the grounds that he had been ‘investitum per feudum ex parte imperatorum Henrici et Lotharii de toto fodro regali de loco Mendrixio et de loco Ranchate et de districtu et ed aremania ipsorum locorum’.38 On the other side stood the counts of Seprio (and the two communities), who claimed rights over the two centres on the basis of a far vaguer ‘anticum feudum ex parte imperatorum’. The dispute was settled by the consuls of Milan, who, after hearing sworn witnesses from the two communities, ruled in their favour (and in favour of the counts of Seprio who were essentially backing them), arguing that they had exercised the districtio since time immemorial. The public and ritual statements made by the vicini thus proved more influential than the two imperial charters, one of which— Lothar’s—was certainly recent. In this case too, local ritual memory was regarded as far more trustworthy than the written word of the official document. These two cases illustrate, if only in an extreme fashion, that which remained the salient features of the Italian political context practically throughout the first half of the twelfth century: the remoteness and ineffectiveness of royal power, which was only occasionally perceived (at the tip of imperial spears)—during major military expeditions—as an effective bestower of rights and legitimacy. This is precisely the scenario that emerges from the quantitative evidence pertaining to the royal and imperial charters issued to Italian subjects between 1106 (Henry V’s rise to the throne) and 1152 (Conrad III’s death). We have numerous charters from Henry V’s reign, spanning the two decades between 1106 and 1125, but most of them are concentrated in the two years 1116–17, when the German sover­ eign led an ambitious expedition into Italy.39 As regards the reign of his successor Lothar (d. 1137), some forty charters survive, nine of which were drafted during the Romfahrt of 1132–3, while no less than thirty were issued in 1136–7, when the emperor led a major expedition designed to reaffirm once and for all the role of imperial power in Italy, raising great expectations in Italian society.40 After the failure of this attempt, the following sovereign, Conrad III, did not even bother to travel down to Italy to obtain the imperial crown. We only have around twenty charters issued to Italian recipients by this ruler. The recipients 37  The documenti is edited in Atti del comune di Milano, n. 5 (a. 1140), pp. 9–11. The text is ­discussed in Rossetti, Le istituzioni comunali a Milano, pp. 92–3. 38  Atti del comune di Milano, n. 5 (a. 1140), p. 10. 39  We have not on hand the complete edition of Henry V’s diplomas in Monumenta Germaniae Historica. A still partial one (by Matthias Thiel) is available on the website of MGH (Diplomata Hennrici  V.) This work in progress must still be integrated with Stumpf, Die Kaiserurkunden, pp. 253–74. 40  Diplomata Lotharii III., pp. 70–83, 143–202. On the 1136–7 expedition and the reactions in ­central Italy, see Fiore, Signori e sudditi, pp. 51–4.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

Royal Legitimation and its Crisis  151 were almost exclusively leading political actors, with long-running ties to the kingdom; as such, they could afford the luxury of despatching envoys to Nuremberg, Regensburg, or Würzburg to elicit the issuing of charters. The recipients, in other words, were (almost exclusively) great royal monasteries such as Farfa and Nonantola; prominent noble families, such as the Monferrato or Biandrate; and wealthy episcopal sees, such as Pisa and Ascoli.41 So whereas the documentary evidence as a whole is far more abundant compared to the early eleventh century, charters become far scantier; and this quantitative drop goes hand in hand with a sharp rise in the recipients’ social and political profiles. The crisis of imperial legitimacy associated with the most intense phase of the conflict over investitures was now over, and hence it once again made sense for certain political actors in Italy, who were more closely bound to the imperial authorities from an ideo­ logical standpoint, to invest in the acquisition of charters. However, for the mass of local society, the break was complete. By now many of the political actors of the kingdom found themselves outside the traditional circuits of royal legitimation, either by force or by choice. This crisis in the monarchy’s capacity to present itself as the bestower of publicly-acknowledged rights is expressed even more strikingly in the contemporary crisis of the placitum, both as a judicial institution and as a documentary source. As has recently been shown, one witnesses a striking drop in the number of placita in the last decades of the eleventh century, whereas in the early twelfth century the placitum model entered a terminal crisis—except in certain well-defined areas that remained more conservative (and where the bond with the monarchy remained stronger, as in the case of the Verona area and its comitatus Gardensis).42 The seriousness of the crisis is also reflected by the choice made by almost all the new local powers active in the early decades of the twelfth century (be they lords or communes) to abandon the traditional placitum procedures early on in favour of more informal judicial practices. This decision clearly shows that power practices intrinsically connected to the public and royal tradition had come to be perceived with a considerable degree of detachment, or even of annoyance, by local societies. All this occurred as the dissemination of local power was reaching its peak and, in parallel, processes of recomposition were emerging, led by ambitious local actors. The crisis of royal power strongly compelled a range of social actors to take strident action (lay and religious lords, cities, and large rural communities), each of which strove to attain an independent sphere of domination. Yet, in many 41  Diplomata Cuonradi III., n. 16 (a. 1138), pp. 26–8 (abbot of Farfa); n. 32 (a. 1139), pp. 51–3 (archbishop of Pisa); n. 51 (a. 1140), pp. 85–7 (count of Biandrate); n. 272 (aa. 1149–52 c.), pp. 471–2 (margrave of Monferrato); n. 226 (a. 1150), pp. 399–401 (bishop of Ascoli); n. 227 (a. 1150), p. 402 (abbot of Nonantola). 42  On this Wickham, ‘Justice in the Kingdom of Italy’, pp. 239–49. On the comitatus Gardae and long-term presence of monarchy in this area, see Castagnetti, Comitato di Garda.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

152  The Seigneurial Transformation cases these were particularly fragile and unstable prerogatives: the world of local power was a fluid and dynamic one, fraught with endless competition; and this is all the more true at this stage of the redefinition of local power balances.43 Within such a context, the members of the political society of the regnum were inevitably forced to find other ways to consolidate their local prerogatives, and other means to attain consensus and legitimacy. Clearly, these were not entirely new avenues; however, within a context that had been deeply transformed by the eclipsing of royal power, they acquired a new importance with respect to the legitimation strategies available to political actors. In the following chapters, we will be exploring these avenues and the languages associated with them in detail. Before doing so, however, it is worth ending the present chapter with some brief considerations regarding the documentary evi­ dence on which our analysis will be based. This is very different from the kind of evidence that was dominant up until around 1070–80, and which is characterized by a marked predominance of munimina (i.e. sells and leases), alongside notitiae iudicati (i.e. placita) and charters. As most recently noted by Michele Ansani, our period witnessed a radical redefinition of this structure, which clearly emerges as the reflection of a profound crisis of social and political balances, a crisis that also undermined established forms pertaining to the certification of ownership and of the registration of juridical and social proceedings. Even for charter drafters, this was not merely a ‘documentary transformation’; rather, the very structure of written documents reflected the overall redefinition of the situation in the regnum. The decades around 1100 emerge as a highly experimental phase, even from the point of view of the documentary sources. The most striking element in this context is the sharp increase in the percentage of brevia among the various kinds of documents to have reached us. These are lighter and more flexible deeds compared to the traditional munimina. They gained popularity precisely because they were able to provide a more effective response to the social effects of the ­political crisis. In the case of Pavia, which has been explored in depth, the docu­ mentary sequence is particularly significant. The occurrence of just a few, isolated brevia between the ninth century and the last third of the eleventh is followed by a genuine mushrooming of such documents: in the twenty-year period between 1070 and 1090, brevia make up 18% of all written documents preserved; this ­figure increases to 31% in the following two decades (1091–1110); and finally reaches 46% in the period from 1111 until 1130.44 Nor is the case of Pavia an abnormal or exceptional one: an essentially similar picture emerges from the areas of Brescia, Cremona, and Florence, which consti­ tute the best-investigated contexts from this particular point of view.45 Such an 43  On this topic an overview is Provero, L’Italia dei poteri locali. 44  On these data and their discussion, see Ansani, ‘Appunti sui brevia’, pp. 110–11. 45  On the staggering rise in number of brevia in the territory of Florence, see Faini, ‘Le fonti diplo­ matistiche’. On Brescia and Cremona, see Ansani, ‘Appunti sui brevia’.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

Royal Legitimation and its Crisis  153 increase is particularly significant because it is precisely brevia that record oaths of fealty, pacts, ownership rituals, and memories of acts of usurpation and violence—i.e. the kind of documents that will constitute the basis for our discus­ sion in the following chapters.46 The content of these texts, given their flexibility, is extremely varied and wide-ranging. However, the new relevance acquired by brevia shows that the need was felt in society to put down social practices and actions that had hitherto been confined to the field of oral transmission and per­ formance in writing, as well as to preserve them in order to certify given rights and prerogatives. The experimental tendency visible on the level of institutions and power structures is also perceptible on the documentary level. We shall see how in the following chapters. 46  On the importance of brevia and of texts free from the constraints typical of munimina (sales and leases) to gain access to social realities and practices of twelfth century, see an important discus­ sion in Tabarrini, ‘Le operae e i giorni’.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

7

Fidelity A Pervasive Language

At this stage of the enquiry, the time has come to focus our attention on forms of self-legitimation other than those based on the relation with central power, in order to ascertain whether in the period after 1080 we can indeed observe a greater involvement in these alternative forms of self-legitimation (and of course in related documents) on the part of socio-political actors. It is a matter here of understanding how local societies reacted to the material and symbolic crisis of the traditional source of legitimacy. The first step in this enquiry is bound to be fidelity, given its social pervasiveness. The eleventh century undoubtedly represented a turning point in the spread of fidelity-based relations in the European context. Within the context of the crisis of political structures which affected most of the West—at different times in different areas—personal loyalties constituted an important element for the restructuring and consolidation of forms of social and political cohesion, which had been threatened by processes of decentralization and localization of power.1 In this respect, however, it is worth noting, on the one hand, the heterogeneity of regional developments in this particular sphere (not limited to chronological differences) and, on the other hand, the richness and pervasiveness of the language of fidelity. This applied to much broader areas than those associated with the trad­ition­al relations based on vassalage and the granting of benefices, which have long been the main focus for historians.2 This particular language and the ceremonies attached to it were also used to structure and define the relation between a king and all his subjects (as in England), between a territorial lord and his ­subordinates, and even between an ecclesiastical leader and the churchmen under his authority.3 The language of fidelitas was therefore a pervasive and longestablished one which extended to all—or almost all—areas of society. It was a perfect way to mark out and define relations characterized by verticality, meaning

1  The bibliography on this topic is vast. For a first overview of the various lines of research, see the contributions brought together in Bournazel and Poly (eds.), Les féodalités, Bonnassie (ed.), Fief et féodalité, and Il feudalesimo nell’alto medioevo—in addition, of course, to Reynolds, Fiefs and Vassals. 2  An important and wide-ranging discussion of these issues is to be found in the recent Albertoni, Vassalli, feudi, pp. 21–88. 3  See Brancoli Busdraghi, La formazione storica, p. 142; Giordanengo, ‘Les féodalités italiennes’; and Werckmeister, ‘The political Ideology’ (on England). The Seigneurial Transformation: Power Structures and Political Communication in the Countryside of Central and Northern Italy, 1080–1130. Alessio Fiore, Oxford University Press (2020). © Alessio Fiore. DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198825746.001.0001

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

Fidelity: A Pervasive Language  155 the predominance of one subject over another. Pact-based relations, while being ­centred on reciprocity, could certainly take account of any asymmetry between the parties involved (as we shall see in the next chapter). However, relations based on fidelitas were structurally asymmetrical, which made the language of fidelity a privileged means to define superiority and inferiority in social relations.4 Being someone’s fidelis meant acknowledging his superiority. However, the verticality of bonds of fidelity must not always be interpreted as reflecting rigid and absolute hierarchies. Quite often what we have is a way of establishing only relatively ­hier­arch­ic­al relations between different subjects; fidelitas is used to build not just vertical relations, but also networks and alliances that are at least broadly horizontal and based on equality.5 Nevertheless, it is worth noting that this flexibility of the language of fidelity has its intrinsic limits: we never see a high-ranking lord becoming the fidelis of a minor dominus, or the lord of a castle becoming the fidelis of a mere miles. Evidently, given its manifestly vertical and hierarchical nature, the language of fidelity could only show so much flexibility without becoming completely distorted and losing its credibility in the eyes of social and political actors. In the light of these premises, it seems obvious that if we wish to consider the role of personal bonds of fidelity in the context on central and northern Italy at the turn of the 1100s, we must determine whether and to what extent the restructuring of forms and relations of power influenced the use of such a language, which was clearly far from new. We must evaluate to what extent this historical phase stood in continuity with the previous one and to what extent it instead marked a break. The starting point of my analysis will be the sphere in which the language of fidelity had been most commonly employed since the Carolingian age, namely the aristocratic world. This will be taken in its broadest possible sense, which encompasses a social space extending from great lords to mere ­milites castri. Subsequently, I will focus on the way in which fidelitas was used in our period to define the relation between lords and subjects within the context of rural seigneurie. While far less attested than previous ones, these practices prove crucial to fully grasp the redefinition of local relations and their representation on the level of political discourse. Besides, no study has yet been specifically devoted to them, at least when it comes to our period.

7.1  Fidelities in the ‘aristocratic’ world As I have just noted, bonds of fidelity had been a traditional feature of relations within the ruling class since the Carolingian age.6 However, our period witnessed 4 Debàx, La féodalité languedocienne. 5  Albertoni and Provero, Il feudalesimo in Italia. 6 Becher, Eid und Herrschaft; Albertoni, Vassalli, feudi, pp. 105–22.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

156  The Seigneurial Transformation a profound redefinition of their importance and overall meaning within society. In his landmark study of Italian feudalism in the high Middle Ages, François Menant stressed the importance of the years around 1100 for the development of feudal structures and the fidelity-based relations associated with them: this phase is regarded as a key moment in the restructuring of this particular sphere.7 The previous period still revolved around the idea of a clientele network that found in the king its ideal point of convergence, as clearly emerges from Conrad II’s legislation on hereditary benefices as late as 1037. The situation changed significantly in the years under discussion: the old networks broke down and we witness a process of rearrangement of systems of fidelity and their becoming completely removed from public or royal authorities.8 Bonds of fidelity were instead used in order to systematize and formalize relations of subordination—or alliance— between local political actors. At a lower and hence only broadly aristocratic level, fidelity was used by the domini loci to swell the ranks of their local clientele— which, as we have seen, had acquired increasingly military character—and lend it a more cogent structure.9 Following the collapse of the royal system, which had made instrumental use of its vast clientele of vassals (despite the fact that these were not always easy to control), the aristocratic class sought to establish new balances, concretely rooted in local power relations. These had become a crucial element with fidelity continuing to play a central role. This process of transformation and redefinition of relations based on fidelitas occurred within an Italian context marked—as already mentioned—by documentary traditions that vary considerably from area to area, which undoubtedly complicates the picture. In recent decades, this has sometimes led historians to overestimate the differences between the various regional areas.10 In this respect, the very fact of selecting fidelity as a specific object of enquiry, rather than fiefs, may help us grasp the unitary features of the central and northern Italian context, regardless of the unquestionable local differences. The distinctly feudal relations at work do not exhaust the field of fidelity, which emerges as a far broader and more complex phenomenon. Whereas in northern Italy, and in certain limited areas in Tuscany, fidelitas was closely associated with the granting of fiefs, in the rest of central Italy and in Romagna it was chiefly connected to different forms of (temporary) property transfer—such as libellum, precaria and emphyteusis— which occurred in different ways depending on the regional context.11 Before proceeding any further, it is necessary to briefly discuss these differences, at least in broad terms, in order to evaluate whether it is possible to provide a unitary treatment of the topic of fidelitas or whether a more regional approach is 7  Menant, ‘La féodalité italienne’, pp. 347–83. 8  Tabacco, ‘Il regno italico’, pp. 781–3. 9  See section 4.1. 10  As an example of this tendency to emphasize regional differences when discussing these topics, see Tiberini, Le signorie rurali nell’Umbria. 11 Spicciani, Protofeudalesimo; on Umbria and the Marche see Fiore, Signori e sudditi, pp. 132–47.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

Fidelity: A Pervasive Language  157 required. The starting point for this brief enquiry is bound to be the Po Valley, which has traditionally been regarded as the area of greatest spread of practices based on bonds of personal fidelity, at any rate in the period under con­sid­er­ation.12 Northern Italy, at least after 1037, was dominated by the granting of fiefs in the strict sense of the term, as evidenced by specific texts.13 In this area grants of estates more feudale are plentiful, while we have very few records of the oaths sworn by the vassals on such occasions. These were obviously taken for granted and therefore were rarely, if ever, laid down in writing, although they are more frequently mentioned in depositions or in sources of other nature.14 This mech­ an­ ism clearly emerges from certain passages of the first version of Oberto dell’Orto’s Liber feudorum, which draws a very explicit link between feudal concessions and oaths of fidelity. However, it is worth noting that—as the text itself makes clear—in the area in question the feudal transfer of property rights was so widespread that, towards the end of our period, it gave rise to the phenomenon of the concession in feudum sine fidelitate, not least as a means to circumvent the law forbidding the permanent alienation of ecclesiastical estates.15 This led to the apparent paradox of having feudal transactions detached from the establishment of bonds of personal fidelitas. At any rate, these transactions constituted exceptions and, as such, were specified in the documents issued for the property concessions. Generally speaking, in the context of the aristocracy of northern Italy the discourse of fidelity would appear to almost perfectly overlap with feudal relations. No doubt, the subjects of territorial lords and famuli were also required to take oaths of fidelity, but at the time these relations were in any case perceived to be socially and qualitatively different, and were characterized by ceremonial practices that at least partly differed from those of aristocratic fidelitas, as we shall see in the next section.16 Compared to this essentially homogeneous picture, central Italy (along with Romagna) presents a far more complex scenario.17 Feudal concessions—in the more technical sense of the term—are particularly numerous in certain areas of Tuscany and central-northern Umbria. However, they often have an oral nature, as is the case in the North before 1037, in particular when it comes to patrimonial transfers from local lords to mere milites castri, who are rarely made the object of specific documents, whereas indirect attestations of these transfers are relatively numerous.18 12  Brancoli Busdraghi, La formazione storica. 13  In relation to what follows, I will refer to Menant, ‘La féodalité italienne’. 14  A good example is provided by the depositions from the first decades of the twelfth century published in Codice diplomatico padovano, II, n. 526 (a. 1150 c.), pp. 383–4. 15 Rippe, ‘Feudum sine fidelitate’. 16 Lehmann, Consuetudines Feudorum, VIII, 11; for a discussion of the matter, see section 7.2. 17  For an overview, see Feller, ‘Les institutions féodales’; Carocci, ‘Feudo, vassallaggi’; Fiore, Signori e sudditi, pp. 132–48. 18  Some examples of direct mentions of feudal concessions granted to milites castri by territorial lords may be found in Documenti per la storia di Arezzo, I, n. 289 (a. 1098), pp. 395–6.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

158  The Seigneurial Transformation Still, it is worth noting that is precisely around the year 1100 that we find the first written feudal concessions for many areas, along with the first records of genuine oaths of fidelity. In the same period we witness a considerable increase in the attestation of fideles and, to a lesser extent, of vasalli and valvassores in the sources, as well as in the mention of fega or feuda in the documents.19 The markedly higher number of attestations of fideles compared to that of feudal estates is due to the fact that—as we shall soon see in greater detail—oaths of fidelity in these areas, unlike in the North, are closely (and in some areas predominantly) associated not with feudal concessions but with different forms of (temporary) property transfer, such as libellum, precaria and emphyteusis.20 Whereas in the case of a feudal concession the oath of fidelity was simply taken for granted (to the point that it was only specified in those cases in which it had not been sworn), the situation was very different with these other forms of contract. The sacramentum fidelitatis was not intrinsically connected to these documents, which explains why the need was felt to record such sworn commitments in writing. It is important to note that in the period under consideration this occurred in experimental ways, which is to say in ways that varied on a case to case basis. Overall, it is possible to identify at least four different solutions. The first and most common one is represented by texts recording the actual oath of fidelity taken with regard to a personal dominus.21 The second solution, which was very seldom adopted, consisted in producing documents recording the whole ceremonial context of the promissory oath, and emphasizing gestures and ceremonial elements rather than the words uttered.22 Equally rare are those cases in which the very text of the concession specifies that the concessionaire is required not just to pay the annual census, but to ‘facere hominitia et fidelitatem’.23 One last and rather frequent solution was to only mention fidelitas within the context of a written pact designed to lay out in detail the mutual (and chiefly, albeit not exclusively, military) obligations between a lord and his fidelis.24 Notwithstanding their diverse nature, reflecting specific contexts, these texts largely shared the same aim, namely to certify in writing the existence of a formal relation of fidelitas between two individuals. This requirement of creating a written record was no doubt connected to the growing social importance of bonds of fidelity, which had come to play an increasingly crucial role in a conflict-ridden 19  Il Regesto di Farfa, V, n. 1012 (a. 1073), pp. 15–6 (fideles; Latium); Le carte di Sassovivo, I, n. 127 (a. 1100), pp. 194–5 (vasalli, Umbria). 20  Feller, ‘Elements de la problematique’. 21  One example from Romagna is provided in Fantuzzi, Monumenti ravennati, IV, n. 41 (a. 1097), p. 229; one from Latium in Il regesto sublacense, n. 206 (a. 1109), p. 246–7. 22  One rare example, concerning the northern Marche, is to be found in Compagnoni, Memorie istorico-critiche, V, n. 5b (a. 1124 c.), pp. 20–1. 23 A text pertaining to the Fermo area has been published in Liber iurium, n. 395 (a. 1103), pp. 719–20. 24  Il Regesto di Farfa, V, n. 1012 (a. 1073), pp. 15–6 (on the Sabina area).

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

Fidelity: A Pervasive Language  159 and politically fluid context. In these decades, being loyal to someone essentially meant being required to fight for him (but also—or perhaps especially—not to fight against him).25 The markedly experimental character of this particular period from a documentary perspective clearly shows that the problem of fidelity was regarded as a crucial one for which notaries had to find empirical solutions that varied depending on the area and specific context. Laying down the existence of relations of this sort in writing meant bestowing additional cogency upon them and further reinforcing them. Some useful guidelines for a more concrete grasp of the interaction between ritual and documentary practices are provided by the small dossier concerning the properties owned by the archbishop of Ravenna in the diocese of Osimo. These estates made up two extensive complexes: the massa Aternana and the massa Osimana.26 We will be focusing on the latter. Its earliest attestations date from the tenth century, when it was repeatedly given in emphyteusis—either as a whole or in quotas—to members of the high aristocracy of the Pentapolis.27 These contracts do not differ significantly from usual models and entail only the payment of an annual census on the concessionaires’ part. From the eleventh century onwards the concessions we have only concern half of the massa Osimana (with the other half fully remaining in the hands of the archbishop), which was regularly confirmed as the possession of the members of the powerful Gislerii clan, one of the most conspicuous families in the area. The concession now also ex­pli­ cit­ly included half of the three castles erected at the leaseholders’ behest in the late tenth century. In particular, in the first half of the twelfth century it seems as though the emphyteutic contract was renewed whenever a new archbishop of Ravenna was appointed, despite being in tertiam generationem (for three generations).28 This practice made it possible to avoid getting too close to the expiry of the contract, thereby safeguarding the concessionaires’ position. But it also made it possible to solemnly reaffirm, with every new generation, the relation between the two parties through the redaction of a written deed and the ­official ceremonies accompanying it. The regularity and uniformity of this series of documents clashes with an un­usual deed, which may be dated to around 1124 and was redacted at Castelbaldo (one of the castles of the massa Osimana) by a notary who was a member of archbishop Gualtiero’s entourage.29 This fragmentary document appears to be a brevis 25 One example, among many others, is to be found in Le carte di S.  Pietro di Perugia, n. 15 (a. 1130), p. 68–71. 26  Vasina, ‘Possessi ecclesiastici ravennati’. 27  Breviarium Ecclesiae Ravennatis, Appendice III, n. 17 (a. 958), pp. 220–3; n. 16 (a. 967), pp. 217–20; n. 9 (a. 980), pp. 201–3. 28 Compagnoni, Memorie istorico-critiche, V, n. 5a (1124), pp. 19–20; n. 6 (1147), pp. 21–2. 29 Compagnoni, Memorie istorico-critiche, V, n. 5b (a. 1124 c.), pp. 20–1. A different interpretation of the text and of its relation with the documentary dossier is offered by Castagnetti, ‘Feudalità e società comunale. II’, pp. 179–80.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

160  The Seigneurial Transformation describing the arrival of archbishop Gualtiero at Castelbaldo, an village he owned in the Osimo area.30 As this is a highly interesting document, and a particularly remarkable one given its early date, it is worth proving a succinct summary of it. The prelate arrived on horseback, leading a large entourage of clerics and laymen, to emphasize the twofold nature of the power he embodied. Upon arrival, he was greeted by the members of the Gislerii clan, to whom he had granted half of the castle in emphyteusis.31 These men placed their hands in those of the archbishop and then immediately kissed him, first on a hand and then on the mouth, thereby renewing their bond of fidelity to him as vassals. Subsequently, the members of the family each placed their right hand on the gospel and publicly swore an oath of fidelitas to the archbishop.32 Therefore, each vassal kissed his lord twice: a first time on the hand, to show his own inferiority, and a second time on the mouth, as an explicitly egalitarian gesture. This double gesture highlighted the simultaneously asymmetrical and egalitarian character typical of the relation of fidelitas between vassals and their lord.33 One deposition, referring to events which took place in the immediately ­following decades, allows us to fully grasp the social context of the document: according to the witness, the oath would be solemnly renewed during the recurring visits of the prelates of Ravenna to their estates in the Marche.34 It is possible to conclude, then, that the personal relationship between a lord and his emphyteutic leaseholders was a distinctly feudal one, at any rate in the case of the massa Osimana. The property granted constituted a remuneration for servitium and fidelitas, similarly to the case of estates granted more feudale in northern Italy. The example of archiepiscopal estates from the massa Osimana also clearly shows that the bond of fidelity continued to be strictly oral and gestural in nature, and that as late at the 1130s it was unlikely to be recorded in writing. The oath of fidelity

30 Compagnoni, Memorie istorico-critiche, V, n. 5b (a. 1124), pp. 20–1. 31 Compagnoni, Memorie istorico-critiche, V, n. 5a (a. 1124), pp. 19–20, where Gualtiero of Ravenna renews the Gislerii’s emphyteutic lease on half of the castles of Montecerro and Castelbaldo. 32 Compagnoni, Memorie istorico-critiche, V, doc 5b (a. 1124 c.), p. 21: ‘venerunt Baroccius filium quodam Galere et Rainerius et Rainaldus filii quodam Ubaldi, et Atto et Ugo filii quodam Gilerii et Albertus filius quodam Marci et Ubaldo et Rodulfo filii quodam Gilerii ad dominum Gualterium archiepiscopum sancte ecclesie Ravennatis et miserunt unusquisque manu sua in manibus predicti Gualterii Archiepiscopi et osculaverunt manus et os eius et facti sunt fideles per manus et post hec venerunt unusquisque ex eis et posuerunt manum suam dexteram super librum evangeliorum et fecerunt fidelitatem supradicte sancte ecclesie Ravenne et predicto Gualterio archiepiscopo ad adiuvandum retinere per bonam et rectam fidem predicto castro Ubaldi et Montecerri cum tota massa Auximana predicte ecclesie Ravenne et Gualterio archiepiscopo suisque successoribus contra omnis hominis per bonam et rectam fidem sine fraude et malo ingenio’. 33  Le Goff, ‘Les gestes symboliques’. 34 Compagnoni, Memorie istorico-critiche, V, n. 14 (a. 1223), p. 33, Orlando’s testimony: ‘Dicta castra pertinebant ad dominium et signoriam Ecclesie Ravennatis pro medietate. Aliam medietatem habebant nobiles et domini ipsorum locorum et pro ea iurabant fidelitatem Domino Archiepiscopo Ravenne et quod ipse testis semel iuravit fidelitatem quidam Archiepiscopo de cuius nomine non recordatur’. The witness, a very elderly nobleman, is discussing events which took place in his early youth, plausibly in 1160s.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

Fidelity: A Pervasive Language  161 itself is not quoted in full but only in an extremely condensed form, which is counterbalanced by the remarkably rich description provided for the ritual. The text, therefore, stands as a record of highly formalized acts and gestures which could not find any space in traditional munimina. Nevertheless, in a society increasingly used to laying down contracts and obligations in writing the need was felt to document even those aspects of the bond which, despite their crucial importance, had hitherto been confined to the oral and gestural sphere. This important text, so far largely ignored by historians investigating feudal bonds and the granting of benefices in Italy, is particularly relevant in my view because it provides an early and rich description of the homagium ceremony. The text is all the more significant because it comes from what is considered to be a completely marginal area as regards strictly feudal practices—not least in terms of the forms of documentation that distinguish it. Even in recent times scholars focusing on these issues—in relation to the period extending at least up to the mid-twelfth century—have tended to downplay the ritual and gestural aspect of such practices, which is seen to be lacking completely or at most to be only hinted at, at any rate by comparison to the oath of fidelity, which of course is far better documented.35 A text such as the one from the Osimo area, with its early yet ­well-structured formalization of the homage ritual, shows that a more cautious approach is required in evaluating the information from surviving documents. Clearly, for obvious practical reasons, these are more interested in recording oaths of fidelity than the gestures and actions accompanying them. It cannot be ruled out that as early as the decades around 1100 homage rituals accompanied many of the oaths of fidelity sworn in rural areas in central and northern Italy.36 Much the same applies to the bestowing of symbolic objects during the concession of estates: somewhat paradoxically, the first record we have for the granting of jurisdictional property rights through the bestowing of a vexillum (in this particular case, a spear)—a ceremony well attested in the last decades of the twelfth century—is the granting of the populus of Cremona to the milites of Soncino, in 1118.37 At least in our period, then, the documentation for ceremonials and actions revolving around fidelity would appear to consist of genuine ‘erratic boulders’; as such, it should be approached with particular caution. However, in acknowledging the differences between these social and documentary practices we should not overlook what in my view are the most significant elements, which instead suggest that we interpret these developments with 35  See esp. Albertoni, Feudi, vassalli, pp. 172–88; from this perspective, the development of the ritual of homage is chiefly connected to the flourishing of feudal rituals in the age of Frederick II, with the adoption of models from beyond the Alps. 36  Besides, one of the oldest visual representations of the ritual of homage in Europe comes from Latium, and dates to the years just after 1150. This is an image from the registry of the cathedral of Tivoli, reproduced in Il Regesto della chiesa di Tivoli, pl. 4; see also the observations in Kosto, Making Agreements, p. 284. 37  Le carte cremonesi, II, n. 273 (a. 1118), pp. 106–9.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

162  The Seigneurial Transformation an eye to parallels and overlaps, particularly if we wish to approach them through the lenses of fidelity. The first element is precisely the fact that, as the research conducted over the past two decades has shown, all the relations in questions were marked by fidelitas, which is to say by an oath of personal fidelity (whether associated with a gesture of homage or not). The second element is that fidelitas was largely linked to the granting of property (be it in the form of landed estates or of jurisdictional rights), and had a markedly military character. The third elem­ent is that all bonds of fidelity had the same structural function, namely to establish relations (generally hierarchical ones) within the aristocratic world, broadly understood as ranging from territorial princes to mere castle milites. The last element is that in all regional contexts these relations would only appear to have become widespread in the last two or three decades of the eleventh century. However, we should not forget that, no matter how widespread and pervasive bonds of fidelity may have been, they were far from being the only way of establishing relations within the ruling class. Bonds of kinship and affinity, spiritual bonds and actual pacts were all alternative ways of creating networks of relations, although they were marked by different features compared to relations based on fidelitas.38 I will be focusing in detail on pacts, and the social and documentary practices associated with them, later on. However, it is worth bearing in mind that all these relations coexist and variously interact with bonds of fidelity, ­providing the underlying context for them. They influence the way in which the language of fidelity was used, enriching or nuancing its content. Within such a complex framework, cases may also be found in which the senior and the fidelis are essentially of the same rank, and in which the bond established is more of an  alliance than a relation of subordination—as in the case of the counts of Biandrate and those of the Canavese, who were vassals and fideles of the bishops of Vercelli and Novara.39 Moreover, it was not all that unusual, at any rate within the sei­gnior­ial class, for a more powerful lord to become the fidelis of another, less important lord after being granted a specific estate (generally one or more castles) as a benefice, as in the case of the count of Savoy, who received Avigliana and Rivalta from the bishop of Turin.40 Obviously, this cannot amount to the subordination of the former to the latter; rather, it represents the establishment of a privileged bond between the two parties that found a suitable means of expression in the language of fidelity. In this respect, it is noteworthy that sworn pacts, however stringent, were perceived to be less binding than fidelitas in the strict sense. Early in 1081 count Ubaldo and his son Ugo, belonging to the family of the counts of Imola, had a disagreement with the archbishop of Ravenna, Guiberto. They then 38  This was the case in Catalonia, which is discussed in this respect by Ruiz Doménec, L’estructura feudal; Aurell, Les noces du comte. 39 Barbero, ‘Vassalli vescovili’; for similar examples from the Veneto area, see Castiglioni.  L’altro Feudalesimo. 40 Sergi, Potere e territorio, pp. 287–8.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

Fidelity: A Pervasive Language  163 visited the city’s chapterhouse and, in the presence of the prelate and of a large crowd of witnesses, submitted themselves to Guiberto. They promised the archbishop, his clerics, his successors, his nephews Guiberto and Ranierio, and the faithful, that in future they would not engage in any action that might somehow violate the rights or properties of the diocese of Ravenna. As a further guarantee for this sworn commitment, they handed over part of their estates as a pledge.41 The pacts established, however, did not last long and armed conflict between the two parties was resumed with even greater intensity. It finally came to an end when the archbishop’s troops seized the large comital castle of Donigallia, capturing count Ugolino. To regain his freedom, in 1097 he was forced to swear a solemn oath of fidelity to archbishop Guiberto, ‘sicut vassallus solet iurare domino suo’.42 Clearly, for Guiberto and other lords of his day, fidelitas offered far greater guarantees than the simple pacts established some fifteen years earlier. It may therefore be assumed that in the case of the counts of Biandrate and Savoy, who resorted to the language of fidelitas to define their alliance with the bishops of Vercelli and Turin, this was a way for them to emphasize their relation with the bishops by setting it within a more solid conceptual framework than that of pacts. In other cases still, sworn pacts go hand in hand with bonds of fidelity, further defining and clarifying their nature. This tendency is especially noticeable in central Italy (and in particular Latium). The extensive Farfa cartulary provides good documentary evidence in this respect.43 When Alberto di Bardone became the homo of the monastery and was granted as a benefice an estate on which to build a fortification, he promised the abbot of Farfa not to alienate the podium, not to use it against the monastery—but to support the latter against its enemies—and to make sure that after his death the melior of his sons and nephews would become a man of Farfa.44 What is far more complex is the convenientia between this monastery and a small group of its aristocratic fideles, which lays down in detail the co-management of the castles of Luco and Catino.45 It is interesting to note that in all these cases fidelitas is only mentioned in the texts of the sworn oaths; while the actual oath of fidelity has not been preserved (it was probably never written down at all), the sacramenta connected to it have been, because they both testify to the bond of fidelity and record the concrete sworn commitments it implies. The agreements entailed by or accompanying the oath of fidelity chiefly clarified political and military obligations. By contrast, in the case of the fidelitates of 41 Fantuzzi, Monumenti ravennati, II, p. 307. See Fasoli, ‘I conti e il comitato’, pp. 124–8. 42 Fantuzzi, Monumenti ravennati, IV, n. 41 (a. 1097), p. 229. 43  See Feller, ‘Elements de la problematique’; in addition to the texts mentioned in the following notes, see Il Regesto di Farfa, IV, n. 810 (a. 1080 c.), p. 213; V, n. 1248 (a. 1096), p. 230; n. 1313 (a. 1104), p. 299; for other similar examples, see Documenti per la storia di Arezzo, I, n. 309 (a. 1115), pp. 422–3; Le carte di S. Pietro di Perugia, n. 15 (a. 1130), pp. 68–71. 44  Il Regesto di Farfa, V, n. 1178 (a. 1109), pp. 178–9. 45  Il Regesto di Farfa, V, n. 1012 (a. 1073), pp. 15–16.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

164  The Seigneurial Transformation laymen towards religious institutions—especially monasteries—it is interesting to note that they were sometimes associated with the establishment of relations of a spiritual nature. These concerned the right/obligation for any members of the family who passed away to be buried in the church belonging to the institution in question and to receive the monks’ prayers. In such a way, fidelity also acquired a spiritual dimension that made it even deeper and more binding. In 1128, when a vassal of the abbey of Santa Fiora residing in the castle of Vicione, near Arezzo, died without leaving any heirs, his brothers Farolfo and Oderisio visited the abbot’s court and swore fidelity to him in the presence of a large crowd of witnesses, in exchange for the benefice formerly belonging to the deceased vassal. They also agreed to have themselves and their relatives buried in the monastery’s church.46 Similarly, in receiving a fief from the monastery, the lambardi (petty lords) of Dorna took the same obligations upon themselves.47 The fact that these commitments made the bond of fidelity even more binding is significantly confirmed by the querimonia submitted by the Farfa monks against the Gualcherii in the early twelfth century.48 Its drafter was particularly outraged by the fact that the kinship group in question, who had not just established a relation of fidelitas with the monastery but had also accepted spiritual commitments of this sort, had then gone to war against the monks, who prayed for the souls of their dead relatives on a daily basis. Nevertheless, it is worth stressing that in the vast majority of cases the language of fidelity—in accordance with its intrinsic nature—was used to define and structure hierarchical and vertical relations in order to lend substance and content to social and political superiority. From a qualitative perspective, one element worth stressing is the fact that most people bound to a lord by a relation of fidelitas belonged to the lower strata of the aristocracy. Practically every lord of a castle was the personal dominus of a group of ‘knights’ to whom he had granted estates or revenues as a concession. In exchange, these men were required to offer the dominus military assistance and their form of dependence was interpreted precisely through the lenses of fidelitas, which gave it its meaning and structure. Personal bonds of fidelity, therefore, were not only used to define and map out relations between territorial lords, but were also (and especially) used to define the relations binding the latter to the lower echelons of the aristocracy, i.e. the military clientèle that constituted the essential local basis of their power: the heterogeneous world of milites, equites and boni homines which—as we have seen— made up the elite of village societies. These men were granted not jurisdictional rights but landed goods (as feudal benefices, emphyteutic leases, libella, precaria 46  Documenti per la storia di Arezzo, I, n. 324 (a. 1128), p. 443. 47  Documenti per la storia di Arezzo, I, n. 309 (a. 1115), pp. 422–3. Also, consider the case of Otto of Calusco, who was buried in the abbey of San Benedetto di Leno, near Brescia, around 1150, precisely as vasallus of the abbey; see Vecchio, ‘I testimoniali del processo di Leno’, n. 3 (a. 1195), p. 375. 48  Chronicon Farfense, II, pp. 272–3.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

Fidelity: A Pervasive Language  165 or partly even allodial grants), which included personal rights over the peasant cultivating the land. Research analysing the development of bonds of fidelity in the Padua area has revealed that the bishop of Padua started assigning fiefs to milites in the closing decades of the eleventh century. However, it is more than likely that a similar process was also underway in the other bishoprics in this region, as is shown by the cases of Treviso and Vicenza. The large and well-structured military clientele network that is clearly evidenced by the extensive recording of fideles that began in the second half of the twelfth century first emerged around the year 1100.49 Even in the case of the abbey of Farfa, we have clear evidence of a steep rise in the ­number of equites connected to the abbot by bonds of personal fidelity in the same period.50 In other words, the militarization of local elites went hand in hand with the use of the language of fidelity to redefine their relationship with lords. This process is closely connected to the eruption of armed conflicts at the turn of the 1100s. In order to assert their power in this magmatic and uncertain context, lords needed an increasingly large clientele that could easily be mobilized; hence, they were forced to invest a considerable share of their property. They established links not just with influential families but also—and most notably—with a large number of simple milites directly dependent on them, who could be mobilized without the cumbersome intervention of vassals belonging to the capitaneal class. An effective illustration of this is provided by the overall survey of the vassals/fideles dependant on the bishop of Treviso that was made in 1171, but which describes a structure first established in its general outline around 1100.51 Compared to the over 300 direct vassals bound to the bishop by oaths of fidelity, the members of rural aristocratic families or prominent cives are very much in the minority. The vast majority of vassals are mere rural knights, for the most part from the villages under the bishop’s lordship. The emphasis on the vertical and hierarchical nature of bonds of fidelity notwithstanding, we should not overlook the elements of asymmetrical reciprocity characterizing these relations. The fidelitas and military (or more generally social) commitments defining them constituted a counterpart to the dominus/senior’s granting of estates to his men. However, a lord’s commitment was not limited to this, as it could also take the form of genuine oaths that, while technically not constituting oaths of fidelity, still presented significant points of contact with the latter. This further illustrates the synallagmatic nature of the relation established between the two parties. While oaths of fidelity are quite rare in the period under consideration, oaths sworn by a senior to his fidelis are rarer still. Particularly significant from this perspective is the small dossier comprising two oaths exchanged 49 Castiglioni. L’altro Feudalesimo, pp. 411–45; Rando, ‘I vassalli del vescovo’. 50  Il Regesto di Farfa, IV, n. 1324 (aa. 1119–25 c.), pp. 317–25. 51  Rando, ‘I vassalli del vescovo’.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

166  The Seigneurial Transformation by the abbot of Subiaco and two domini loci (father and son), bound to him by fidelity.52 One first interesting element is the fact that the language used in the two texts is very similar, even though the one formulated by the two lords (which is longer and more detailed) is a genuine oath of fidelitas, whereas that of the abbot obviously is not. Moreover, it is noteworthy that each dominus swears to his men that he will protect the estates granted to them (in this case, three castles), that he will not attempt to regain control of them, and that he will defend them against all enemies. As is usually the case, the dominus also commits himself to preventing ‘in facto vel in consensu ut vitam perdas aut membra vel apprensus sis’, provided that the two nobles respect their ‘fidelitatem [. . .] sicut modo iurastis’. The oath taken by the two domini includes first of all a generic commitment to behave ‘sicut bonus fidelis per directum observat fidelitatem suo domino’. A more specific commitment is the obligation to provide military aid to the abbot in order to defend all present and future monastic properties. The oath specifies that the three castles that constitute the linchpin of the relation are the abbot’s property and are managed by two lords—Ponza and Afile were probably only held in wardship, whereas Collaltulo had certainly been granted as a fief (in fegu). The pervasiveness of the language of fidelity is evident even outside the strictly seigniorial context. Urban proto-communes made rather widespread use of it, at least in northern Italy, to define relations of domination between urban political communities and the lords of the surrounding countryside, as the former progressively extended their authority over the latter. As we have previously seen, one of the tools used for this purpose was the oblate fief, which is particularly well documented in relation to Piacenza and Genoa, and which was connected of course to oaths of fidelitas.53 The urban community, therefore, acted in exactly the same way as the great lords or princes with which it interacted in the rural context. The proto-commune presented itself to those territorial lords who acknowledged its territorial authority as a genuine collective senior. Thus in 1137 the lord of the castle of Santa Margherita, in Emilia, swore on the Gospel before the consuls of Piacenza and the arengo (civic assembly) that from that moment onwards it would be fidelis to ‘populum placentiunum, maiori et minori’, committing himself to providing military aid to the latter and to upholding its rights over the castle.54 It is important to stress that the oath was sworn to the community as a whole (and not just the consuls). The fact that the senior in this case is not an individual 52  The two documents in question have been published in Il regesto sublacense, n. 5 (a. 1109), p. 88 (the abbot’s oath, which was not actually sworn by the abbot himself, but rather by a monk acting on his behalf); n. 206 (a. 1109), p. 246–7 (the oath of fidelity taken by the two lay lords). For some oaths that are almost certainly analogous to the former, see the oath of protection taken by the abbot of Farfa and some of his concessionaires in Il Regesto di Farfa, V, n. 1163 (a. 1103), p. 168, along with n. 1323 (a. 1120), pp. 316–17. 53  I Libri iurium di Genova, I,1, n. 41 (aa. 1132–3 c.), pp. 64–6 (Frascaro); nn. 48–50 (a. 1141), pp. 81–6; Il Registrum Magnum, I, n. 53 (a. 1126), pp. 102–4; n. 153 (a. 1141), pp. 319–22. 54  Il Registrum Magnum, n. 60 (a. 1137), pp. 120–1; see too n. 50 (a. 1132), pp. 95–7.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

Fidelity: A Pervasive Language  167 but a community makes no difference even from a ceremonial perspective. The ritual words and gestures are perfectly in line with those commonly used. In 1118 the representatives of Cremona granted the milites of Soncino rights over it per feudum using a spear and ensign; in exchange, each miles swore fidelity to the populus Cremonensis.55 The pervasiveness of the discourse of fidelity in the period under consideration becomes even more evident in the light of its spread in a different sphere, that of religious hierarchies. Of course, as we have seen, bishops and abbots had trad­ ition­al­ly been at the head of complex clientele networks of lay fideles since the Carolingian age. But this has to do with the civil, rather than spiritual and religious, nature of their power: in this respect, a bishop was not all that different from a count. What changed from the last decades of the eleventh century onwards was the fact that fidelitas also started to be used in order to define hier­arch­ic­al relations within religious structures themselves. Abbots and bishops started receiving actual oaths of fidelity from church rectors and their men. The relation of subordination between the two parties was interpreted through the prism of fidelitas, which was evidently perceived as a suitable language to define relations of this kind. One rather early example of these new practices is provided by a document recording the oath of fidelity—formulated in an explicitly feudal language—which the rector of the Umbrian monastery of San Pietro in Valle swore to his superior, the abbot of Farfa, in the early years of the twelfth century.56 The rector of the church swears to behave modo fidelis, to ensure that the abbot of Farfa ‘nec membra nec vita perdat’. He also promises to provide consilium whenever required. This document clearly illustrates the spread of fidelitas even in the monastic context, as a means to define the hierarchical relations between abbots, priors, and monks. Even in the eyes of a markedly conservative figure such as Gregorio of Catino, the redactor of the cartulary through which this text has reached us, a practice of this sort would have appeared perfectly legitimate. Besides, the text itself also includes another similar oath dating from the same years.57

55  Le carte cremonesi, II, n. 273 (a. 1118), pp. 106–8. 56  Il Regesto di Farfa, V, n. 1197 (aa. 1099–1119 c.), p. 192: ‘Ipse vero predictus abbas Valentinus firmavit hoc monasterium et dominum abbatem eiusque successores quod a modo fidelis foret nostrae ecclesiae et abbatibus, ut nec vitam nec membra perdant et consilium sibi creditum non prodat’. A less complex oath, yet one still centred on personal fidelitas, was sworn by the priest (presbiter) of the church of San Vincenzo di Celle to the same abbot of Farfa, Beraldo: see Il Regesto di Farfa, V, n. 1164 (aa. 1099–1119 c.), p. 168. On Gregorio’s conservatism, see Longo, ‘Gregorio da Catino’. A very similar text is the oath of fidelitas sworn, just after his appointment, by the new abbot of San Pietro in Asso to the bishop of Arezzo, under whose direct jurisdiction the church fell: see Documenti per la storia di Arezzo, I, n. 273 (a. 1087), pp. 373–4. A similar oath of fidelity was sworn by the deacon of the church of Santi Gervasio e Protasio at Sesto to the bishop of Lodi, who had entrusted him with the church in question: see Le carte della Mensa Vescovile di Lodi, n. 79 (a. 1156). These are not exceptional cases, as the documentary evidence for the following decades, which is more plentiful, shows that these practices had become widespread: see Mordini, ‘Aspetti della disciplina del feudo’. 57  Il Regesto di Farfa, V, n. 1164 (aa. 1099–1119 c.), p. 168.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

168  The Seigneurial Transformation Only a few decades earlier things had been very different, as is shown by the Chronicon Novalicensis, which was composed just after the middle of the eleventh century. In recounting the misdeeds and sacrileges perpetrated by the impious abbot Oddone around 1030–50, the anonymous author claims that ‘coegit ut monachi iurarent sibi fidelitatem quomodo et laici faciunt’.58 This elicited the monks’ indignation and one of the most highly esteemed among them was even thrown into gaol for refusing to take the oath—that he regarded as being completely incompatible with his monastic status. He was only released after taking the oath through a third party, unum ex famulis. So, while acts of this sort were not a complete novelty, given that—at least in certain restricted contexts—they had already been expected and implemented before the mid-eleventh century, within a few decades the way in which they were interpreted and perceived in the monastic sphere changed considerably. A profound rift is nonetheless evident between these two texts. The turning point can probably be set in the 1070s, when the very head of the Church, the Roman pontiff, chose to change the nature of the oath sworn by bishops when taking office. Clearly, this choice must be viewed within the framework of the monarchical reform of papal power.59 The ancient promissory oath, whose forms were laid out in the Liber Diurnus, chiefly entailed guarantees for the pontiff, as the head of the Church, in matters of faith and devotion, whereas the new formulation was largely modelled after the fidelitates which were becoming increasing common in society. The earliest version of the new type of oath dates back to 1073, and concerns Gregory VII’s ordination of the archbishop of Ravenna, Guiberto.60 Of the seven clauses that made up the oath sworn by the new prelate to the pontiff, only the last three pertained to ecclesiastical obligations: the first four were of a very different nature. The archbishop swore to be loyal to St Peter, to the Church, and the pope himself (as well as to his successors); to refrain from acts of treason; to respect the secrecy of the consilium; and to defend the papatus romanus and regalia sancti Petri, which is to say the land and jurisdictional rights of the church of Rome. It is evident that this section of the oath largely overlaps with the kind of acts of fidelitas which were becoming increasingly common among lay people. Therefore, the very moment in which a monarchical reform of the papacy was taking place, it was the Pope himself who enshrined the full le­git­im­acy of the use of fidelity—provided, of course, it was well-directed—within the ecclesiastical world, by using it to bind bishops to himself. From that moment onwards, any

58  For an account of abbot Oddone’s misdeeds, see La cronaca di Novalesa, pp. 334–9; the quote is from p. 338. 59 Cantarella, Il sole e la luna. 60  Liber Censuum, I, n. 148 (a. 1073), p. 417; see too the similar oath of fidelity that the patriarch of Aquileia swore to the pope in 1079, in Gregorii VII Registrum, VI,17a (a. 1079), p. 428. On this im­port­ ant document and on the process it illustrates, see Kantorowicz, The King’s Two Bodies, pp. 183–6; crucial reflections on this topic are also provided by Prodi, Il sacramento del potere, pp. 105–60.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

Fidelity: A Pervasive Language  169 doubt concerning the lawfulness of such practices on the part of churchmen was (almost) completely overcome, not just with regard to relations with the lay aristocracy—where the practices in question had long become standard—but also when it came to defining and formalizing hierarchical relations within the ecclesiastic sphere. Thus in 1119 the archbishop of Pisa Pietro, who had just been appointed metropolitan archbishop of Corsica by the pontiff, visit­ed the island to receive the Corsican bishops’ obedientiam et fidelitatem.61 Overall, it may be argued that the language of fidelity was key to defining relations within aristocratic society: the idea of hierarchy it implied made it a perfect means to lend shape and content to vertical relationships. Ceremonial actions, and in particular oaths, which revolved around such language were widespread in all sectors of the ruling class and lent shape to its internal relations. The process of recomposition of power structures after the most acute moment of political fragmentation also involved the imposition of bonds of fidelity to the prince (or lord) of an area on the part of the domini loci, who would acknowledge his hegemony. Besides, much the same use of fidelity was made by urban communities. At the same time, this language helped shape and structure the relation between individual lords and privileged (and militarized) sections of local communities. However, the language of fidelitas did not only permeate relations within the ruling class— in the broader sense of the term—but was also used to interpret the relations between domini loci and their subjects as a whole. While in the former case fidelity was expressed in more strictly personal terms, in the latter it acquired somewhat different overtones, of a territorial nature. Moreover, as regards relations within the aristocratic context, the years around 1100 witnessed a rise in the importance of personal bonds of fidelity and, in all likelihood, in their number as well, as is suggested by the pronounced increase in the mention of such relations in the documentary sources. However, compared to the previous historical phase, the period in question shows a considerable degree of discontinuity in the use of fidelitas as a means to define a lord’s relationship with his subjects. In the next section we will explore this process and its implications for the very conception of seigneurial power.

7.2  Subjects’ fidelity In early thirteenth-century central and northern Italy, it was common for all male adults of a subject community to swear an oath of fidelity to a given territorial lord (or urban commune)—a practice which endured in the following centuries. Numerous records of oaths survive from this period, along with the formulas 61  This is reported, with manifest pride, by the Gesta triumphalia, p. 20; it is worth recalling that this work was in all likelihood written by a clerk (roughly in the same years).

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

170  The Seigneurial Transformation used on such occasions by the representatives of dominus loci. We also have de­posi­tions providing plenty of examples that clearly illustrate the extent to which this practice was widespread in rural seigniories.62 These oaths were modelled after those used for the granting of fiefs and benefices, in terms of both the formulas and rituals adopted, yet the ways in which they were taken differ considerably. Sometimes the oath would be sworn by some representatives on behalf of all the members of a community, whereas at other times all male adults (except the elderly) were required to take the oath. The latter might be repeated annually or every five years; at other times, it was only sworn following the death of a lord and the transfer of his power into the hands of a successor.63 But while the swearing of oaths might take a variety of forms, in the eyes of both rulers and subjects it was a practice which defined the exercising of jurisdictional powers at a local level. However, if we shift our focus to the period at the turn of the 1100s, we find a very different situation: the sources become far more sporadic and less well-structured. It is important, therefore, not to project the picture we have for the following period into this previous stage. Rather, we should reassess the documentary evidence in an attempt to understand what it actually tells us about oaths of fidelity sworn by subjects, so as to better determine whether—and to what extent—this practice fits within the context of the restructuring of practices of local power and its mechanisms of legitimation. One first and important element worth stressing is the fact that roughly up until 1070 we find no real traces of oaths of fidelity sworn by all members of a rural community to the person of their lord, not even in those areas where the dominus had acquired traditional public prerogatives in terms of the exercising of authority and the administration of justice. What are missing are not just records of fidelitas that were actually sworn, or the formulas used for them, but even in­dir­ect mentions of such practices in other kinds of documents, such as pacts, franchises, or trial records. The only somewhat comparable texts are the promissory oaths (which our sources refer to as sacramenta firmitatis, firmitates, etc.) by which the members of a community would swear to uphold a lord’s ownership of the settlement they inhabited against any rivals and/or would acknowledge his local rights. It is important to stress the fact that these oaths were taken in areas where the districtus was actually in the lord’s hands; hence, they are closely connected to the dominatus loci and not to other forms of lordship, whether personal or land-based. One rather well-known and early example of this is the oath sworn

62 On Umbria and the Marche, see Fiore, Signori e sudditi, pp. 388–8; on Lombardy, Menant, Campagnes lombardes, pp. 503–5; on Piedmont, Provero, Le parole dei sudditi, pp. 53–64. 63  For a revealing series of examples of periodical oaths, see the Archivio Capitolare di Ascoli Piceno, F, libro IV, 11v (aa. 1230–4 c.), 24r-29r (a. 1234), 32r (a. 1230); G, 2, 2r (a. 1237); the formula used in these cases has been preserved in G, 2, 2r (a. 1237). See Cameli, ‘Note di diplomatica vescovile’; for further examples of oaths taken at different times, see e.g. Liber iurium, n. 99 (a. 1205), p. 208; Menant, Campagnes lombardes, pp. 503–5.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

Fidelity: A Pervasive Language  171 by the inhabitants of Inzago, not far from Milan, to the abbot of the monastery of Sant’Ambrogio in 1015.64 A rather similar case is the promise made to the bishop of Pistoia by the men of the castle of Sambuca, then under construction. The 55 heads of families committed themselves to building the castle, to never dispute the bishop’s ownership of it in any way, and to help him against anyone who would threaten his rights.65 However, these are not genuine oaths of fidelity, even though contemporary editors and scholars have defined them as such, interpreting them through the lenses of subsequent events. The words fidelis and fidelitas are wholly absent from the documents in question. These deeds, therefore, should rather be viewed within the framework of the establishment of pacts, and of the mutual commitments they involve, which—as we shall see in greater detail later on—are one of the distinguishing features of the relation between lords and subjects in this period. As further confirmation of this interpretation of the oaths in question, one might refer to a well-known text, namely the agreement between the abbot of Nonantola and the local community, dating from 1058. In this text, which takes the form of a convenientia, which is to say a pact, in exchange for their lord’s concessions the subjects commit themselves (among other things) to acknowledging his rights over the area and to safeguard his power. The above-mentioned deeds may therefore plausibly be interpreted as records of sworn commitments of this sort.66 One feature of the aforementioned promissory oaths is that they would appear to be occasional documents connected to key moments, such as the building of a new castle, as in the case of Sambuca, or the redefinition of local power balances, as in the case of Nonantola, or again the seizing of power by a new lord in a given inhabited centre. The first genuine record of oaths of this sort taken by members of an individual community, which is to say the first record we have which is not merely contingent, comes from the Lucca plain in the twelfth century.67 The oaths were sworn by a series of communities governed by the local bishop. These deeds have partly survived in the original, and partly through later copies which, based on a comparison with the original texts, would appear to be entirely reliable. Although these were only some of the inhabited centres under the prelate’s authority, it is more than likely that similar oaths were taken (and recorded) in all his territorial lordships. Moreover, it is interesting to note that—as the original document concerning Moriano shows—the oath was individually taken by all local male adults, whom the document lists one by one: an element which also

64  Le carte private milanesi, I, n. 74 (a. 1015), p. 175. 65  Regesta chartarum Pistoriensium, II: Vescovado, n. 8 (a. 1055), pp. 7–8. 66 Muratori, Antiquitates Italicae, III, coll. 241–4. 67 Wickham, Community and clientele, pp. 101–3.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

172  The Seigneurial Transformation points to the symbolic importance of this practice.68 The extensive episcopal archives in Lucca reveal that the recording of these deeds in writing was an entirely new practice—we have no earlier examples of it, not even occasional ones—which probably emerged in response to the threat posed to episcopal power by the entrenchment of the urban commune and by the growing demands made by the imperial margrave of Tuscany at the time. What is less clear is whether the practices recorded in these texts were themselves new, or whether they had originated a few decades before. While it is impossible to answer this question, in the light of what has been argued so far it seems rather unlikely that the oaths from the Lucca area could be traced back to the 1070s, when the prelate’s lordship started acquiring a territorial character. Another significant element is the fact that these texts explicitly refer to the need to periodically repeat the oath. They stated that unless the oath was sworn to every single bishop after his election, it would no longer be valid. Thus, while the intervals at which the oath was taken were still rather long, we can detect a tendency to repeat this ritual practice, with its strong symbolic implications. In other words, the need was felt to repeat the act in order to reaffirm and confirm the bond between lords and subjects, as later occurred with the use of genuine oaths of fidelity. The stabilization and extension of the dominatus loci, therefore, went hand in hand with the spread of such practices in the countryside, with their increasing recording in writing, and with a tendency to periodically repeat them. From the last decades of the eleventh century onwards, however, it seems as though some new features emerged within the framework just outlined, in connection to the introduction of the language of fidelity in this particular domain. We should not underestimate this element: resorting to the concept and language of fidelitas within the context of pledge-taking also meant—at least to some extent—redefining and more clearly delineating the relation between lords and subjects. Turning subjects into fideles meant reinforcing the cogency of their obligations. As we have seen when examining relationships in the aristocratic world, fidelitas was regarded as a more binding relation than the one simply based on sworn pacts. Setting subjects’ sworn commitments within the framework of fidelity meant strengthening them, significantly enhancing their personal bond with their lord, and emphasizing its vertical and hierarchical nature to the detriment of the pactional element, which was thereby weakened. It is important, therefore, to ascertain when and how this redefinition took place, seeing that—for the aforementioned reasons—it was destined to become so widespread. To find any mention of a genuine oath of fidelitas imposed on subjects as such we must wait until 1073, when pope Gregory VII wrote a letter concerning the inhabitants of Imola, who in the immediately previous years had sworn fidelitas 68  The text of the oath has been published in Bertini, Memorie e documenti per servire all’istoria di Lucca, IV, p. 241. On this text, see the analysis in Wickham, Community and clientele, pp. 98–104.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

Fidelity: A Pervasive Language  173 to the papacy.69 The archbishop of Ravenna Guiberto now expected these people to swear sacramenta fidelitatis to himself, to the detriment of the honor of St Peter. While this particular oath was mentioned because of the conflict it had led to, the fidelitas required of the inhabitants of Imola can hardly have been an isolated occurrence: it seems most likely that, in the same period, the newly appointed archbishop of Ravenna demanded a similar oath from the inhabitants of the many (rural and urban) centres he either controlled or—as in the case with Imola—lay claim to, based on imperial charters and other privileges.70 It is interesting to note how just before the imposition of these oaths of fidelity on subjects, pope Gregory himself had redefined his superior standing vis-à-vis the prelate of Ravenna through the typical language of fidelitas, as we have seen in the previous section.71 Indeed, it may be supposed that this redefinition served as a more or less direct way to redefine even the relationship between the archbishop and his subjects. At any rate, it is plausible to assume that this was merely a coincidence, due to the increasing attractiveness of the fidelitas model as a means to define and formalize vertical political and social relations. From that moment onwards, indirect references and explicit testimonies to ‘territorial’ fidelitates became more and more numerous.72 By 1080 or thereabouts the inhabitants of the castle of Gerano, in Latium, were already required to swear fidelity to the lords who jointly ruled the area, namely the abbot of Subiaco and the bishop of Tivoli.73 In the letters of privilege which the bishop of Fermo issued to the major communities under his authority between the late eleventh and early twelfth century, it is clearly stated that local residents were required to take an oath of fidelity acknowledging his territorial rights.74 As early as the first decades of the twelfth century, even in the rural settlements under the direct control of the abbey of Farfa the whole populus was required to swear fidelity to the abbot, so

69  Register Gregors VII., I, n. 10 (a. 1073), pp. 16–17. See Cantarella, ‘Imola tra il papato e l’impero’. 70 Pallotti, Pubblici poteri, pp. 90–5. 71  Liber Censuum, I, n. 148 (a. 1073), p. 417. 72  Some examples from southern Umbria and Latium are mentioned in Carocci, ‘Feudo, vassallaggi’, pp. 51–2; for western Liguria we have the oath of fidelitas sworn to the men of Ceriana to the bishop of Genoa and the clerics of San Lorenzo, the joint rulers of the area, around 1124, as ­mentioned in Liber privilegiorum ecclesia ianuensis, n. 10 (a. 1124 c.), pp. 25–6; at Ostiglia (halfway between Verona and Ferrara), already by the first decades of the twelfth century (and certainly from the 1110s onwards), vicini were required to swear fidelitas to the local lord, the abbot of San Zeno: see ‘Appendice’, to Castagnetti, Il processo per Ostiglia, n. 1 (ante a. 1151), pp. 317–69; among other testimonies, see that by Giraldo Gastaldo, pp. 321–2: ‘Ego recordor quod quando abbas Silvester intravit, venit Ostiliam et sonantibus campanis suscepimus eum et omnes nos vicini Ostilie fecimus ei fidelitatem’. 73  Il regesto sublacense, n. 48 (aa. 1073–85 c.), p. 88: ‘homines eiusdem castri tam episcopo quam et abbati fidelitatem iuraret’. 74  Liber iurium, n. 35 (a. 1115), pp. 65–8 (Montolmo); n. 15 (a. 1116), pp. 18–22 (Poggio San Giuliano); n. 108 (a. 1128), pp. 231–3 (Montesanto); however, already before 1086 similar letters of privilege had been issued to the two major centres of Civitanova and Agello: see n. 43 (a. 1086), pp. 78–80. The surviving documents are explicitly modelled after the earlier letter of privilege issued to Civitanova; therefore, it is likely (albeit not certain) that the two lost texts already contained a reference to fidelitas.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

174  The Seigneurial Transformation much so that when abbot Guido stepped down from office, around 1120, he released all subjects de fidelitate vel sacramento they had sworn to him.75 Regrettably, judging from our present knowledge, there are no records of genuine oaths of fidelitas sworn by subject to territorial lords before 1100, but only mentions of such oaths in sources of a different nature. However, the ‘technical’ meaning and relevance of the term fidelitas in the political language of this age suggests that the oaths in question at least partly differed from those previously mentioned, and that the sworn commitments previously outlined were combined with a promise of ‘fidelity’ to the person of the lord, as was to become standard by 1200. Besides, this impression is fully confirmed by one of the earliest collective fidelitates, that sworn by the men of the castle of Vivaio to the archbishop of Pisa in the years 1114-1115. The oath has been preserved in an original document, which allows us to rule out any later interpolations.76 In terms of most of its content, this text does not significantly differ from those previously mentioned. The castellani et habitatores committed themselves to defending the lord’s ownership of the castle and to safeguarding his rights. Yet an element of novelty and discontinuity is introduced in the first part of the oath: the inhabitants swore fidelitatem to the prelate and committed themselves, in facto vel consilio, to ensuring that he would not lose vitam vel membra (life or limbs), or be made prisoner. This section of the text is unequivocally phrased in the same way as traditional aristocratic oaths of fidelity, after which it would appear to have been modelled. The oath of fidelity, therefore, did not replace the old promissory oaths but was rather integrated with them, so as to enrich them and further define (and hence make more binding) the relationship they established or confirmed. Moreover, through this process of enrichment at least some of the rituals and gestures developed for aristocratic oaths of fidelity were incorporated into collective oath-­taking ceremonies. This is the case with genuflection and the immixio manum, or kissing of the hand, whereas those elements (such as the kissing of the mouth) which suggested an equal status—and hence were unsuited to expressing the subordination of mere villains to a lord—were obviously eliminated.77 Be that as it may, the process was a long and gradual one. As late as the 1120s, which is to say half a century after the fidelitates that the archbishop of Ravenna required of his 75  Il Regesto di Farfa, IV, n. 1324 (aa. 1119–25 c.), p. 324: ‘Predictus Guido omni conventui nostro abbatiam refutavit et virgam reddidit, omnesque nostros equites et populum abbatiae de fidelitate vel sacramento sibi edito absolvit’. As the rest of the document in question suggests, the expression populus abbatiae is clearly used to refer to the people living within the castra directly under the abbey’s control. 76  Carte dell’archivio arcivescovile di Pisa, II, n. 28 (a. 1114–5), pp. 53–4. 77  Archivio di Stato di Ascoli Piceno, Archivio segreto anzianale, Q, I, 1 (a. 1279), testimony from Paolo di Cengio: ‘nobiliores, facto sacramento fidelitatis, abbas dicti monasterii recipiebat eos ad osculum, alii prestato sacramento osculabant eius manus’. Much the same ritual was performed by the low-ranking subjects of the prior of Chiaravalle di Fiastra: ‘nunc mitto manus meas infra vestras manus, vestras osculando [. . .] et tacto libro iuro per sancta dei evangelia predicta facere’; see Le carte di Chiaravalle, VI, n. 121 (a. 1242), p. 222.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

Fidelity: A Pervasive Language  175 subjects, in the series of collective oaths taken by members of communities under the political authority of the bishop of Lucca we find no trace of the ­language of fidelity. Even a great lord of the period, who was perfectly familiar with the bonds of fidelity and made wise use of them to manage his aristocratic clientele, might not feel the need to redefine the traditional forms of oath-­taking for his ‘territorial’ subjects.78 Nonetheless, the road had been paved for the increasing spread of the discourse of fidelitas. Over the following decades, the complete crystallization of the model of seigniorial power was to lead to its ­generalization. One section from the oldest part of the Libri feudorum, dating from around 1140, clearly shows that in the Po Valley, in the period in question, alongside the fidelitas associated with the holding of feudal estates a new kind of fidelitas connected to territorial iurisdictio became established.79 As the seigneurie lost its precarious nature and developed into a permanent institution, fidelity—with the verticality it implied—gradually replaced the pactional dimension even in oaths defining relations between subjects and lords. Besides, it is precisely in the years just after 1130 that we find the first oaths of territorial fidelity sworn by the members of rural communities directly under the control of urban communes. This clearly shows how the language of fidelitas had been extended to relations of power in the countryside. Thus in 1144 the men of Montaldo, a castle in the Appennines governed by Genoa (jointly with Tortona), swore that they would be ‘fidelis comuni Ianue ut bonus vassallus suo domino et non ero in consilio neque in facto neque in asensu ut comune Ianue perdat medietatem Montis Altis’.80 Having ascertained the growing importance of this particular political language within the framework of local territorial power, along with the reasons for its success, we must now turn to consider its possible sources. In this respect, two possible paths of enquiry are open to us: the first takes oaths of fidelity sworn to a lord by military retainers as its starting point; the second, oaths sworn to a sovereign by his subjects. The first path is no doubt the more obvious one, and has trad­ition­ally been the focus of the historiography. So let us set out from milites, who (for various reasons) were granted benefices from a lord; as we have previously seen, they were bound to their local dominus by oaths of fidelity. The lord, therefore, would expect an oath of fidelitas from the upper social echelons of each village. 78  On the bishop of Lucca’s use of bonds of fidelity in relation to his aristocratic clientele, see Savigni, ‘Rapporti vassallatico-beneficiari’. 79 Lehmann, Consuetudines Feudorum, VIII, 11: ‘Qualiter autem jurare debeat videamus: ‘Iuro ego ad haec sancta evangelia quod a modo in antea ero fidelis huic, sicut debet esse vasallus domino, nec id, quod mihi sub nomine fidelitatis commiserit, alii pandam me sciente ad ejus detrimentum’. Si vero [. . .] fidelitatem jurat, non quia feudum habeat sed quia de iurisdictione ejus sit cui iurat, nominatim vitam, mentem, membrum et illius rectum honorem iurabit’. On the textual stratification of the Libri feudorum, see Di Renzo Villata, ‘La formazione dei Libri feudorum’. 80  I Libri iurium di Genova, I,1, n. 70 (a. 1144), pp. 116–17.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

176  The Seigneurial Transformation Nevertheless, it is worth recalling that in northern Italy, in the first decades of the twelfth century, even famuli (which is to say those retainers most closely bound to their lords) would swear personal fidelity to their lords using formulas that by and large were akin to those employed by vassals, at any rate judging from the Libri feudorum.81 The idea of extending this kind of hierarchical relation to an entire community—albeit no longer on the basis of the concession of property and/or of a person bond, but rather simply based on the criterion of residence— ought not to have struck the dominus loci as something implausible, at any rate once seigniorial power had become entrenched in society. It was only a matter of integrating the already widespread ‘territorial’ and collective promissory oaths with the elements typical of personal fidelitas in order to further reinforce and hierarchically define the lord’s relationship with local society as a whole. Although this hypothesis may be enough to quite effectively explain the introduction of the discourse of fidelity in sworn promissory oaths, in my view it is important not to underestimate the other possible source, namely the traditional oaths of fidelity sworn to a king by his subjects, even though this element has ­generally been ignored by scholars investigating the topic.82 The earliest data ­pertaining to these practices come from the early Carolingian age. As is widely known, Charlemagne required all subjects in his empire to swear an oath of fidelity to the person of the sovereign on repeated occasions. Despite current scepticism concerning the degree to which this measure was actually applied, one significant element is the fact that precisely in Italy we find an extensive list of oath-takers from a small rural community.83 Obviously, this means that even though the oath may not have been taken by all (adult male) inhabitants of the empire, at least one effort was made to apply the decree. As regards the subsequent period, we do not know whether—at least from time to time—similar oaths were required and sworn on a wide scale, or whether they were taken only occasionally and mostly by leading political actors. The first hypothesis should not be ruled out a priori; we need only consider the fact that in England, the most ‘Carolingian’ European kingdom of its day, such practices were still being systematically applied in the very first decades after the Norman conquest, as is evident from some occasional references in the chronicles of the

81 Lehmann, Consuetudines Feudorum, VIII, 11, on famuli. Oaths of personal fidelity sworn by low-ranking retainers are widely attested for the subsequent period, from the mid-twelfth century onwards: see for instance, with reference to Umbria and the Marche, Fiore, Signori e sudditi, pp. 269–83. See also the oaths made by the household servi of Santa Fiora, in Tuscany; Documenti per la storia della città di Arezzo, I, n. 293, (a. 1100 c.), pp. 400–2: ‘Ex quo natus est Viventius, qui iuravit abbati Rodulfo sicut servus domino’ (p. 401). 82  See e.g. Menant, Campagnes lombardes, pp. 503–7. 83  On these matters see, in general, Becher, Eid und Herrschaft, pp. 78–89. The Italian list, drafted in the early decades of the ninth century and recording the names of no less than 174 oath-takers, has been published in Capitularia Regum Francorum, I, n. 181 (early ninth century), pp. 377–8; the text is discussed in McKitterick, Charlemagne, p. 269.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

Fidelity: A Pervasive Language  177 period and in the Domesday Book.84 As regards Italy, one first piece of evidence is provided by an oath sworn to the papacy by the inhabitants of Imola in the late 1060s, on the occasion of the city’s annexation to the papal lands.85 Indeed, it is likely that an oath of this sort did not concern Imola alone, but at least part of the centres under the pope. Even the German kings, during their expeditions in Italy, would receive collective oaths of fidelity on the subjects’ part; the narrative sources sometimes explicitly refer to practices of this kind, at any rate in relation to cities. For example, Ekkehard states that when Henry V visited Piacenza in 1110, he received ‘munera copiosa et magnam fidelitatem a civibus’.86 In this respect, it seems quite plausible to suppose that oaths of fidelity were taken by subjects in many (if not all) of the centres visited by sovereigns during their ­travels, particularly considering the systematic use of the terms fideles or fidelitas in charters from the second half of the eleventh century, including ones issued to urban or rural communities:87 Such practices must have provided a significant source of inspiration for lords: just as the latter had appropriated the traditional prerogatives of royal power, enriching and restructuring them, they could look to oaths of fidelity to the sovereign in order to remodel the forms of submission imposed on their own subordinates. These two possible sources for ‘territorial’ oaths of fidelity to a lord ought not be seen as mutually exclusive. In my view, both provided significant elements which, once reinterpreted and combined with the kind of promissory oaths taken by subjects, probably gave rise to collective fidelitates. It was in any case at the turn of the 1100 that, in parallel to the generalization of the seigniorial model and its crystallization, a process of redefinition of subjects’ promissory oaths emerged that affected the very way in which the relationship between a dominus and his subjects was interpreted and represented at the symbolical and ceremonial level. Fidelitas helped strengthen the personal bond between a lord and those under his rule, but also to emphasize its vertical dimension to the detriment of the pactional one, which was very widespread yet structurally more fragile and, by its very nature, more likely to be challenged by subjects. The pactional dimension of power, which represents one of the key elements for legitimation in the period under consideration, will be the focus of the next chapter.

84  Werckmeister, ‘The political Ideology’. 85  Register Gregors VII., I.10 (a. 1073), pp. 16–7. 86 Ekkeard, Chronicon, p. 244. 87  See e.g. the grant issued to the inhabitants of Lazise, in Diplomata Henrici IV., n. 287 (a. 1077), pp. 374–6.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

8

Pacts The Foundations of a New Legitimacy

The crisis of the model of legitimation founded upon royal authority paved the way—as we have seen—to a phase of profound redefinition of the very system of  political communication and of the legitimation strategies adopted by local authorities. Within a context marked, on the one hand, by the transformation of the concrete administration of power and, on the other, by considerable military competition, investing in relations with other political actors and with local communities became a priority for any process of consolidation and legitimation of royal power (but also other forms of power). Political balances, on various levels (local, sub-regional, regional, etc.), were characterized by a high degree of fluidity and were largely based on concrete power relations that were open to constant redefinition. This inevitably made them fragile and exposed to constant threats, both from within and from without. For a dominus loci, to act in a context of this sort meant operating on two distinct yet equally crucial levels: on a horizontal level, he needed to define his relations with any peers operating in the same area and to mark out each actor’s field of action, but also—and most importantly—he needed to establish himself as a worthy counterpart; on a vertical level—yet proceeding from the top-down, hence in an opposite direction compared to the old channelling of legitimacy from the royal authorities—a lord needed to define his relations to his subjects and, more concretely, to the individual local communities within his domain, in such a way as to earn their support and establish himself as the dominus loci. Within the context of this twofold effort by lords to strengthen and entrench their hegemony over local societies—an effort directed both within and without the territory to which they lay claim—the language of pacts played a crucial role, for reasons that are all too obvious. First of all, the crisis of royal power (and, in Latium, of pontifical power) made it impossible to rely on the legitimacy stemming from an acknowledged political authority. Second, as noted in the previous chapter, the language of fidelity, by virtue of the idea of hierarchy it implied, could be used to define and map out only some of the many relations between the various independent political actors operating in the same territory. At the same time, the power exercised over local communities was often too recent and fluid to be based exclusively on territorial fidelitas, which—as we have just seen—was only fully developed and formalized around the year 1100. The Seigneurial Transformation: Power Structures and Political Communication in the Countryside of Central and Northern Italy, 1080–1130. Alessio Fiore, Oxford University Press (2020). © Alessio Fiore. DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198825746.001.0001

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

Pacts: The Foundations of a New Legitimacy  179 Therefore, it was necessary to set the complex web of relations, duties and demands that connected each dominus loci to his equals, but also to the local communities subject to him, within a discourse capable of assigning it meaning and of bestowing legitimacy upon the prerogatives the lord lay claim to, as well as upon the concrete displays of power by the parties involved. This discourse was the language of pacts. Two small examples may help provide a rough outline of these horizontal and vertical agreements, and of the language in which they were couched. The first example concerns an agreement struck between two lords, the abbot of Subiaco and the bishop of Tivoli, over their shared management of the castle of Gerano, in the Tivoli area.1 Through the mediation of pope Gregory VII, the two sides drew up a series of detailed pacts concerning their control and management of the ­castrum, which was owned in equal portions by the abbot and the bishop. Any violation of fidem entailed the paying of a substantial fine, half to the Pope, as the mediator in the agreement, and half to the other contracting party. The second example is instead more ‘vertical’ in nature. At Marzana, near Verona, an agreement was struck in 1120—and recorded in the form of a specific document (pactum)—between the canons of Verona, the lords of the village, and the local vicini (the inhabitants of Marzana).2 The former committed themselves to building first some walls and then a tower at their own expense, while the latter specified the future modes of administration of justice and the main levies imposed on their community (both of which they evidently sought to limit compared to the previous period). Moreover, the two parts reached an agreement concerning the possible influx of famuli into the village. In the event of a violation of the contract, the guilty party would pay no less than 50 lire to the other. Following an established practice, two identical copies of the breve were made, one for each party: something that further stressed the reciprocal and synallagmatic nature of the transaction. In this regard, however, it is worth noting that in certain cases the obligations agreed to by each contracting party were recorded as separate documents and that each of the two parties was given the document recording the promise made by the other; in some cases, both parties would receive a copy of either document.3 As these examples clearly illustrate, the language of pacts, with its distinctive flexibility, was probably the best means within this complex context to redefine

1  Il regesto sublacense, n. 48 (a. 1073–85 c.), p. 88. 2  Le carte del capitolo di Verona, I, n. 48 (a. 1121), pp. 96–9. 3  See, for example, the agreements between the abbot of Farfa and the Stablamonenses, in Il Regesto di Farfa, V, nn. 1179–80 (a. 1113), p. 179. For obvious reasons, it is quite unlikely for both documents to be available: we are more likely to have only the promise made to the ecclesiastical institution by the other party in the agreement, via the institution’s archives. One example is Il Regesto di Farfa, V, no. 1277 (not dated but a. 1100 c.), p. 251; another is Liber iurium, n. 206 (a. 1128), pp. 385–6.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

180  The Seigneurial Transformation the mutual relations between the many actors operating in a local context. Pacts established a framework of reciprocity capable of assigning social meaning to a wide range of power practices that might otherwise have seemed unconnected and arbitrary, in such a way as to create a system of mutual legitimation ‘from below’ between the various parts. In the following pages I will be discussing in detail the use of this language and the documents connected to it, by focusing first on the relations between lords and then on those between lords and their subjects.4

8.1  Pacts between lords The aspect I will be examining in the next pages is relationships among equals in the seigneurial world. I wish to consider to what extent the language of pacts constituted an actual novelty introduced in the decades around 1100, at any rate in the specific context of the aristocracy. This is hardly an unexplored topic. In fact, we can benefit here from certain regional analyses conducted in recent years, which have chiefly focused on central Italy, and especially Tuscany. As regards this region, the more or less marked dearth of written sources on strictly feudal relations, by contrast to northern Italy, has led scholars to focus on sources recording pacts, in an attempt to understand the nature of the web of relations within the varied aristocratic world and its ­concrete functioning.5

4  On these problems see also Fiore, ‘Refiguring local power’. 5  Brancoli Busdraghi, ‘Patti di assistenza giudiziaria’; Spicciani, ‘Concessioni livellarie’; Cortese, Signori, castelli, pp. 113–52. In our period, a very partial list about central Italy comprehends: Il regesto sublacense, n. 48 (a. 1073–85 c.), p. 88; Il Regesto di Farfa, IV, n. 810 (a. 1080 c.), p. 213; V, n. 1012 (a. 1073), pp. 15–16; n. 1067 (a. 1082), pp. 63–4; n. 1078 (a. 1083), pp. 73–4; n. 1248 (a. 1096), p. 230; n. 1277 (not dated but a. 1100 c.), p. 251; n. 1313 (a. 1104), p. 299; n. 1178 (a. 1109), pp. 178–9; Liber iurium, n. 43 (a. 1086), pp. 78–80; n. 274 (a. 1108), pp. 502–4; n. 65 (a. 1108), pp. 136–40; n. 284 (a. 1117), pp. 517–18; n. 206 (a. 1128), pp. 385–6; n. 80 (a. 1130), pp. 172–4; Le carte di Sassovivo, I, n. 28 (a. 1084), pp. 44–6; n. 29 (a. 1084), pp. 46–50; n. 56 (a. 1086), pp. 88–9; n. 139 (a. 1101), pp. 210–11; II, n. 117 (a. 1143), pp. 142–3; Carte di Chiaravalle di Fiastra, I, n. 13 (a. 1098), pp. 37–40; Codice diplomatico di Gubbio, n. 67 (a. 1097), pp. 212–13; n. 1076 (a. 1083), pp. 71–2; Le carte di Santa Maria, I, n. 74 (a. 1120), pp. 132–3; I regesti di S. Vittore n. 88–89 (a. 1105), pp. 46–7; Le carte di San Pietro, n. 15 (a. 1130), pp. 68–71; Le carte dell’archivio arcivescovile di Pisa, II, n. 3 (a. 1104), pp. 6–7; Documenti per la storia di Arezzo, I, n. 324 (a. 1128), p. 443; ‘Appendice’ to, Annales camaldulenses, III, n. 68 (a. 1090, but a. 1092), col. 99; Archivio di Stato di Firenze, Diplomatico, Coltibuono, S. Lorenzo, n. 290 (a. 1115); n. 547 (end eleventh century); Archivio di Stato di Firenze, Diplomatico, Santa Trinita (pergamene della badia di S. Fedele di Poppi già a Strumi, acquisto), 1108 February. In northern Italy such texts are (for reasons that I will discuss below, at the end of this paragraph) later and less numerous; we can remember: Le carte di S. Ambrogio di Milano, III/1, n. 7 (a. 1105); a document from Piedmont edited in Un’antica cronaca, pp. 83–4 (a. 1114); Le carte del capitolo di Verona, I, n. 46 (a. 1120), pp. 93–5; Le pergamene del secolo XII della Chiesa Maggiore di Milano, n. 6 (a. 1120); Documenti cremonesi, II, n. 247 (a. 1102), pp. 62–3; Libro verde, n. 110 (a. 1117), pp. 247–9; Le carte della Mensa Vescovile di Lodi, n. 39 (a. 1126); Le carte del monastero di S. Sepolcro di Astino, II, n. 13 (a. 1120); n. 32 (a. 1123); ‘Appendice’ to, Ansani, ‘Appunti sui brevia’, n. 2 (a. 1127), pp. 151–2.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

Pacts: The Foundations of a New Legitimacy  181 As far as Tuscany is concerned, researchers have ascertained that the first ­ ritten pacts regarding mutual judicial and military aid—de placito et besonnio— w between lords had already started circulating by the mid-eleventh century. These acts reveal the mounting uncertainty of the political context, the increasing militarization of conflicts, as well as a growing awareness within the aristocratic world of how crucial and strategic relations with vicini and equals had become to preserve (or increase) local power.6 While the central authorities, particularly in an area such as Tuscany, where the structures of margravial power remained very solid up until 1080 at least, preserved a considerable capacity to act, local contexts were becoming more and more central to the definition of power balances: these texts clearly reveal the need to establish increasingly formalized and cogent networks and ties of solidarity, as also witnessed by a parallel increase in the sources of references to relations based on vassalage and personal fealty.7 It seems as though to some extent the increased weakness of the relation with the central authorities was balanced by a greater investment in relations with equals. The moment in which margravial power started tottering, in 1070, the number of these documents increased significantly. They became even more common after 1080 and remained very frequent throughout the first half of the twelfth century.8 In Umbria and the Marche the boom in written pacts between noblemen and lords operating in the countryside can clearly be dated to the mid-1070s, which is to say to roughly the same period as in the march of Tuscany. Within this context, the social function exercised by documents de placito et besonnio in Tuscany would appear to have been taken over by convenientiae, agreements recorded in a brevis by which the two social actors (often high-ranking ones, at any rate in the sources from this area) lay out their mutual relations, commitments, obligations, and duties. These very flexible documents were ideally suited to recording complex agreements that could vary significantly depending on the context:9 from the recording of alliances to the division of assets, from the definition of boundaries to the acknowledgement of certain prerogatives over things or individuals.10 Many convenientiae from this area deal with the powers of a lord over his subordinates in an area under the political control of another lord—something which

6  Brancoli Busdraghi, ‘Patti di assistenza giudiziaria’. 7  On the case of the territory of Firenze, see Cortese, Signori, castelli, pp. 113–52. 8  Brancoli Busdraghi, ‘Patti di assistenza giudiziaria’. 9  On this, see Fiore, Sudditi e signori, pp. 148–51. On the origins of this documentary typology, see Kosto, ‘The convenientia’. 10  Other examples from the Marche and Umbria: Liber iurium, n. 43 (a. 1086), pp. 78–80; n. 274 (a. 1108), pp. 502–4; n. 65 (a. 1108), pp. 136–40; n. 284 (a. 1117), pp. 517–18; n. 51 (a. 1146), pp. 103–5; Il Regesto di Farfa, IV, n. 900 (a. 1059), p. 294 ; V, n. 1067 (1082), pp. 63–4 ; Le carte di Sassovivo, I, n. 29 (a. 1084), I, pp. 46–50; n. 28 (a. 1084), pp. 44–6; I, n. 56 (a. 1086), pp. 88–9; I, n. 139 (a. 1101), pp. 210–11; II, n. 117 (a. 1143), pp. 142–3; n. 167 (a. 1153), p. 195; Carte di Chiaravalle di Fiastra, I, n. 13 (a. 1098), pp. 37–40.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

182  The Seigneurial Transformation also reveals the close connection between the process of seigneurialization and the increase in written pacts. One typical example is the 1075 text by which a small group of aristocrats from the Piceno area, the Aldonenses, committed themselves not to launch any military attacks against the settlement of Civitanova, controlled by the bishop of Fermo. In return, the latter committed himself to safeguarding the rights that the Aldonenses exercised per consuetudinem over the local inhabitants.11 A largely similar agreement was struck between the Monaldi counts and the chapterhouse of San Feliciano, concerning those individuals working for the church who resided in the territory of Pisenti, in Umbria, which was governed by the counts.12 Clearly, this problem must have been especially felt in a context in which the entrenchment of territorial powers was starting to heavily influence traditional forms of dependence and control based on land ownership. Another two concerns that find prominent place in many of these texts are the relations between lords jointly governing a rural centre and those between lords governing adjacent areas: the agreement regulating the relations between the bishop of Fermo and the lords controlling two-thirds of the castle of Servigliano falls within the first category;13 the second category is instead illustrated by the pacts drawn up in 1115 between the abbot of Farfa and the powerful Rapizoni family, by which the two social actors laid out their fields of influence and struck military aid agreements for the area to the south of Todi, in Umbria.14 Clearly, these situations needed to be defined with greatest accuracy, to avoid the outbreak or flaring up of conflicts, once again within the context of the spread of the dominatus loci in the countryside. In this respect, it is no coincidence that the use of these kinds of documents rose sharply in the area precisely from the 1080 onwards, in parallel to the conflict between Matilda of Canossa and Henry IV. This conflict had a strong impact on the region, which up until 1080 was at least formally subject to the authority of

11  Liber iurium, n. 84 (a. 1075), pp. 179–81. 12  Le carte di S. Croce di Sassovivo, I, n. 56 (a. 1086), pp. 88–9; the text edited in Le carte di S. Croce di Sassovivo, II, n. 117 (a. 1143), p. 142, is about the curia of Uppello (the agreement is between lay lords). Similar texts are Liber iurium, n. 242 (a. 1066), pp. 447–9; and Le carte dell’abbazia di Chiaravalle di Fiastra, I, n. 13 (a. 1098), pp. 37–40 (territory of Camerino). An analogue text from northern Italy is Le carte di S. Ambrogio di Milano, III/1, n. 7 (a. 1105), a pact between the abbot of Sant’Ambrogio of Milan and the Visdomini of Como, about the land of the church located in Valtellina (a territory ruled by the Visdomini). 13  Liber iurium, n. 65 (a. 1108), pp. 136–40, and n. 274 (a. 1108); the pact between the abbot of San Vittore delle Chiuse and the count Buccus son of Siffredus, focused on the castle of Pietrafitta, in the territory of Camerino (Marche), is edited in I regesti di S.  Vittore nn. 88–89 (a. 1105), pp. 46–7; another example, from Umbria, is Le carte di San Pietro, n. 15 (a. 1130), pp. 68–71 (about the castle of Monte Vergnano). 14  Il Regesto di Farfa, V, n. 1182 (a. 1115), pp. 181–2. A text about an agreement between the bishop of Fermo and some lords is edited in Liber iurium, n. 29 (a. 1108), pp. 51–3; see also the agreements between the church of San Mariano of Gubbio and the Marchiones, in Codice diplomatico di Gubbio, n. 67 (a. 1097), pp. 212–13.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

Pacts: The Foundations of a New Legitimacy  183 Matilda as duchess of Spoleto.15 In other words, the material and ideological crisis of central power led local actors to significantly invest in the relation with other members of the aristocratic-seigneurial milieu. By this time, lords turned to the other political actors operating on the local stage to legitimize their local supremacy, which had become increasingly connected to the exercising of jurisdictional powers. It is with these potential allies or enemies that lords needed to engage and negotiate in order to reinforce their position, within an unstable and deeply conflict-ridden context. Compared to this situation, the documents pertaining to Latium display— along with unquestionable similarities (not just from a structural standpoint, but also in terms of chronology)—a significant peculiarity: as already noted in the previous chapter, in this region we find a particularly close connection between fidelitas and convenientiae. The latter often appear to be associated with bonds of fidelity, whose practical implications they further defined—whether these consisted in the joint management of a castle or in military obligations.16 However, in this area we also find simple pacts between lords, which are clearly ‘horizontal’ in nature and do not resort to the language of fidelity: for example, the aforementioned agreement between the bishop of Tivoli and the abbot of Subiaco concerning the castle of Gerano.17 As this document shows, while up until 1080 central power (in this case the pontiff) was capable of acting as an intermediary and guarantor in the agreements between local social actors, in later years—at least up to 1130—it lost this role, clearing the field for independent political games between local centres of power. Over the last two years, the research has focused on central Italy: the North has largely been overlooked as far as this specific aspect is concerned. Certainly, this does not mean that there are no sources of such kind from the Po Valley: on the contrary, they are quite plentiful, although they are somewhat fewer compared to those from central Italy.18 Another significant element is that in northern Italy agreements between aristocrats only become more numerous from the mid-1110s onwards, whereas in the previous period they occur far more sporadically.19 One 15 Fiore, Signori e sudditi, p. 48. 16  On this, see Feller, ‘Elements de la problematique’; see Il Regesto di Farfa, IV, n. 810 (a. 1080 c.), p. 213; V, n. 1012 (a. 1073), pp. 15–16; n. 1248 (a. 1096), p. 230; n. 1313 (a. 1104), p. 299; n. 1178 (a. 1109), pp. 178–9. 17  Il regesto sublacense, n. 48 (a. 1073–85 c.), p. 88 (the agreement was brokered by Gregor VII). 18  In addition to the documents mentioned in the next notes, see Le pergamene del secolo XII della Chiesa Maggiore di Milano, n. 6 (a. 1120); Documenti cremonesi, II, n. 247 (a. 1102), pp. 62–3. 19 Some agreements between lords since 1110s: the document from Piedmont published in Un’antica cronaca, pp. 83–4 (a. 1114), an concerning an agreement between a seigneurial family and the abbot of Fruttuaria; Libro verde, n. 110 (a. 1117), pp. 247–9 (agreement between the bishop of Asti and the lords of Govone about the seigneurial rights over Priocca and Monticello); Le carte del capitolo di Verona, I, n. 46 (a. 1120), pp. 93–5 (agreement between two lay lords and the chapter of Verona about the rights of justice over the men of Bionde); Le carte della Mensa Vescovile di Lodi, n. 39 (a. 1126), a breve conventionis et concordiae between the bishop of Lodi and two lesser lords about the rights over the castle of Castiglione. See also Le carte del monastero di S. Sepolcro di Astino, II, n. 13

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

184  The Seigneurial Transformation of the earliest texts of this sort is the agreement struck between the Visdomini of Como and the monks of the Milanese monastery of Sant’Ambrogio in 1105.20 Compared to central Italy, where agreements of this sort are already very frequent in the last two decades of the eleventh century, we note a more gradual tendency to record pacts between lords in writing.21 This evident delay cannot be attributed to a slower development of the dominatus loci, which—as we have seen in the case of central Italy—was closely connected to the proliferation of the language of pacts as a means to define relations within the aristocratic world. Indeed, in the Po area the evidence for agreements between domini and local communities is earlier and more plentiful than that for agreements between lords. This is illustrated for instance by the pacts between the bishop of Pavia and the men of Casorate in 1103, or those between the abbess of San Sisto and the inhabitants of Guastalla in 1102.22 To explain the delay in question, therefore, we must consider the overall system of political discourses in the North, which—as already noted in the previous chapter—was marked by certain peculiarities. From this perspective, it is possible that the greater spread of the language of fealty in the area, which was due to a more consolidated and structural presence of feudal institutions, led to the use of fidelitas to define even a fair number of horizontal relations, according to the dynamics we have already discussed.23 This would have translated into a belated development of the language of pacts and of the documentation associated with it as regards relations between aristocrats. In central Italy, by contrast, the language of pacts would have developed more easily also thanks to the more limited competition from the language of fidelity, which here preserved its vertical and hierarchical nature to a higher degree. Be that as it may, these are only hypotheses that will have to be put to the test, if possible, through a more systematic investigation of the available sources. From a general perspective, it is important to stress the fact that, aside from the undeniable regional differences, the central and north-Italian scenarios display a significant degree of homogeneity. Written pacts make their appearance in largely (a. 1120); n. 32 (a. 1123), two convenientiae between domini loci and milites/land-lords in two different villages between Bergamo and Cremona, in Lombardy. 20  Le carte del monastero di S. Ambrogio di Milano, III, n. 7 (a. 1105). 21  See for example Il regesto sublacense, n. 48 (a. 1073–85 c.), p. 88 (agreement between the bishop of Tivoli and the abbot of Subiaco about the common control of the castle of Gerano); Le carte di S. Croce di Sassovivo, I, n. 56 (a. 1086), pp. 88–9 (Umbria); I regesti di S. Vittore nn. 88–9 (a. 1105), pp. 46–7 (Marche). 22  Some examples of agreements between lords and local communities in the Po Valley, before 1100: Archivio Storico Diocesano di Pavia, Mensa vescovile, cart. 20, b. 74, edited in Le carte del ­vescovo di Pavia, n. 15 (a. 1103), about Casorate; Le carte cremonesi, II, n. 248 (a. 1102), pp. 64–6 (Guastalla); Le carte del capitolo di Verona, I, n. 13 (a. 1107), pp. 28–9 (pact between the chapter of Verona and the vicini of Castelrotto). 23  See section 7.1.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

Pacts: The Foundations of a New Legitimacy  185 the same years: in particular, the spread of these kinds of documents appears to be closely associated with the civil war crisis that broke out after 1080. Moreover, these deeds all serve the same purpose, namely to define and lay out the relations between influential actors on the local (and regional) political stage. They undoubtedly served a practical function, and it is evident that many of the texts in questions are specifically connected to problems that have to do with the functioning of the dominatus loci, which by that stage had become widespread and entrenched. It was a matter of settling issues such as the rights of a lord in an area under the jurisdictional control of another dominus, of regulating the relation between the joint rulers of an area, and of drawing the boundaries between two centres of power. To these strictly practical and empirical reasons, we should perhaps add a more important, if more general, one: mutual acknowledgement between the actors involved. Striking an agreement with another party meant acknowledging it as a legitimate political actor. Aside from the concrete object of an agreement, therefore, what mattered was also (or perhaps especially) the very fact of drawing up a pact with a counter-party. The context of (largely) military conflict in which the language of pacts was incubated is often explicitly revealed by our texts. Many of these agreements— whatever their specific content—represent the outcome of a dispute. In other words, they record the moment in which two sides reached an agreement, settling their contrasts and redefining their mutual relations with respect to a particular issue.24 Alternatively, these documents may include an explicit reference to a third actor, against whom the pact is more or less explicitly directed, as in the case of the agreement struck between the bishop of Fermo and an aristocratic family in 1117, which is directed against the abbey of Farfa.25 In other cases still, the context of conflict only constitutes the generic background to the agreement, be it a completely new one or merely the recording of pre-existent agreements that the actors involved felt the need to reaffirm and formalize in writing. As regards the close links between the language of pacts and conflict, it is important to emphasize that the former also emerges in a rather evident way in what upon a superficial reading might seem like purely unilateral deeds, namely waivers. These are documents produced at the end of a dispute, in which one of the two parties forgoes the rights it had previously laid claim to over an asset, such as a church or a castle, or simply a plot of land. Many of these texts specify that the renunciants are to receive a sum of money (which might be large or small) from the other party, or a more or less valuable object, such as a ring, a sword, a cloak, or even a horse. Thus, count Rodilando, in relinquishing the mala

24  Like the (lost) pacts between the abbey of Farfa and the Gualcherii, after a period of bloody wars between the two actors, remembered in the monastic querimonia edited in Il Regesto di Farfa, V, n. 1213 (a. 1099–1119 c.), pp. 204–5 (on this specific conflict see section 10.3). 25  Liber iurium, n. 284 (a. 1117), pp. 517–18; see also n. 80 (a. 1130), pp. 172–4.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

186  The Seigneurial Transformation consuetudo he had been exercising over the church of Santa Maria di Minione was given in meritum a sword by the abbot of Farfa.26 A ceremony of this kind was intended precisely to establish a form of reciprocity even in these unbalanced contexts, allowing the side that was thereby relinquishing its rights to ‘save face’. The rights in question were symbolically balanced by the object (or money) donated, thereby re-establishing the formal balance between the two sides. In actual convenientiae this was unnecessary because, even in the most evident cases of asymmetry, the transaction still occurred between social actors who ac­know­ ledged each other as equals. By contrast, in other cases a symbolic gift constituted an essential formal corrective, which was required even in the case of an essentially unilateral deed such as a waiver, within the framework of a pact-centred discourse based on reciprocity between the two sides.27 The pactional culture underlying convenientiae and conventiones must therefore be regarded as the most typical expression of a headless society, which is to say one lacking an operational centre of power acknowledged as such by all pol­it­ ical actors. The incapacity of the monarchy to maintain a stable presence and operate effectively made it necessary to resort to bilateral agreements. In central and northern Italy, therefore, at least from the mid-twelfth century onwards, society came to comprise a series of autonomous seigneurial centres revolving around an array of larger centres of power (lay and religious principalities, protocommunes), which were nonetheless incapable of bestowing a stable and fully acknowledged order upon the territories they governed. Within this context, to safeguard his own prerogatives, each dominus loci was forced to strike agreements with the other forces operating in the area, or areas, where his lands were located. The concrete exercising of power depended on each lord’s capacity to engage with the other political and social actors, in such a way that they could define their respective fields of competence and, most importantly, acknowledge one another as members of the local political class. The language of pacts lent expression to the lords’ drive towards horizontal modes of organization and ordering of the political and social framework, which were crucial to avoid a situation of ceaseless conflict and instability.28 Besides, close parallels for this situation are to be found in other European contexts, such as England during the phase of ‘anarchy’ during Stephen’s reign.29

26  Il Regesto di Farfa, V, n. 1078 (a. 1083), pp. 73–4; and also n. 1076 (a. 1083), pp. 71–2; see also the texts edited in: Le carte della chiesa di Santa Maria, I, n. 74 (a. 1120), pp. 132–3; Le carte dell’archivio arcivescovile di Pisa, II, n. 3 (a. 1104), pp. 6–7 (ring); ‘Appendice’ to, Ansani, ‘Appunti sui brevia’, n. 2 (a. 1127), pp. 151–2 (crosna, a mantle). 27  The issue is discussed in Faini, Firenze nell’età romanica, pp. 177–8. 28  On these processes in seigneurial world, see Barthélemy, L’ordre seigneurial; Provero, L’Italia dei poteri locali, pp. 151–82. 29  Crouch, ‘A Norman “conventio” ’; and idemCE: Please replace this abbreviation with a consistent short title., The Reign of King Stephen; see also Kosto, Making Agreements (on Catalonia).

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

Pacts: The Foundations of a New Legitimacy  187 In the face of a stall in traditional processes of legitimation, a strong investment in relations with one’s peers constituted a key, yet not quite decisive, elem­ent. When legitimacy ceased to be channelled down from the royal authorities to political actors, the latter did not merely strive to make the most of (relatively) horizontal relations, but also strongly relied on the relations with their subjects. Legitimacy, therefore, was partly built from below, through the relations with those who were concretely subjected to the power exercised by the lords at a local level. We shall see how in the following section.

8.2  The idea of reciprocity in the relation between subjects and lords Analysing the overall picture that emerges from Italian letters of privilege, a few years ago Francois Menant stressed the profoundly different nature of these docu­ ments compared to coeval ones from France.30 The Italian documents only rarely take the form of ‘spontaneous’ grants made by a lord to his subjects, featuring more or less flowery praises of the dominus’ benevolence and generosity in the arenga of the documents. Rather, they present themselves—more or less ex­pli­ cit­ly, depending on the context—as genuine pacts between a lord and his subjects, formulated in a far more succinct manner. Besides, in relation to Italy this has led to a ‘weak’ historiographical use of the expression ‘charter of franchise’ to describe any act regulating the mutual relations between subjects and lords, including written pacts.31 The Italian counterpart to the French franchise, then, is often a deed recording a pact between two parties that, at least in principle, find themselves on an equal footing. Besides, many of these texts are formally convenientiae, brevia of a particular sort that record the mutual obligations between two parties. As we have seen, such documents were used in dealings between ter­ri­tor­ ial lords, or between the latter and other autonomous political actors, such as urban communities. However, it is worth noting right from the start that the formal parity between the two parties in texts pertaining to the pact between a dominus and a community under his control only partially concealed an evident asymmetry between the two sides: an asymmetry that reflected the actual power relations between the lord and his subjects. Documents such as the previously discussed one from Marzana or the well-known texts pertaining to Guastalla and Biandrate show an evident degree of disparity between the dominus and his subjects, with the former having a clearly superior status to the latter.32 30  Menant, ‘Pourquoi les chartes de franchise’. 31  This issue is discussed in Provero, Le parole dei sudditi, pp. 5–12, who uses ‘franchigia’ in the weak meaning of ‘atti che sanciscono un accordo tra comunità e signore’ (p. 12). 32  I Biscioni, I/2, nn. 279–80 (a. 1093), pp. 120–2 (Biandrate); Le carte cremonesi cit., II, n. 248 (a. 1102), pp. 64–6 (Guastalla).

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

188  The Seigneurial Transformation However, this element notwithstanding, it is undeniable that the language of pacts is central to the countless ‘charters of franchise’ (in a broad sense) that constitute the best source of information on the concrete power relations within the context of territorial lordships at the turn of the 1100s. The services which the subjects owe their domini fall within the framework of a marked reciprocity. They constitute the counterpart to the services which the lord owes his subjects, starting from military protection, but also the use of fortifications, of infrastructures such as mills or warehouses, and of uncultivated land.33 Thus at Antignano, in central Umbria, the agreement (convenientia) between count Monaldo and the local homines required the latter, among other things, to furnish the counts with a military contingent for forty days, while the former were required to ensure the protection of their subjects against all enemies. In addition, the inhabitants of Antignano were expected to pay their lords an annual census in kind; in return, the counts gave the men access to uncultivated land (in this case, woods and meadows) for the gathering of timber and hay.34 Before embarking on a more detailed discussion of the structural reasons behind this centrality of the language of pacts, it is necessary to provide an overview of these documentary sources, in order to understand their features, formal structure, and chronology. First of all, it is possible to identify two main types of texts, which sometimes overlap and are deeply shaped by the language of pacts. The first group includes those documents that take the form of genuine pacts (pacta, conventiones, convenientiae) drawn between lords and their subjects. A typical example would be the (double) document from Biandrate, which lays out the mutual obligations between the counts and their subjects (milites and peasants).35 The second group instead comprises jurors’ statements concerning local customs, associated with the commitment of the local lord (who was either personally present at the ceremony or represented by a delegate) to safeguard these customs.36 Such documents, therefore, recorded oral norms generally regulating the relations between domini loci and a local community, and which in most cases reflected the same logic of reciprocity underlying written pacts in the strict sense of the term. The subjects’ services were, at least symbolically, counterbalanced by those of the lords. In some cases the consuetudo was explicitly traced back to a pact (conventio, convenientia, pactum) struck between the two sides, as in the aforementioned case of Antignano. In this text, drafted in the early twelfth 33  See for example Archivio Storico del Comune di Todi, Fondo Trinci, n. 1 (a. 1100 c.); Le carte del capitolo di Verona, I, n. 13 (a. 1107), pp. 28–9; Le carte dell’archivio capitolare di S. Maria di Novara, II, n. 366 (a. 1150), pp. 269–70 (written record of a decades-older pact). 34  Archivio Storico del Comune di Todi, Fondo Trinci, n. 1 (a. 1100 c.). 35  I Biscioni, I/2, nn. 279–80 (a. 1093), pp. 120–2. 36  On the sharp increase of pacts between lords and subject in this period, see Cammarosano, ‘Comunità rurali e signori’, connecting it with the redefinition of the fabric of local power; quite similar the analysis proposed by Menant, ‘Les chartes de franchise de l’Italie’.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

Pacts: The Foundations of a New Legitimacy  189 ­century, the bonus usus governing the relations between the inhabitants of the castle and their lords found its origin in the convenientia between the two parties laid out at the time of count Monaldo, which is to say a few decades earlier.37 In the next chapter I will be exploring the relation between the culture of pacts and the language of consuetudo in greater detail; suffice it to say here that this connection was a close and widespread one.38 Naturally, ceremonies (and documents) of this kind often amounted to much more than the mere transcription of a pre-existing usus; in certain cases it is quite clear that the appeal to tradition and custom was only a way to ensure a redefinition of local balances; something that from a concrete perspective—albeit not formally—brings these documents even closer to genuine written pacts.39 These redefinitions frequently sprung from more or less violent conflicts between lords and communities, echoes of which are sometimes to be found in the texts.40 As already noted, what are far rarer are franchises in the strict sense of the term, that is to say documents formulated as spontaneous concessions freely made by a dominus loci to his subjects, and often featuring an elaborate arenga.41 While the first document of this kind (from Lunigiana) dates from as early as the end of the 1040s, the other charters of franchise (merely a handful) date from period between the end of the eleventh century and the beginning of the twelfth, and are mostly concentrated in the southern Marche.42 It is important to note that pacts with communities and ceremonies revolving around the public affirmation of local law were not an innovation introduced in the last two decades of the eleventh century within the system of local political communication in central and northern Italy. Rather, these were well-established social and documentary practices, especially—yet not exclusively—in communities of freemen traditionally dependent upon the monarchy, and hence governed by public officials, such as Tenda and Susa.43 The earliest written pacts between communities and lords date from the first decades of the tenth century (Cerea, Trentino) and texts of this sort are also sporadically attested throughout the first

37  Archivio Storico del Comune di Todi, Fondo Trinci, n. 1 (a. 1100 c.). The case of Dogliani (southern Piedmont), several decades later but very similar, is discussed in Provero, ‘Le trasformazioni del prelievo’. 38  On this issue, see Fiore, ‘Giurare la consuetudine’; I will discuss in detail the topic in the next chapter of this book. 39  As in the case of Moriano, near Lucca, discussed in Fiore, ‘Bonus et malus usus’. On Moriano, more in general, see Wickham, Community and Clientele, pp. 82–132. 40  A particularly striking example is Le carte del capitolo di Verona, I, n. 93 (a. 1139), pp. 173–9; even in the case of Terracina, the grant of charters of franchise is in the frame of a long-term (and harsh) conflict between lords and local community; I will discuss Terracina below, in section10.2. 41  As noted by Menant, ‘Pourquoi les chartes de franchise’. 42  Il regesto del codice Pelavicino, n. 488 (a. 1039), pp. 506–8; Liber iurium, n. 35 (a. 1115), pp. 65–8; n. 15 (a. 1116), pp. 18–22; and the three lost charters of franchise for Civitanova (ante a. 1086), Agello (ante a. 1086), and Offida (a. 1100 c.), on which, see Fiore, Signori e sudditi, pp. 250–3. 43  Fiore, ‘Bonus et malus usus’.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

190  The Seigneurial Transformation eight decades of the eleventh century.44 However, it is especially the sacramenta pertaining to local customs that illustrate how it was only from the mid-eleventh century that communities started recording in writing long-standing ceremonial practices which had hitherto been confined to the sphere of orality and ritual action. The charter issued by Henry IV to the Pisans, just like the Ligurian brevia on mid-eleventh-century customs, show that the sacramenta pertaining to local consuetudines were in all likelihood well-established practices in centres part of the public fisc or directly ruled by central power. In particular, they were associated with the general placitum held between one and three times a year.45 On this occasion, a panel of jurors (chiefly appointed from within the group of free allodiaries) would recite the norms and customs regulating their village society upon request of a royal official and before the local assembly.46 Analysing the evidence for written pacts as a whole (also including sacramenta), we discover that in the first decades of the eleventh century documents of this sort continue to be exceedingly rare. Two good examples from this period come from Inzago, near Milan, and Montaldo, near Asti.47 However, the recording of agreements in writing appears to have become more common already from the mid-eleventh century. The aforementioned documents from Sacco and Montecchio date from those years, as does a complex text such as the  agreement between the abbot of Nonantola and the populus of the local ­village.48 The last of these documents, drafted in 1058, lays out the mutual obligations between the two parties: the subjects acknowledged the seigneurial power of the abbot, but the rights he lay claim to are clearly defined and limited. Also dating from the same period is the Tenda document, a complex text that is difficult to interpret. It attests to the counts of Ventimiglia’s acknowledgement of local customs, which were no doubt recorded on the basis of oral depositions by local jurors. This docu­ment, while being of a different nature, illustrates the language of pacts that, in a more or less marked way, characterizes transcriptions of local usus.49

44  The pact between the chapter of Verona and the liberi homines of Cerea was made in 923; the text is edited in the ‘Appendice’, to Castagnetti, Fra i vassalli, n. 4 (a. 923), pp. 206–8. On the pact between the men of Inzago and the abbot of Sant’Ambrogio of Milan, see Gli atti privati milanesi, I, n. 75 (a. 1015), pp. 173–5; in 1039 the bishop of Luni granted a charter of franchise to his men of Trebbiano, Il regesto del codice Pelavicino, n. 488 (a. 1039), pp. 506–8. 45  On this, see Fiore, ‘Giurare la consuetudine’. 46  I will discuss more closely these practices (and the relevant documents) below, in the next chapter of this book. 47  Le più antiche carte dell’archivio capitolare di Asti, n. 162 (a. 1029), pp. 318–19. 48  Published in Muratori, Antiquitates Italicae, III, col. 241; the text is discussed in Cammarosano, Le campagne nell’età comunale, pp. 34–6. 49  Daviso, ‘La carta di Tenda’. Just slightly later the agreement between the lords of Calusco and the men of the same locality, edited in Le pergamene degli archivi di Bergamo, n. 37 (a. 1068), pp. 68–9.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

Pacts: The Foundations of a New Legitimacy  191 Texts of this kind were written records of ceremonial practices that had become increasingly important in a phase in which growing competition between pol­it­ical actors was accompanied by increasingly limited and sporadic intervention by the royal authorities. Moreover, compared to the ceremonies connected to ­relations between a lord and his vassals, and more generally to relations within the aristocratic world, these ritual actions must have been more frequent and recurrent, given the closer interaction between the two parties involved. Local rituals helped strengthen and legitimize the exercising of lordship within a context of competition; but they did so within a cultural and ideological horizon where the obtaining of a royal charter still represented the ultimate goal, as the only means to fully legitimize (property or, more rarely, jurisdictional) rights exercised at a local level. In this case the period after 1080 witnessed a marked acceleration in processes already underway. Up until the 1070s written pacts and documents recording customs are rare to come by in the countryside. By contrast, in the years immediately following they become far more common. A brief overview of some documents of this kind from the years 1080–1120— some well-known, other less so, but all equally significant—may prove useful. Between the last days of 1079 and the beginning of 1080 the bishop of Padua and the men of the Saccisica area defined, through a complex range of transactions, their mutual relations with respect to the use of uncultivated lands and the control of thoroughfares.50 The well-known pact between the men of Bionde and the bishop of Verona was struck in 1091.51 In 1093 the famous Biandrate document was drafted, regulating the relations between the counts of Biandrate and the milites of this centre. This document was followed, probably shortly afterwards, by a similar one in which the count’s counterparts are the peasants of the village.52 Around 1100 a document was produced recording the bonus usus regulating the  relations between the counts of Foligno and the homines of Antignano, in Umbria.53 In 1102 the well-known agreement between the abbess of San Sisto and the men of Guastalla was drafted.54 Finally, the document recording the statements by the jurors of Bientina with regard to the local rights of the archbishop of Pisa dates from 1120.55 In addition to these texts we have at least twice as many 50  Codice Diplomatico Padovano, I, n. 261 (a. 1079); n. 261b (a. 1079); n. 261c (a. 1080); n. 262 (a. 1080), pp. 285–91. 51 Castagnetti, Le comunità rurali, pp. 23–32; the text is edited in the ‘Appendice’, n. 14 (a. 1091), pp. 101–2. 52  I Biscioni, I/2, nn. 279–280 (a. 1093), pp. 120–2. On these two documents and their political framework, see Andenna, ‘Formazione, strutture e processi’, pp. 154–8. 53  Archivio Storico del Comune di Todi, Fondo Trinci, n. 1 (a. 1100 c.); on this document see Fiore, Signori e sudditi, pp. 248–50, with a partial edition of the text. 54  On this, Cammarosano, Le campagne nell’età comunale, pp. 36–7. 55  Le carte dell’archivio arcivescovile di Pisa. Fondo arcivescovile, 2, n. 56 (a. 1120), pp. 108–11.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

192  The Seigneurial Transformation more,56 along with many more or less direct mentions of agreements and pacts between communities and lords, and records of local customs.57 The chronology for the process in the period 980–1120 is quite clear, then, and can be summed up as follows: we have only a few, isolated texts up until the middle of the century (three or four cases); a relative increase starting around 1050 (half a dozen documents within thirty years); and a sharp rise after 1080 (over twenty documents in the period running up to 1120).58 Therefore, even though what we find is not the ex nihilo creation of ceremonies and written agreements, but the redevelopment of pre-existing social and documentary practices, we are still dealing with some crucial changes. What changed was the weight carried by such practices vis-à-vis the legitimization of local power. Public rituals which previously had probably only played an accessory, secondary role compared to the conferral or acknowledgement of authority from the central authorities, now acquired primary importance. Practices and documents which had hitherto been only of accessory value (despite their local importance) now became absolutely crucial. With regard to this specific problem, it might be useful to consider a document produced in the Verona area in the early years of the thirteenth century. In this brevis, drafted in 1107, some of the inhabitants of the village of Castelrotto, representing the community as a whole, publicly proclaimed a pre-existing pactum that had been recorded several years before concerning some exemptions enjoyed by one of the local hamlets, the one de Pino.59 This agreement, struck between the  vicini of Castelrotto and the canons of Verona, made the hamlet (casalis) exempt from any publica functio (public right), because of an exchange of landed property between the canons and the inhabitants of Castelrotto. As stated in the 56  Among these documents: the pact between the bishop of Tortona, in Piedmont, and the rural community of Bagnolo, in Piedmont, edited in Le carte dell’archivio comunale di Voghera, n. 2 (a. 1090), pp. 3–4; the charter of franchise granted by the bishop of Luni to the community of Monte Leone, in Il regesto del codice Pelavicino, n. 267 (a. 1096), pp. 246–7; the agreements between Matilda of Canossa and some Lombard communities, published in Die Urkunden und Briefe der Markgrafin Mathilde, n. 109 (a. 1108), pp. 290–2; n. 132 (a. 1114), pp. 338–40; the pact between the abbey of San Sisto and the men of Guastalla, in Le carte cremonesi, II, n. 248 (a. 1102), pp. 64–6; the agreements between the bishop of Pavia and the men Casorate, made in 1103, renewed in 1118, and preserved in the Archivio Storico Diocesano di Pavia, Mensa vescovile, cart. 20, b. 74 (published in Le carte del vescovo di Pavia, nn. 15 and 20); the agreement between the abbot of Farfa and the men of the village of Stablamone, in southern Umbria, in Il Regesto di Farfa, V, n. 1180 (a. 1113), p. 179; two franchises released by the bishop of Fermo, published in Liber iurium, n. 35 (a. 1115), pp. 65–8 (Montolmo) e n. 15 (a. 1116), pp.  18–22 (Poggio San Giuliano); the pact between the bishop of Asti and his subjects of Vico, in southern Piedmont, Il Libro verde della chiesa di Asti, I, n. 23 (a. 1118), pp. 67–8. It should be noted that in 1120s the number of these documents rise sharply even compared to the previous decade. 57  See, for example, the charter of franchise granted by the bishop of Fermo to the community of Agello about 1086, and that granted by the abbot of Farfa to the men of Offida, both in southern Marche: Fiore, Signori e sudditi, pp. 250–3. 58  Numbers are approximate because the charter of Tenda dates from between 1041 and 1080: see  Ripart, ‘Le comté de Tende’, pp. 146–7, who prefers a late date but does not give a compelling argument. 59  Le carte del capitolo di Verona, I, n. 13 (a. 1107), pp. 28–9.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

Pacts: The Foundations of a New Legitimacy  193 document, this pact had been struck antiquitus, but it was now proclaimed and recorded in writing by joint decision of the two parties involved. This text is a significant one in at least three respects. First of all, it clearly reveals the synallagmatic and reciprocal nature of the pactum: the spokesmen of the vicini explicitly state that exemption was granted to the hamlet in exchange for a property transaction with the canons. The actions performed by the local actors were therefore read out, envisaged and set within a context of exchange. Secondly, the document points to the need to record in writing older, oral pacts, so as to confirm and reinforce them. Another interesting element is the fact that the pact, which had certainly been struck at least a few decades earlier (antiquitus), was clearly a ‘nonseigneurial’ agreement. This is revealed by the mention of the publica functio, which was recorded in a document within the context of the entrenchment of the dominatus loci, and of the appropriation of traditionally public rights by the local lords, in this case the canons. In other words, the document clearly illustrates the new social relevance of pacts, as witnessed by the upsurge in such documentary sources. Nor is this an exceptional case: a comparable one, for instance, concerns the castle of Mosezzo, not far from Novara, in Piedmont.60 It is not enough, however, to merely acknowledge the presence and spread of the language of pacts in central and northern Italy in the decades at the turn of the year 1100. Rather, we should examine the underlying reasons why local actors chose to resort to this particular discourse. After all, as the case of France suggests, this was far from an inevitable choice. Furthermore, it is necessary to discuss its implications, on the level both of political culture and of local power practices. To do so, we must first of all return to the general political context. As we have seen, the crisis of royal (and, in Latium, pontifical) legitimation went hand in hand with a profound redefinition of the ways in which power was exercised at a local level, even in those contexts in which the dominatus loci was already present.61 Given the de facto impossibility of finding any higher le­git­ im­ation in this new context, legitimation was sought by the parties involved at a strictly local level. Lords needed their own subjects to acknowledge their power as legitimate, if they were to reinforce it from an ideological as well as practical standpoint. At the same time, from the point of view of the subjects this amounted to an acknowledgement that their position vis-à-vis the dominus loci was not one of utter and complete subordination. No matter how asymmetric the relation between the two parties may have been, and how unbalanced the actual power relations at a local level (although the situation varied significantly from case to case), the subjects asserted themselves as a community bound to its lord not just by obligations, but also by rights and prerogatives. Building consensus with 60  Le carte dell’archivio di S. Maria di Novara, II, n. 366 (a. 1150), pp. 269–70, a pact between the men of Mosezzo and the chapter of Novara, lord of the locality. 61  I’ve discussed this issue above, in Chapter 3.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

194  The Seigneurial Transformation regard to the exercising of local power meant acknowledging that one’s subjects played more than merely a subordinate role. Only very few lords (such as the bishops of Luni and Fermo) exercised rights over certain communities so long-established and traditional that they could afford to issue genuinely ‘spontaneous’ charters of franchise. Moreover, it must be stressed that even in texts of this kind the language of pacts is far from absent, as is clearly illustrated by the franchises issued by the prelate of Fermo, where the concessions granted are to some extent counterbalanced by a series of obligations imposed on the subjects, thereby giving rise to a rather explicit discourse of reciprocity akin to the one present in actual written pacts.62 On the other hand, while the well-known document from Guastalla presents certain features typical of franchises—including the praises of the lords—is formally presented as a pactum et convencionem between the abbess of San Sisto and the local homines. Ultimately, though, it is the abbess who grants, gives and bestows something, while the counterpart offered by the subjects is only implied by the text.63 A document of this sort clearly reveals the pressure exerted by the general context, dominated by bilateral agreements, which at least formally imbued with the language of pacts a deed which, from a structural perspective, was a unilateral concession. These rather rare exceptions aside, most other lords, whose local power was far more recent and ideological weak, tended to define their relationship with their subjects in an openly pactional manner, through pacta, convenciones or convenietiae. Still, it is important to note that during our period, among those centres in which relations between the domini and local communities were (also) based on written pacts, more demographically significant communities (such as Biandrate, Antignano, and Marzana) are far better represented in the sources compared to minor centres (such as Casorate and Monte Leone)—although these are still vis­ ible in the documentary record. In other words, large castra are far more numerous in the sources than smaller ones, which in reality were far more numerous than the former. One might assume that the use of the language of pacts in relation to local power was mostly a defining feature of larger centres, whose capacities (including military capacities) must have given the local community greater contractual power, making it capable of actually striking an agreement with its lord. However, hints in the later documentary evidence quite clearly suggest that pact-centred practices and rituals could also take place in minor centres, without being recorded in writing, precisely on account of the fact that they were less important. This was the case, for instance, at Diano and Guarene, two villages controlled by the 62  Liber iurium, n. 35 (a. 1115), pp. 65–8 (Montolmo) and n. 15 (a. 1116), pp. 18–22 (Poggio San Giuliano). 63  Le carte cremonesi, II, n. 248 (a. 1102), pp. 64–6.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

Pacts: The Foundations of a New Legitimacy  195 bishop of Alba.64 Besides, even the aforementioned cases of Mosezzo and Marzana show a gap of several decades between the actual drawing of a pact between the lords and their subjects and its recording in writing. This is a significant element, which suggests that the language of pacts was widely, albeit not universally, employed to define the relation between lords and their subjects, but that the practice of recording such agreements in writing was chiefly reserved for more substantial communities, or for cases in which specific local contingencies made it important to have a written document. This helps explain the altogether hazy content of these texts, except when it comes to what must have been regarded as thorny issues (and likely sources of conflict) at the time of the drawing of the pact—for instance, when and how the walls were to be built or the general placitum to be held in the case of Marzana, or the definition of the military obligations and of the fictum for the use of uncultivated land in the case of Antignano.65 In any case, the new importance acquired by the relation between the lords and their subjects had to be solemnized; in this respect, the drafting of documents recording the sacramenta pertaining to local customs was probably intended to highlight and symbolically express the new importance acquired by such practices. These symbolically charged documents bore witness to the new political relevance of the community and of these ceremonies.66 They did not simply certify given rights, but through their very drafting highlighted the importance of those actions and practices centred on the relation between subjects and lords, much like the pacts and oaths that bound together lords. The discourse in question assigned these practices one possible meaning. At the same time, it provided a conceptual framework for the conflict over the distribution of power among local political actors. It must be added that the latter were not limited to the relation between a lord and a community: there might be many lords, with different prerogatives; and the community, as already noted, could be divided along various lines. Moreover, we should take account of interferences from actors such as urban communities, principalities, and (in certain periods) the central authorities. Within this complex and fluid scenario, lords wielded undeniable power.67 Local communities accepted—or, rather, were forced to accept—a whole range of impositions and levies from aristocrats, by setting them within the framework of this fictional reciprocity, which largely, albeit not entirely, reflected the lords’ point of view: this range of services, which

64  Il ‘Rigestum comunis Albe’, n. 179 (aa. 1200–1 c.), pp. 285–8. 65  Le carte del capitolo di Verona, I, n. 48 (a. 1121), pp. 96–9; Archivio Storico del Comune di Todi, Fondo Trinci, n. 1 (a. 1100 c). 66  The strong symbolic value of the production of written texts in judicial frameworks, is underlined by Sergi, ‘L’esercizio del potere’, p. 336. 67  On these issues an important guide is Scott, Weapons of the weak, pp. 304–50.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

196  The Seigneurial Transformation the community regarded as legitimate, were often referred to as bonus usus, thereby reinforcing the language of pacts by drawing upon that of customs.68 The very fact that the language usually adopted to define this range of practices was that of reciprocity, rather than another language closer to the lords’ perspective, also reveals the limits of seigneurial hegemony. The choice of this language made it possible to regard at least some of the services required by a lord as unjustified abuses and to criticize, if not seigneurial power as a means to define social and political relations, at least the way in which it could be concretely exercised by a dominus loci. Reciprocity implies a two-way flow of services (if only fictional ones), rather than the wielding of arbitrary and absolute power by a lord.69 A discourse of this kind reflects not just the power of the lords—insofar as they felt confident enough to employ it, despite the risks it entailed—but also the capacity of peasant communities to resist such power. These communities did not passively adopt their lords’ perspective, but left some room, however little, for criticism and the challenging of power. The peculiar spread of the language of pacts in central and northern Italy as a means to define relations between lords and their subjects— a language which, differently from those of fidelity or (as we shall see in the next chapter) consuetudo, was not significantly associated with the tradition of royal power—constitutes an important indicator of the emergence of these forms of power in the context we are investigating.70 In France, the pact had a minor role compared to ‘true’ charter of franchise, because the political framework was well different; here (but also in other areas of Europe) the seigneurie chiefly emerged when aristocratic castellans started privately asserting their rights as leaders, in (northern and central) Italy it was the outcome of a far more complex process: it was not merely a hyper-localized version of the traditional system of power, but rather a new structure that encompassed a variety of elements within a largely new local context.71 Owing to this at least partial novelty, in order to legitimize their position lords found themselves having to engage with their subjects; and the language most widely used to structure and lend shape to this relation was that of the pact between ruler and ruled, which continued to distinguish political communication in the central and north 68  The fictitious and discoursual nature of reciprocity in the relationship between lords and subjects has been underlined (with great force) by Algazi, Lords ask, discussing the (albeit peculiar) case of late medieval Germany. 69  On the manipulation of the pactional language by the subject, to challenge seigneurial power, see Gamberini, Clash of Legitimacies, pp. 158–81; and Cengarle, ‘La comunità di Pecetto’. The case discussed by Cengarle shows well that the lords could use other legitimating languages, less ma­nipu­lable by their subjects; on these issues see also Della Misericordia, ‘Per non privarci de nostre raxone’. 70  On the absence of pactional discourse in royal diplomas (in Salian and also in Staufen age) in contrast to what happen with the languages of fidelity and custom see Fiore, ‘La dimensione locale’; I will return on this issue, focusing on custom, in the next chapter. 71  For the classic Gerges Duby’s model of the ‘privatization of royal bannus’, see Duby, La société aux XIe et XIIe siècles, pp. 200–78.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

Pacts: The Foundations of a New Legitimacy  197 Italian countryside even in years when the territorial lordship had become an entrenched and traditional institution.72 As regards power relations in the countryside, therefore, in the years around 1100 there was a real boom in the use of the language of pacts, which appears to be closely connected to the spread and entrenchment of the dominatus loci. We witness a sharp rise in this kind of discourse in the written documents, which is almost certainly related to two parallel and interconnected phenomena: the first is the tendency to record these practices in writing, so as to give them further validation at a time in which they carried far greater practical and symbolic weight than in the past, owing to the lack of royal legitimation; the second phenomenon is the rise of these pactional practices even in quantitative terms, within a context of redefinition and instability of local balances that required a frequent engagement between subjects and their lords in order to establish and lay out the modes of exercising power, solve any problematic issues, and remove any causes of friction. The very fact that all, or almost all, the written pacts we have focus on a few specific points, leaving everything else pertaining to local power balances and structures in the shadows, is indicative precisely of a situation of this sort. Pacts were used to solve thorny issues connected to the local management of power in solemn fashion—while also further reaffirming these issues, precisely through the drafting and signing of the document. Inevitably, these specific points were far more numerous, and encompassed a much broader field of problems, than those dealt with only a few decades earlier; hence the sharp rise in pactional practices and in the texts associated with them. The spread of the ter­ri­tor­ial lordship model had entailed a marked extension of aristocratic power in the countryside, from both a quantitative and qualitative perspective, and hence an inevitable increase in the need to regulate it. From this perspective, drawing upon the logic of pacts meant moving beyond the imposition of power and levies by force—what we might term ‘internal predation’—in order to build a significant degree of local consensus, not limited to the military elites closest to the domini loci.73 For a lord, this meant getting subjects to acknowledge his role; for subjects, it meant becoming an effective counterpart to the dominus, as opposed to merely the object of the practices of certain domini. Pacts, with their capacity to frame power practices within a logic of reciprocity, albeit of an asymmetric sort, proved to be the most suitable language to express this mutual acknowledgement. What also emerges within this framework is the limited number of actual franchises (understood as ‘spontaneous’ concessions that a lord made to his subjects), 72  It must be emphasized that in the fifteenth century it was mainly the subjects who used the pactional discourse, whereas the lords tried to use other (and for them less penalizing) languages; see for example Cengarle, ‘La comunità di Pecetto’; e Della Misericordia, ‘Per non privarci de nostre raxone’. 73  On the predatory nature of seigneurial power, see the seminal reflections in Duby, The Three Orders, pp. 190–205.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

198  The Seigneurial Transformation even though the first ones occur very early on—in the first half of the eleventh century, in Lunigiana.74 The contrast with northern France is significant in this respect: there the charter of franchise is the predominant kind of document, whereas the use of the language of pact seems to play no role in relations between lords and subjects. In Picardy, from as early as the late eleventh century, domini defined their relations with subjects chiefly through the use of franchises, which is to say through ‘spontaneous’ grants.75 This difference is due to the different genesis of seigneurial powers in the two regions. In northern France, the use of franchises no doubt reflects the structural stability of the lordship, not so much from a practical standpoint, as from an ideological one; the dominatus loci simply constituted the outcome of marked, long-term aristocratic domination.76 By contrast, in central and northern Italy the territorial lordship often displayed a degree of ideological weakness, connected to the fact that to some extent it had subverted the previous order; and this led to the use of the language of pacts—often fictional pacts—as a means of legitimation.77 In the next chapter we will be exploring these problems from a different angle, by analysing a language closely connected to that of pacts: the language of custom. The latter has repeatedly been mentioned in the last few pages precisely on account of this close link; however, given its crucial importance in the delineating and structuring of relations between domini loci and their subjects, it deserves separate treatment. Besides, the language of custom is an ideal avenue to approach not just the more strictly verbal aspect of the languages of power, which is what we have been forced to focus on so far, but also its association with specific practices and gestures, something which the very nature of the available documents tends to conceal.

74  Il regesto del codice Pelavicino, n. 488 (a. 1039), pp. 506–8. 75 Fossier, Chartes de Coutume. 76 Mazel, Féodalités. I will discuss this topic in more depth in the final chapter of this book (Conclusions). 77  In southern Italy, where the seigneurie was backed by Norman central power, the situation was clearly different; see Carocci, Lordships, pp. 167–76.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

9

Custom Rituals of Memory

Expressions such as bonus (and malus) usus, usantia, and consuetudo are well known to anyone studying lordship in the central centuries of the Middle Ages. The very concept of custom is regarded as key to understanding the creation and ongoing social reproduction of a lord’s power over peasant communities. It is widely believed that prior to the drafting of letters of privilege the relations between communities and lords were managed on the basis of oral customs: a view also shared—albeit with certain nuances—even by those who stress the importance of force and arbitrariness in the construction of the dominatus loci.1 However, this general acknowledgement—with some significant exceptions— has not been accompanied by any specific attention to mechanisms for the development, preservation, and transformation of local customs.2 The aim of this chapter is precisely to emphasize the element of custom, and in particular those social and ceremonial practices connected with the public mem­ ory of local customs. It is a thorny matter, since our knowledge of it is inevitably filtered through the lenses of the written texts recording such customs. It is neces­ sary, therefore, to carefully examine the relation between orality and writing in this specific context, steering clear of both hermeneutical naivety and in­ter­pret­ ative impasses.3 We will see how the custom (often accompanied in the sources by the adjective ‘good’) which regulated the relation between lords and communities were not something fluid and indefinite, but rather a highly structured, albeit far from immutable, set of norms. Local customs, moreover, stood at the centre of a series of ritual practices, the most important of which—as we have seen—entailed the solemn and public sacramentum of the local usus (or some of its parts) by the members of the community. The latter were bound by an oath to the community and the lord, and were thus known as sacramentales or iurati. It was the members themselves, therefore, who were required to define the obligations of their com­ munity towards the local lord. I will be focusing my attention precisely on these rituals, which are perfectly analogous to the late-medieval Weisungen dear to German historiography, or to the rapports des droits of eastern France. I will also 1  See for example Bisson, The Crisis. 2  As underlined in Ascheri, ‘Statuti e consuetudini’. 3  On the relationship between orality and writing a forceful discussion in these documents, see Teuscher, Lords’ Rights. In a wider perspective, see Provero, Le parole dei sudditi, pp. 24–32. The Seigneurial Transformation: Power Structures and Political Communication in the Countryside of Central and Northern Italy, 1080–1130. Alessio Fiore, Oxford University Press (2020). © Alessio Fiore. DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198825746.001.0001

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

200  The Seigneurial Transformation be discussing the complex relation between these ceremonials and the sources on pacts with which they appear to be closely connected.4 In any case, it is important to emphasize that from a chronological perspective the Italian situation differs from that beyond the Alps, as it developed much earlier, as regards both its emer­ gence and its final stage. In Lorraine, for example, the earliest mentions of peasant jurors date from the mid-twelfth century, and we only sporadically find written recordings of these oaths from the thirteenth onwards; sources of this sort only become plentiful in the fourteenth century, with an unbroken record extending to the early seventeenth century, if not later.5 The chronology is much the same for the German area. By contrast, in the regnum Italiae the first attestations date from as early as the 1070s, while the last ones occur no later than the second half of the thirteenth century.6

9.1  Chronologies and contexts In the following pages, I will be focusing on the countryside, where this kind of ceremonial action appears to be more widely attested and more continuously practised. However, it must be noted that some of the first mentions of practices associated with the recollection of local customs on the part of jurors come from urban milieus.7 We must therefore set out from these texts in order to correctly reconstruct the cultural matrices and political contexts of the sacramentum (which is how, for the sake of brevity, I will be referring to the ritual of swearing a custom). We will then consider how the transformation of balances of power at the turn of the 1100s contributed to altering its function, in accordance with the new structure of local society. The document I would like to start from is a quite well-known one: the charter by which margrave Alberto of the Obertenghi family acknowledged the consuetudo of Genoa. This is one of the rare texts at least partially recording the norms constituting this city’s custom.8 It is worth summing up the content of the transcribed norms, in which a central role is played by the management of patrimonial assets and transactions. Norms were laid out for veri­fy­ing the authenticity of documents and for acknowledging property and ownership rights, formalities associated with the transfer of assets, and peculiarities governing the granting of ecclesiastical properties. By contrast, some generally accepted practices were locally forbidden, such as recourse to 4  Scholarship about these texts has a strong tradition (especially in Germany), since the seminal work of Jacob Grimm in the early nineteenth century. For a recent discussion of Weistumsforschung (with a critical view of traditional scholarship), see Teuscher, Lords’ Rights. 5  On Lorraine see the classic Perrin, ‘Le chartes de franchises’, pp. 20–5. On the French-speaking world see in general Poudret, ‘Le rôle des plaids généraux’. 6  On German world see Morsel, ‘Le prélèvement seigneurial’. 7  A thicker analysis of this documentary dossier in Fiore, ‘Norma della città’, pp. 51–66. 8  I libri iurium di Genova, I/1, n. 2 (a. 1056), pp. 6–9.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

Custom: Rituals of Memory  201 judicial duels or the interrogatio parentum typical of Lombard law, which limited the patrimonial independence of women. We then find exemptions from the royal fodrum and albergaria for the rural dependants of Genoese citizens. A text of this sort inevitably raises a series of questions. What mechanisms kept the custom referred to alive? How was the authenticity of these norms ensured and how could one resort to it, in case of need? In order to answer these questions it will be useful to take a look at nearby Savona. The sources we must turn to are the grants issued by Aleramic margraves to the cives of Savona between the late 1050s and the early 1060s, which is to say only a few years after the issuing of  the Genoese document.9 These texts present significant overlaps with this document, but also certain differences. Besides, the two documents from Savona are not identical: as regards the issue we are interested in, namely the consuetudo, the 1059 text is far more explicit. Therefore, it is on this source that I will be focusing. The content of the document in question is quite clear: the margrave, who acknowledges limits attached to their power on Savona and its inhabitants, claims that in the eventuality of controversies over ownership rights and patrimonial issues between the inhabitants of the city and those living in its environs, the mat­ ter must be settled by three sacramentales (jurors) from Savona. Moreover, and more generally, in the case of disputes between cives, they were expected to turn to three sacramentales in order to ascertain what the custom was and resolve the dispute on its basis. In the other text, instead, the passage concerning this issue is far more elliptical and the procedure involving the three jurors is not mentioned. By contrast, what seems interesting to me is the fact that in this document the local customs mentioned are not confined to Savona, but are associated with a broader geographical and political context. Reference is made to the customs in force in other ‘maritime cities’ of the Aleramic march (plausibly Vado and Noli). Precisely in the light of these significant data, it is important to note that in the document pertaining to the Genoese consuetudo just mentioned, the validation of the custom itself was achieved through the oath (sacramentum in the text) sworn by three boni homines.10 If we remain in Liguria, but shift from an urban to a rural context, we can observe how similar procedures—with three sacramentales and the public recitation of the local custom, as a means to solve local conflicts— are recorded for the county of Ventimiglia, and more specifically the high Roya Valley around 1065, in the document known as the ‘charter of Tenda’.11 The text in question, which confirms the usages and customs in force in settlements in the high Roya Valley (Tenda, Briga and Saorgio), presents some significant analogies 9  Registri della Catena del Comune di Savona, I, n. 33 (a. 1059), pp. 57–8 (Guglielmo); Pergamene medievali savonesi, I, n. 6 (a. 1062), pp. 6–7 (Manfredo). 10  I libri iurium di Genova, I/1, n. 3 (a. 1056), p. 9: ‘breve de consuetudine quam fecit dominus Albertus marchio filius Opizonis itemque marchionis et firmavit per sacramentum per tres bonos homines’. 11  Daviso, ‘La carta di Tenda’. For a discussion of this text see also Ripart, ‘Le comté de Tende’.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

202  The Seigneurial Transformation with the letter of privilege from Savona, especially as regards sacramentales and their role in recalling the consuetudo and resolving disputes. In the light of this evidence, the letter of privilege from Genoa might be seen to record what a panel of jurors (labelled as boni homines in the document) declared with regard to certain aspects of the Genoese consuetudo, evidently in order to solve a tension or conflict that had pitted the cives against the marquis in relation to the modes of expropriation and administration of justice. This pronouncement would have been transcribed into a specific document on account of its local relevance. Moving beyond Liguria, we find similar procedures based on the public recall­ ing of a consuetudo at work, only a few years later, in the countryside around Pisa, Lucca and Florence, almost invariably in relation to rural centres governed by public authorities.12 Thus in the charter issued by Henry IV to the Pisans, refer­ ence is made to three jurors (scariones) selected among the meliores homines of each of the villages of the county of Pisa. These men were to swear to the imperial representatives that ‘eorum consuetudo fuit tempore suprascripti Ugonis’, which is to say that the local custom in force at the time of margrave Ugo (†1001) had been restored and guaranteed by royal officials, after the abuses committed under Bonifacio of Canossa.13 If, for some reason, the appointed men refused to take this oath, they would be compelled to do so by force.14 As early as the years 1074–80, a ritual of this sort was carried out in a village near Lucca, Moriano, to confirm the jurisdictional rights of the local lord (the bishop of Lucca).15 By around 1080, then, it had become an established practice in the area for jurors to publicly and solemnly recall the good custom regulating the exercising of local power in indi­ vidual rural centres (so much so that this practice was officially laid out in an imperial document). The form and content of these declarations are illustrated in greater detail in the document on the bonus usus of Rosignano (a village south of Pisa). This 1125 document records an oath taken by some inhabitants of Rosignano with regard to the ‘dericto uso de castello de Rasignano et de curte que fuit in tempore Gotifredi marchioni et Beatrice comitissa’.16 This sworn deposition was solemnly taken in the presence of the archbishop of Pisa—who had just been appointed lord of the village—and of his retinue and, in all likelihood, of the assembly of local men. The jurors listed the services that each inhabitant owed the local lord in virtue of  the properties he owned, along with his public prerogatives, pertaining in 12  For a more detailed analysis of these documents see Fiore, ‘Bonus et malus usus’. 13  MGH, Diplomata Henrici IV., n. 336 (a. 1081), pp. 442–3. A new (and better) edition of this ­diploma in Rossetti, ‘Pisa e l’Impero’, pp. 165–7. 14  A little bit later the text says that ‘Mascalciam [tax in kind for the feeding of king’s horses] in villis comitatus eorum fieri non sinemus nisi secundum consuetudinem tempore Ugonis sacramentis, sicut supra scriptum est, diffinitam’; Rossetti, ‘Pisa e l’Impero’, p. 166. 15  A partial edition of the text in ‘Appendice’, to Bertini, Memorie e documenti per servire alla storia di Lucca, IV.2, n. 84 (aa. 1074–80 c.), pp. 111–12. 16  Carte dell’archivio arcivescovile di Pisa, II, n. 68 (a. 1125), pp. 134–5.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

Custom: Rituals of Memory  203 particular to the administration of justice. The reference to margrave Godfrey and Beatrice of Canossa is significant. Rosignano, which had become part of the bishop of Pisa’s patrimony only a few years before, was a curtis that had previously been one of the estates of margravial fisc.17 The good custom recalled by the jurors was therefore explicitly linked to the old powerholders, and the bishop of Pisa sought to present himself as their legitimate successor. Around 1100 we find a document recording the sacramentum sworn by some jurors about the bonum usum at Antignano, an Umbrian village governed by the Monaldi, counts of Foligno.18 Other evidence from the same period is provided by the areas controlled by Matilda of Canossa north of the Appennines.19 As far as the Veneto is concerned, the first text to clearly mention a ritual based on the recalling of a local custom on the part of peasant jurors instead dates from 1109 and comes from the village of Coriano near Verona.20 More generally, the very first years of the twelfth century witnessed a real flood of attestations. While in some cases, as in the Milan area, the ritual is only mentioned, in other cases, such as the text from Antignano or the similar one from Rosignano (which we have already examined), in the Pisa area, the outcomes of this ritual are recorded. Between 1060 and 1125, therefore, the ceremonial is attested in Liguria, the Veneto, the subalpine area, Lombardy, Emilia, Tuscany, and Umbria. In other words, this social practice emerges in much the same form throughout the kingdom of Italy. However, it should be noted that after the very first urban at­test­ations, from the 1080s onwards the practice is only recorded in a rural context.21 In the following period, at least up until the early decades of the thirteenth century, attestations of the ceremonial continue to be relatively frequent in all regional contexts, although they are more highly concentrated in certain areas. It is only in the age of rural statutes, starting from the second half of the thirteenth century, with the recording of (almost) all norms, that ceremonials associated with jurors’ memory fall into disuse and are replaced by other practices, such as rituals revolving around the periodical reading of written texts.22 Before ending this section, I would like to get back to the earliest stage at which the sacramentum is attested in order to reflect on its origins. This is a crucial 17  See Ceccarelli Lemut, ‘Terre pubbliche’. 18  Archivio Storico del Comune di Todi, Fondo Trinci, n. 1 (a. 1100 c.). A partial edition (with discussion) of the text in Fiore, Signori e sudditi, pp. 248–50. 19  Die Urkunden und Briefe der Markgräfin Mathilde, n. 109 (a. 1108), pp. 290–2; n. 116 (a. 1109), pp. 307; n. 132 (a. 1114), pp. 338–40. 20 Biancolini, Notizie storiche delle Chiese di Verona, II, n. 32 (a. 1109), pp. 72–3. 21  A partial but important exception is the semi-urban settlement of Susa, controlled by the counts of Savoy; the traces of these practices are evident in the formulation of the first charter of franchise, granted by the counts in 1198, edited in Statuta et privilegia civitatis Secusiae, coll. 5–8; on the right date of the text see Sergi, Potere e territorio, p. 191. In the confirmation issued in 1233 these traces are entirely disappeared: Statuta et privilegia civitatis Secusiae, coll. 8–17; on this Sergi, Potere e territorio, pp. 193–4. 22  See section 9.4.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

204  The Seigneurial Transformation operation if we wish to fully understand the function of this practice (and of its recording in writing) within the turbulent political context of the turn of the 1100s. As I have argued in greater detail elsewhere, I believe that the sacramentum on the local usus is to be viewed within the framework of traditional ways of exercising local power on the part of public officials: a thesis very different from those gener­ ally adduced to explain the origin of similar rituals in France or Germany.23 However, this hypothesis is supported by some significant and essentially conver­ gent pieces of evidence. First of all, almost all attestations of the cere­monial prior to 1125 centre on jurors either from communities subject to public office holders (or ones to which public officers make a claim), as in the case of Antignano, Coriano and Tenda, or from fiscal estates that had fallen under the control of other lords, as in the case of Rosignano.24 A second element is the close connection to be observed between the general placitum and the swearing of an oath on the usus, which confirms the link with traditional (royal) ways of exercising local power. This connection is particularly (yet not exclusively) visible in twelfth-century sources from the Verona area, which for various reasons shows a marked conservatism with regard to the exer­ cising of local power. As we will see in greater detail later on, further evidence comes from the crucial role played by allodiaries in the ceremonial, which is to say by the members of a social stratum that in the past had been closely associated with royal power and placed under its protection.25 According to this view, then, the sacramentum falls among the many social prac­ tices associated with the holding of the general placitum in the post-Carolingian (or possibly even Carolingian) age. This context is essentially invisible in our sources up until the mid-eleventh century, when the process of localization and fragmentation of power, and the new political climate, made it necessary to start transcribing actions of this sort. The public nature of these ceremonies would also explain why they occur, in essentially the same form, throughout the regnum Italiae in the twelfth century, whereas they are completely absent from southern Italy, an area characterized by different ways of exercising public power, and where the institution of the general placitum was unknown.26 Given these premises, it is important to consider the reason why these ritual actions, which had hitherto been largely invisible, acquired visibility precisely in the last decades of the eleventh century, when royal power entered into crisis from both a material and ideological perspective. As we have seen, the written 23  Current scholarship connects the rituals of custom with local lordship, rather than with public power. For what concerns French-speaking Alps the strong link between (seigneurial) general placitum and sacramenta of local custom has been underlined by Poudret, ‘Le rôle des plaids generaux’, from the middle of the twelfth century to the late fifteenth. 24  The case of Moriano is not fundamentally different, even if peculiar; it was an estate of the bishop of Lucca, but (until 1060s) the margraves of Tuscany had the full local jurisdiction. 25  A general overview in Tabacco, I liberi del re. 26  On Lombard southern Italy, see Delogu, ‘La giustizia’.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

Custom: Rituals of Memory  205 recording of rituals associated with the custom, which had previously been transmitted orally, falls within the broader context of the recording of pacts. It is within this constellation of texts that we must view written sacramenta.27 Through the ritual enunciation of the custom, jurors could attempt to dispute some of the duties imposed upon them, as we have seen; yet the very act of responding in such a way was proof of their subordination and of the fact that they were subject to duties and obligations.28 Precisely for this reason, the recording of the cere­ monial was a way to confirm not just the legitimacy of this or that request made by a lord but, more generally, the legitimacy of the very power exercised by the dominus loci. From this perspective, I feel it is important to stress the fact that the discourse of consuetudo and the public rituals connected with it were modelled after practices typical of the traditional modes of exercising public power— although these were of course adapted to suit the new seigneurial context. The construction of the dominatus loci witnessed, along with the imposition of new forms of expropriation, the privatizing of old public rights, through an operation of ‘bricolage’ that took a range of different forms.29 Within this context, the idea of consuetudo no doubt recalled more traditional ways of exercising power, and it is no coincidence that this language was chiefly used by those lordships deriving from more traditional political groups active in the first half of the eleventh cen­ tury, such as the families of royal high officials and some religious institutions to which royal jurisdictional rights had been transferred.30 In order to better understand the sacramentum ceremonial, the ritual context in which it occurred, the reasons why it was recorded, and the mostly partial account provided by these texts with respect to what occurred in the sphere of actions and orality, I would like to start with a brief analysis of a small nucleus of documents pertaining to Cerea, an important rural centre in the Verona area which has produced two texts of this sort, drafted a few decades apart from one another.31 The earlier one dates from 1139 and focuses on the albergaria owed to the local canons and their retinue by the inhabitants of the rural centre. I will be examining this text in detail, as it is an excellent guide to the sacramentum cere­ monial and the problems related to it.32 That year, on the occasion of the general placitum, the local lord, the archpriest of the chapter of the Verona cathedral, arrived in the village along with his retinue in order to mete out justice. This was a particularly delicate moment, as the general placitum was the first one ever held 27  On this documentary framework, see Cammarosano, ‘Comunità rurali e signori’. 28  On this issue, very important considerations in Algazi, ‘Lords Ask’, based on German Weistümer; for a more general overview Algazi, Herrengewalt und Gewalt der Herren. 29  See Chapter 3. 30  See for example Statuta et privilegia civitatis Secusiae, coll. 5–8 (counts of Savoy); Le carte del capitolo di Verona, I, n. 93 (a. 1139), pp. 173–9 (chapter of Verona). 31  Le carte del capitolo di Verona, I, n. 93 (a. 1139), pp. 173–9; Le carte del capitolo di Verona, II, n. 113 (a. 1182), pp. 204–7. 32  Le carte del capitolo di Verona, I, n. 93 (a. 1139), pp. 173–9.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

206  The Seigneurial Transformation by the new lord, who had just taken the place of the San Bonifacio counts. The lord, therefore, arrived with a vast entourage of over twenty-five people, including seventeen milites: a show of strength evidently designed to impress (and intimi­ date) his subjects by making it clear that he intended to exercise his rights in full. The archpriest asked the vicini to maintain his impressive retinue throughout the duration of the placitum by providing two meals a day for them, according to custom. The vicini replied that the local custom with regard to hospitality was to provide only one meal a day. This claim brought the planned ceremonial to a halt, creating a fraught impasse. To solve the conflict, the archpriest summoned the four local sacramentales so that they dicerent veritatem on the obligation. The sacramentales, rather surprisingly disproving the vicini, claimed that the custom called for two meals a day, to which everyone was required to contribute except for the local milites (a group which, as we shall see in greater detail later on, did not include the jurors in question). The community abided by this decision, sol­ emnly asking the lord for his pardon, which was granted. This made it possible to resume the range of practices and rituals associated with the placitum. The conflict surrounding the sacramentum in this case clearly explains why the choice was made to at least partially record what had occurred, in order to sol­ emnly reaffirm the pre-existing balance after the crisis. The need was felt not just to record the part of the consuetudo which had been the focus of the conflict, but also the way in which the consuetudo had been affirmed, so as to provide some additional certification and prevent new tensions. The other norms, which were perceived as being less at risk at the time, continued to be committed to the jurors’ memory and to public ceremonials. The 1182 text, instead, is chiefly centred on the content of the oath of fidelity that the local inhabitants were required to periodically swear to their lord, and lists the points to be mentioned in detail. In addition, we find a reference to the albergaria, albeit a cursory and vague one. Equally cursory and general is the reference to the lord’s rights in terms of the administration of justice. The shift compared to forty years before is quite evident, at any rate in the written docu­ mentation, and reflects the new concerns which had emerged. At this stage, in which local society—whose elites were becoming increasingly attached to the commune of Verona—had started challenging the very authority of the canons, the oath of fidelity acquired crucial relevance, whereas the albergaria, the focus of the previous document, now only played a marginal role.33 A comparative ana­ lysis of these two texts, therefore, reveals the partial nature of the recording of the oath of consuetudo and perhaps (but we will be getting back to this point later on) also that of the very sacramentum made by the jurors. In addition, further documents pertaining to the lordship exercised by the canons over Cerea inform 33  The chapter had rising difficulties in controlling the local society of Cerea, since the late twelfth century; see Varanini, ‘Società e istituzioni a Cerea’, esp. pp. 74–6.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

Custom: Rituals of Memory  207 us that the range of seigniorial powers they held in the village were much broader and more complex than the ones recorded in the two documents (and possibly in the two rituals), which thus emerge as partial sources designed to meet contingent needs.34 The documentary evidence from Verona as a whole allows us to view sacramenta in what would appear to be their natural context, namely the range of rit­uals and practices of power carried out on the occasion of the solemn general placitum.35 In addition to the documents pertaining to Cerea, then, I would like to draw attention to some texts from the second half of the century, in which the recording of the ritual appears to be quite unrelated to any conflict surrounding specific jurisdictional rights, and would rather seem to have occurred as a means to certify in more general terms the full jurisdiction exercised by a lord over the village in question. In this case, the link with the general placitum and the rituals associated with it (the albergaria, the free meal offered to the lord’s retinue, the oath of fidelity, etc.) emerges in full. Precisely because of its confirmatory value, the text is designed to record, if not all, at least the most relevant power cere­ monials concentrated in those highly significant days.36 It was in that context that the local power balances were solemnly confirmed by the actors involved. While accepting the local lord as a judge was in itself a way of acknowledging his role and power, other more symbolic practices were performed alongside the actual placitum, thereby reinforcing its significance as an act of submission, with a cumulative effect. This, then, was a particularly intense moment, in which the accumulated ten­ sions between the lord and his subjects could sometimes explode in a dramatic fashion. Clearly, a solemn and confirmatory context of this sort also offered an ideal stage to publicly lay claim to rights and prerogatives, to reject obligations and burdens, and to reaffirm or attempt to redefine the status quo. In the case of more or less open conflict, the public recollection of the usus could become a ­crucial moment in the match played out between a lord and a community, as is  particularly evident in the 1139 case from Cerea, but also in that which had occurred—thirty years before—at Coriano, where the lords’ claims with regard to the albergaria had run up against the barrier of the jurors’ sacramenta.37 However, it is important to stress that these were tensions occurring within the lord-subjects dynamics, and not ones due to the action of external actors. The sacramentum ceremonial, in other words, was one way to solve both big and small local con­ flicts, to ensure the smooth running of apparatuses of power, and to ensure their 34  See especially Le carte del capitolo di Verona, I, n. 120 (a. 1145), pp. 220–9, with a long list of judicial testimonies. 35  Simeoni, ‘Antichi patti’; Simeoni, ‘Comuni rurali veronesi’; Simeoni, ‘Il comune rurale’. 36  This happened in the recording of general placita of Cerea held in 1212, 1215, and 1217: see Simeoni, ‘Il comune rurale’, p. 246. 37 Biancolini, Notizie storiche delle Chiese di Verona, n. 32 (a. 1109), pp. 72–3.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

208  The Seigneurial Transformation delicate balance. In all likelihood, then, this was not an entirely exceptional procedure, but rather an (at least) relatively frequent one used to safeguard (or at least feign to safeguard) the preservation and immutability of the range of oral norms ensuring local order.

9.2  The jurors between lord and community One first interesting element, of course, is represented by the jurors themselves. The problem is in fact twofold. On the one hand, it is a matter of ascertaining who was in charge, in each particular case, of appointing these figures; on the other, it is a matter of understanding what their position was within local society, which is to say what interests they represented. As a preliminary remark, it is worth noting the very close bond between jurors and local society: a connection that clearly emerges from the documentary evidence examined thus far. The sacramentales are almost invariably the representatives of a village community, of which they are members. This is always the case in the Verona area and throughout most of Italy. The only area in which jurors represent a broader, supra-local institution is in Alpine Piedmont—where they represent a valley community. While already the Tenda document (pertaining to the three communities of the high Roya Valley, that is Tenda, Briga and Saorgio) adumbrates a situation of this sort for the second half of the eleventh century, some thirteenthcentury texts from Piedmont clearly illustrate the presentation of a ‘valley’ usus made by a panel of jurors from various different settlements.38 The other apparent exception to this model is represented by a 1108 document concerning the village of Santa Maria di Castello, near Modena.39 In order to solve the dispute between the local community and Matilda of Canossa, a hearing was made of three men described as iuratores ipsius comitatus. This expression might be taken to refer to jurors responsible for the whole county. While in­tri­ guing, this is a rather unlikely hypothesis for purely practical reasons: such a small group could hardly have retained the memory of all the rights in force in all the various centres of the county, or even only of those directly governed by the comital authorities. Rather, it is reasonable to suppose that these iuratores comitatus were not jurors appointed for the whole county, but simply the jurors of the local community, acknowledged by the comital authority (in this case Matilda)—i.e. figures of exactly the same sort as those attested elsewhere. 38  See esp. Manuel di San Giovanni, Memorie storiche di Dronero e della Val Maira, III, n. 3 (aa. 1254–6 c.), pp. 8–10 (Maira Valley); Cartario delle valli Stura e Grana, n. 17 (a. 1231), pp. 24–7 (Stura Valley). Quite similar the case of Gesso Valley, on which see Marro, ‘Valdieri, Andonno’, with edition of a 1262 text. A forceful analysis of these documents is provided by Provero, Le parole dei sudditi, pp. 42–8. 39  Die Urkunden und Briefe der Markgräfin Mathilde, n. 109 (a. 1108), pp. 290–2.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

Custom: Rituals of Memory  209 Having solved this problem, we must now focus on the key issue of the ways in which the panel of jurors was appointed. In most cases, the sources do not specify who is responsible for selecting the sacramentales. In almost all cases in which the mode of selection of the jurors is recalled, the latter are never independently appointed by the community. In some cases from the Verona area the appoint­ ment would appear to be a prerequisite of the lord, whereas in other cases the local community plays a role, at any rate at the consultative level.40 Clear informa­ tion is provided by a source pertaining to Altichiero, near Padua: it suggests that in the second half of the twelfth century, the jurors were chosen by the local lord or his envoys cum consilio vicinorum. The community, therefore, played a merely consultative role. However, shortly before 1180 the vicini entered into conflict with the lord, after seeking to strengthen their prerogatives in this field and to be made jointly responsible for the choice and appointment of jurors.41 We do not know how the conflict was resolved, but it is noteworthy that as early as 1129, in Montebelluna near Treviso, the agreements struck between the local lord, the bishop of Treviso, and the vicini made the community exclusively responsible for appointing the iurati.42 This is an important and early concession, which is to be viewed within the context of an extremely advantageous agreement for the com­ munity, confirmed by another pact sealed in 1170. However, it remains a completely isolated case in the twelfth-century Treviso area, an area in which local customs must not have led to any marked tensions between domini and subjects.43 The other local communities who struck agreements with their lords (including the bishop) were not officially granted the right to appoint jurors, which apparently remained the lords’ prerequisite. Very different situations, then, could coexist in the same area. Nevertheless, it may be hypothesized that communities became increasingly responsible for the choice of sacramentales, as they acquired a more prominent political role. Starting from a situation in which the lord alone had the right to appoint jurors, communities first acquired a consultative role and then came to share the dominus’ right to appoint them. By contrast, cases in which the community was made exclusively responsible for appointing the jurors would appear to have been rather few and far between. This right was of strategic importance for controlling local power balances, and it was quite unthinkable for

40 See Simeoni, ‘Comuni rurali veronesi’, pp. 116, 146, 158–9 (several example of seigneurial choice), p. 190 (example of shared choice). 41  As is apparent from Codice diplomatico padovano, II, n. 1427 (a. 1181), pp. 449–51; see especially the witness of Folbertus of Sant’Angelo (p. 450), who said that ‘missi Dalismiani [lord of Altichiero] veniebant Vicoltikerio et cum consilio vicinorum ponebant decanos [petty seigneurial officers] et iuratos’. The same witness said that later a discordia raised ‘de ponendis decanis et iuratis’ (about the choice of officers and jurors). 42  On this agreement, see Collodo, ‘I vicini e i comuni di contado’, esp. p. 144. 43  The text of 1170 (repeating the former) is edited in ‘Appendice’, to Verci, Storia della Marca Trivigiana, I, n. 18 (a. 1170), pp. 21–2. For the comparison with another agreement between lord and community, n. 13 (a. 1122), pp. 15–16.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

210  The Seigneurial Transformation a lord to casually transfer it to his subjects. The case of Montebelluna shows how this concession falls within a local context in which the lords’ prerogatives were growing weaker, owing to political calculations on a broader level; as such, it should be regarded as an exception. The second problem concerns the social profile of the jurors: considering their crucial role, it would be interesting to reconstruct their exact place within the hierarchy of their community. Unsurprisingly, the evidence pertaining to the earli­est cases is rather scanty in this respect; however, in a couple of cases, Cerea and Rosignano, it allows us to at least formulate some hypotheses based on con­ crete data. As concerns the community near Verona, the (partial) data pertaining to milites holding fiefs from the lord shows that the list of jurors and that of knights known to us did not overlap at all.44 The social background of the jurors, therefore, ought to be sought outside the military group closest to the dominus loci. This model would appear to be confirmed by the available data for Rosignano, in the Pisa area. The only juror whose name survives (the others—probably two— are illegible) would not appear to have been a holder of any feuda.45 Not only that, but he would not even appear to have been among the peasant leaseholders of seigniorial land. It thus seems as though we can rule out the higher and lower social strata of the village community from the group of iuratores. In the light of such evidence, it may be useful to return to the usus of Tenda. According to it, the jurors were to be chosen among the local holders of alodia, whereas manentes, which is is to say propertyless tenants, would appear to have been excluded completely, along with the holders of benefices.46 Besides, a social profile of this sort is perfectly consistent with the mention of meliores homines (best men) as the group out of which jurors were to be selected according to the charter issued to the Pisans by Henry IV.47 The evidence would thus appear to suggest that, at least up until the mid-twelfth century, the jurors were chosen from the middle-upper stratum of village society, ruling out both wealthy military figures (who were probably regarded as being too close to the lord) and economically weaker ones (whose social and personal status was too low to represent the community as a whole). In other words, the jurors must have essentially coincided with the group of wealthy peasants: the very group that in the subsequent period was to gain control of the government of rural communes.48 The milites, in particular, on account of their personal bond of fealty to the dominus and their role as ‘watchdogs’ of his power, were 44  A list of fief-holders in Cerea is edited in Le carte del capitolo di Verona, I, n. 78 (a. 1137), pp. 153–4; another local vassal is mentioned in n. 81 (a. 1138), p. 158; and others in n. 92 (a. 1139), pp. 172–3. 45  Le carte dell’archivio arcivescovile di Pisa, II, n. 68 (a. 1125), pp. 134–6. The document about the bonus usus of Rosignano comprehends a list of military vassals and local leaseholders of the archbishop, comparable with the list of the jurors. 46  Daviso, ‘La carta di Tenda’. 47  Rossetti, ‘Pisa e l’impero’, p. 165. 48  On this, see Wickham, Community and Clientele, pp. 243–53.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

Custom: Rituals of Memory  211 evidently perceived as unfit to represent the community as a whole, from which they were often cut off from an institutional perspective as well.49 Their acquies­ cence to the lord’s wishes, and to his view of social relations, could be taken for granted; this was not the case with the acquiescence shown by wealthy peasants, which was all the more precious for this reason. It was this segment of local ­society that needed to be co-opted in some way in order to stabilize and consolidate the lord’s power. Unlike peasants with no land of their own and a low personal ­status, freeholders enjoyed greater independence vis-à-vis their lord.50 In this respect, they could represent their community as a social reality at least partly independent from its lord. The fact that it was individuals from this social stratum who were expected to iurare the usus fulfilled different, albeit interconnected, functions. The sacramentum ceremonial provided the opportunity to symbolically express the central, representative role played by this group within their com­ munity (and the local lord’s acknowledgement of this social reality), but also to ritualize the community’s subjection to the lord’s power. As we have seen, it was the dominus himself who questioned the jurors; the very fact that the latter replied, if only to deny this or that seigneurial right, confirmed the lord’s juris­ diction as a whole, symbolized by his right to interrogate his subjects.51 Significantly, between the twelfth and thirteenth century, the members of this social group were to gain control of the institution of consulship within rural communities. And in the period following the formal establishment of consulship, these rural consuls acquired the role previously played by jurors with respect to the reproduction of local custom.

9.3  Time, memory, and custom One of the core problems which has emerged in these last pages concerns the relation between custom, time, and memory. This relation is less obvious than it might seem, and must therefore be carefully discussed. The very idea of custom is  closely related to time: the term usus describes precisely a practice that is regularly repeated over time. One first possible approach, then, is to reflect on the chronological and temporal element in public attestations of the bonus usus. Frequently, in documents centred on the recording of sacramenta we find rather 49  From this standpoint the case of San Giorgio di Valpolicella—where two of the three jurors mentioned in the general placitum of 1187 are high aristocrats (even if in that period there is no proof of their vassallic relationship with the local lord, the bishop of Verona); see the ‘Appendice’ to Castagnetti, La Valpolicella, n. 7 (a. 1187), pp. 181–2. On the local lordship of the bishop, see Brugnoli, ‘Il castrum e il territorio di San Giorgio’; and Castagnetti, La Valpolicella, pp. 60–7 (esp. pp. 65–6 on local sacramentum and its contents). 50  On the crucial role of this group in medieval peasant communities, see Wickham, Framing, esp. pp. 475–623. 51  On these issues see Algazi, ‘Lords Ask’; e Morsel, ‘Le prélèvement seigneurial’.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

212  The Seigneurial Transformation detailed temporal references to the origin of the usus which is being recalled, ­references which go hand in hand with a recollection of the lord—or, rather, public official—in power at the time when the local custom was established. Sometimes this figure is recalled precisely as the source of the range of norms transmitted by the custom. Thus the jurors of Antignano, around 1100, traced the origin of their local bonum usum back to the convenientia established some fifty years before between count Monaldo and the members of their community.52 Likewise, when in the mid-eleventh century the men from the high Roya Valley communities and the counts of Ventimiglia agreed on the usus regulating their mutual relations, a reference was made to the ‘usu et consuetudo huius terre que dedit et investivit domnus Ardoinus marchio’: the agreement was thus traced back to some seventy years earlier, which is to say to the ultimate limits of the direct memory of the individuals involved in the pact.53 Roughly the same time distance between the present day and the time in which the custom was established is evoked by diploma that Henry IV issued to the Pisans in 1081. Here the emperor announces that, with regard to the exercising of public power over the castles in the comitatus of Pisa, he wishes to re-establish the consuetudo in force at the time of margrave Ugo, who had died in 1001, which is to say eighty years earlier.54 In each rural centre, three scariones (jurors) chosen from among its meliores homines would swear to the imperial representatives ‘quod eorum consuetudo fuit tempore suprascripti Ugonis’.55 Almost all other known cases present a chronological gap between the present day and the age to which the custom is traced back similar to the one found in these three examples, namely a period of between forty and seventy years. The past that was referred to, then, was neither so distant as to prove unfamiliar nor too vague, yet it was distant enough to lend the consuetudo a reassuring veneer of antiquity.56 Time represents a fundamental element for confirming the practices and rights publicly expressed by the jurors. What this means, of course, is that the prevailing tendency was to project more recent (or even new) situations into the past, so as to lend them additional legitimacy. Already in the case of Tenda it seems most likely that we are dealing with a phenomenon of this sort, at least as regards certain specific aspects of the usus. However, in this respect a clearer example would appear to be provided by Moriano, in the Lucca area. In the wake of the conflict that broke out between the bishop of Lucca and the lords of Mammoli concerning rights over a border area between the two lordships, between 1074 and 1080 some local jurors swore their sacramenta, claiming that the bishop had 52  On the datation of this text, see Fiore, Signori e sudditi, p. 248, n. 28. 53 Daviso, ‘La carta di Tenda’. 54  Rossetti, ‘Pisa e l’impero’, p. 165. 55  Rossetti, ‘Pisa e l’impero’, p. 165. 56  Similar chronological gaps: Cartario delle valli Stura e Grana, n. 17 (a. 1231), pp. 24–7; Carte dell’archivio arcivescovile di Pisa, II, n. 68 (a. 1125), pp. 134–6. On this issue important considerations in Vansina, Oral Tradition, esp. pp. 147–85. See also Welzer, ‘Communicative memory’.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

Custom: Rituals of Memory  213 enjoyed the right to administer justice at the local level since time immemorial.57 Through the plentiful local documentation, however, we know that this claim was at least partly false: only fifteen years earlier these prerogatives had been firmly in the hands of the margraves of Tuscany.58 The sacramentales of Moriano had instead felt the need to reinforce the bishop’s position by clearly backdating the (rather recent) origins of his power. This evident interest in projecting political realities and social practices into the past suggests that caution must be exercised when approaching the chronological references in jurors’ attestations, which is not to say that they have no validity at all. This emphatic reference to the past further suggests that we should consider the relation between the depositions made by local jurors and local social memory. In most cases, in their sacramentum the local jurors promise not to say what they have personally witnessed, but rather to express local norms and rights, by contrast to what occurred in the examination of texts during judicial enquiries. In one other case, the jurors asked to attest to the local consuetudo significantly refer to memory; not the recollection of the practices under discussion, but rather the memory of what they themselves have heard from previous jurors over time: ‘de hoc quod scit ex visione vel ex auditu quorum maiorum iuratorum’.59 De facto, it may legitimately be argued that the usus publicly expressed by local jurors was based not so much on the collective memory of concrete practices of power, as on the memory of the ceremonial practices devoted to the recollection of local law. Precisely with regard to this point, it is possible to identify one of the most crucial differences between sacramenta and witness statements produced at trials. The latter were also sworn depositions made by members of a community who were required to answer specific questions. Witness statements, however, centred on the description of local practices, and on the reality of social and power ­relations.60 This description was based on the memory of the witnesses themselves and, more generally, on the community’s collective memory. The texts were expected to recall facts and situations; the jurors swearing the sacramenta, by contrast, had to publicly affirm norms and rights. This ceremonial was aimed to reaffirm not just the role of the dominus, but also that of the community. The acknowledgement was mutual, with each side le­git­­ im­iz­ing the other. Not only that, but in manifesting the existence of the community as a unitary political body, the ceremonial also reaffirmed its fractures, pointing

57 ‘Appendice’, to Bertini, Memorie e documenti per servire alla storia di Lucca, IV.2, n. 84 (aa. 1074–80 c.), pp. 111–12. 58 Wickham, Community and Clientele, pp. 90–3. 59  Le carte del capitolo di Verona, II, n. 73 (a. 1176), p. 128; the text is about the village of Porcile, in  Veneto. It’s very similar the expression used in anothe document, about the village of Bionde (but written by the very same notary Ademaro); see Le carte del capitolo di Verona, II, n. 99 (a. 1181), pp. 170–1. 60  See the many testimonies analysed in Provero, ‘Conflitti di potere’.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

214  The Seigneurial Transformation to the hierarchy existing between its various social components.61 As we have seen, the role of jurors was reserved for the group of peasant notables; it thus expressed an acknowledgement of this component, which was distinguished from that of humbler leaseholders or milites. The latter’s sense of belonging to a group manifested itself (at least in the case of Cerea) in the fact that they were exempt from paying the albergaria to their lord. The sacramentum, and more generally the range of rituals it encompassed, therefore served as an occasion for the vari­ ous social actors to confirm (or try to renegotiate) their reciprocal status. With the sacramentum the jurors reminded the lord (and other vicini) who they were, what rules they were expected to follow, to whom they owed obedience, and who owned what. Collective and individual identity was thus reformulated and newly confirmed before the assembly of vicini and the lord, and with their approval: the ceremonial of memory expressed the ‘official’ and acknowledged meaning of every­day practices and, indirectly, determined the identity of the people ­performing them.62 In this sense, the regular repetition of the ritual was important because, in the eyes of the lord convening the assembly, it prevented (or at any rate dis­ couraged) subjects from ‘forgetting’ their duties and loosening their ties of dependence on the dominus. More generally, as already noted, it represented a periodical moment of expression (and renegotiation) of local social balances. The main element in support of the idea of the periodic nature of the ritual is the ceremonial context in which it took place. The preferred (albeit not exclu­ sive) framework of the sacramentum was the general placitum, which almost invariably occurred on a yearly basis (or even three times a year). It is not com­ pletely unlikely, therefore, that—at any rate at an early stage—on the occasion of every general placitum a public enunciation of the local usus was made by the jurors, partly by analogy with similar ceremonials attested beyond the Alps. In any case, this is only a hypothesis, which our sources do not allow us to either confirm or refute. What deserves a separate treatment is the issue of the sources at our disposal. The records of oaths that have reached us tend to reflect particular moments in the relation between a lord and his community. When we are able to recon­ struct the political context of an individual text we find that the recording of the oath coincides with a moment of conflict or of discontinuity with respect to seigneurial power. There is no doubt that at such moments the need to perform the sacramentum ceremonial was felt with particular urgency; this was combined with a pressing need to record the ritual (either entirely or partially) in writing. Conflict (or merely tension) led lords to seek for additional confirmation of their prerogatives, which found expression in the drafting of documents. In certain 61 Torre, Il consumo di devozioni, pp. 63–75. 62  On social ‘self-memory’, see Algazi, ‘Sich selbst Vergessen’.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

Custom: Rituals of Memory  215 cases such documents do not even present any traces of the ritual context within which they originated and take the form of a straightforward list of rights, ­patrimonies, and/or lands.63

9.4  Custom and franchises: complementarity and overlaps The cases examined so far also reveal another fundamental characteristic of the orality regulating usus: the fact that it was not written made it flexible, allowing both lords and subjects to adapt it to suit new power balances at the local level. A  written pact or letter of privilege—but also the written recording of a sworn declaration—constituted a stronger guarantee of the immutability of the relations it described (even though this immutability was not absolute).64 A written text laying down each side’s obligations was not just a guarantee for the community against any new claims its lord might wish to make in the future: it could also spring from the lord’s desire to exploit his own (temporary) position of strength to determine future long-term balances in his relation with his subjects.65 The fixed nature of written norms, therefore, was counterbalanced by the (at least relative) flexibility of oral norms. This intrinsic characteristic of the oral usus probably explains why even in the case of many rural centres where letters of privilege or written pacts had been drafted between the community and its lord, consuetudo continued to play a leading role. An analysis of these acts shows that they regulated a range of matters, often in great detail, while completely overlook­ ing other areas of crucial importance for local society. In some cases, they touched upon such areas only with general enunciations (e.g. ‘the community must help the lord’), without specifying the actual ways in which these norms were to be put into practice. So while the aforementioned ‘charter of Tenda’ established the duty of certain communities to provide military aid to their lords, it did not specify either the size of the contingents to be provided or the number of days in which this service took place each year. It is only from some thirteenth-century witness statements that we learn that at the time from Tenda alone fifty men were to be conscripted for fifteen days.66 The duty of communities to provide military 63  Two lists of rights and lands with the mention of jurors, but without indication of the ritual framework, in Le carte del monastero di S.  Ambrogio, III/1, nn. 101–2 (a. 1174). An example from Fermo with a plain list of rights without mention of jurors in Liber iurium, n. 31 (a. 1130 c.), pp. 56–8; another similar example (from the territory of Padua) in Codice diplomatico padovano, II, n. 74 (a. 1116 c.), p. 61. 64  On the charters of franchise, see section 8.1. 65 Carocci, Baroni di Roma, pp. 199–204, suggests not reading the existence of statutes as diagnostic signs of strength of local communities. 66  On this, see Ascheri, ‘I conti di Ventimiglia’, p. 10, note 2. Even in Ripatransone, in the south­ ern Marche, the effective military dues were not specified in the charter of franchise (where they were just  mentioned), but were codified by local oral custom. See the witnesses in Fermo città egemone, n. 20 (a. 1253), p. 106, testimony of Marco di Giovanni: ‘pactum fuit inter predictum

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

216  The Seigneurial Transformation c­ ontingents to their lords was thus established in writing, whereas the specific form of this service was transmitted orally and hence was (possibly) open to peri­ odic renegotiation between the people of the valley and the counts of Ventimiglia. Likewise, in the Marche and in Umbria we only know about a relevant aspect of the relation between subjects and their lords, namely the banalities (the use of the lord’s mills, kiln, etc.) through witness statements, since it systematically goes unmentioned in letters of privilege, with only one exception: the letter of privilege issued to the community of Marano, in the southern Marche.67 While this kind of indeterminateness and incompleteness characterizes—to varying degrees—more or less all written agreements and charters of franchises, the situation seems more pronounced in the early period, between the ninth and twelfth century. At this stage, it is evident that orality was still of central im­port­ ance, and that the written documentation was intended not so much to replace as to complement it, insofar as it was employed to solemnize particularly significant moments in the relation between a lord and his community.68 The two sides con­ sciously chose, on the one hand, to commit to writing the memory of the existence of a reciprocal agreement, and, on the other hand, to continue to rely on orality for the actual regulation of their mutual relations—or at any rate of many of these relations. Particularly revealing evidence for this attitude is provided by those acts in which the lord merely promises the community to respect its bonus usus, as the abbot of Farfa did with the Stablamonenses in 1113.69 However, even an analysis of a series of genuine letters of privilege, such as those issued by the bishop of Fermo to some centres subject to his power in the decades around 1100 points to essentially the same conclusions. In all these texts the actual relations between the subjects and their bishop remain extremely vague.70 The discussion only touches upon a more concrete level when it comes to the issue of granting the local consuls the right to exercise low justice and forego certain seigneurial dues (in particular, the siliquaticum, a tax on ­markets). No mention is made of other seigneurial levies, of the use of public resources, of military services or even of the banalities—to limit ourselves to dominum Adenulfum et homines Ripetransonis quod predicti homines Ripetransonis non debent transire flumen Clenti occasione exercitus neque stare in exercitu ultra VIII dies nec stare in exercitu minus tribus diebus’. 67  On the importance of seigneurial mills (and of their income), see the witnesses in Fermo città egemone, n. 20 (a. 1253), pp. 64–141, and more in general, Fiore, Signori e sudditi, pp. 327–8. The char­ ter of franchise of Marano is edited in Liber iurium, n. 102 (a. 1200), pp. 212–14. 68  On complementarity between writing and orality, and on ritual and ceremonial meanings of writing, see Morsel, Ce qu’écrire veut dire. 69  Il Regesto di Farfa, V, n. 1180 (a. 1113), p. 179. 70 See Liber iurium, n. 35 (a. 1115), pp. 65–8 (Montolmo), where a lost franchise to Civitanova (granted in 1075) is mentioned; n. 15 (a. 1116), pp. 18–22 (Poggio San Giuliano); n. 108 (a. 1128), pp. 231–3 (Montesanto); another early franchise (now lost) for the castle of Agello is mentioned in Liber iurium, n. 43 (a. 1086), pp. 78–80: see Fiore, Signori e sudditi, p. 253.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

Custom: Rituals of Memory  217 unquestionably important elements, which we know of from other, later documents pertaining to the same centres.71 In order to better understand the interaction between letters of privilege and written pacts, on the one hand, and (oral) swearing of custom, on the other, it will be useful to more closely examine a couple of dossiers from the Verona area. The first centres on San Giorgio di Valpolicella, which in the early twelfth century was governed by a nobleman, Erzone, who held the village in benefice half from the bishop and half from the counts of Verona.72 In 1139 the descend­ ants of Erzone made a rather detailed agreement with their vicini of San Giorgio, to regulate their mutual relations. Three years later, the pact was renewed with some slight adjustments.73 After that date, we have no other documentary evi­ dence concerning power relations within the village until 1187, a particularly important date in its history. That year the bishop of Verona, through a series of legal transactions, acquired direct sovereignty over the whole rural centre. On 27 October, to solemnize the new role he played at the local level, the bishop visited the village to hold the general placitum, escorted by a large retinue. On the same occasion, he asked the jurors to dicere et manifestare, under oath, the  ‘usus atque consuetudines domini’ in the name of the whole community, assembled before the parish church.74 The set of norms that the local iurati publicly recalled largely overlapped with the one mentioned in the 1139 docu­ ment, although it would appear to have been broader, insofar as it touched upon some issues that were utterly absent from the written pact laid down half a century earlier. A similar model, in which the presence of a written pact did not rule out the periodical attestation of the lords’ right on the part of the sacramentales, is also found at Bionde, a possession of the chapter of Verona. The relations between subjects and lords at a local level had been defined through a covenant as early as 1091. In this case the text of the agreement is also very succinct and focuses on a few specific points. However, a century later the local jurors were still required to  periodically list the lords’ rights before the representatives of the chapter, as attested by a 1186 document which contains a transcription of the oaths sworn on 15 June.75 This is a far more broad-ranging text than that of 1091, which clearly shows how, even after the redaction of the pact, local law largely continued to be committed to orality and public ceremonials. In this case, we do not know the reason that led to the (exceptional) transcription of the ritual; however, it is likely

71 Fiore, Signori e sudditi. 72  On the local lordship, see Brugnoli, ‘Il castrum e il territorio di S. Giorgio’, and Castagnetti, La Valpolicella, pp. 60–7. 73  The two documents are edited in ‘Appendice’, to Castagnetti, La Valpolicella, n. 5 (a. 1139), pp. 180–1; n. 7 (a. 1187), pp. 181–2; see pp. 65–6 on sacramentum and its contents. 74  Simeoni, ‘Comuni rurali veronesi’, pp. 112–14. 75  See the ‘Appendice’, to Simeoni, ‘Il comune rurale’, p. 240.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

218  The Seigneurial Transformation that the canons felt the need to certify their power in a moment of increasing ­difficulty and conflict with many subject communities. It is quite evident that oral and written norms were not in conflict, but rather harmoniously coexisted, integrating each other. Charters of franchise or pacts broadly outlined the relation between lords and their subjects, and recorded some specific points which were perceived as being particularly significant at the time. With regard to any issue not touched upon in the text, it was oral norms and cus­ toms that defined the forms and modes of relation between the two sides. Even when a charta libertatis or convenientia between a lord and his community was available, it was necessary to preserve a ceremonial designed to periodically recall the local bonus usus. Besides, it was only with the development of genuine written statutes in rural communities that the sacramentum ceremonial involving jurors finally fell out of use.76 Before turning our attention elsewhere, it is worth highlighting another complex element in the relation between writing and orality. The attestations of the sacramentum ritual known to us are often either complete or partial written records of this ceremonial. As such, they bear witness to situations in which the need was felt to transcribe this specific action in order to certify it, strengthen its value, and preserve its memory. What we must (also) envisage, then, are complex local realities, in which practices of power acquired legitimacy from different sources that partly overlapped and partly stood in potential conflict to one another: written pacts (and, to a lesser extent, charters of franchise), oral agreements, jurors’ oral attestations, and partial records of one or more of these at­test­ations.77 Getting back to the specific case of San Giorgio, what is exceptional about it is not so much the public enunciation of all the lord’s rights on the part of his subjects, as the documentary recording of the ceremony. The general placitum may well have entailed a ceremony of this sort. The decision to transcribe the whole ritual (and not just a list of the lord’s prerogatives) would instead appear to spring from the bishop’s desire to solemnize and certify in writing the new power he wielded over the community. This (relative) discontinuity in terms of power and the inevitable need to relegitimize the latter thus led to the creation of a written document that represents a faithful (if exceptional) transcription of a peri­od­ic­al ceremonial action. Committing to orality the preservation of the sum of duties, rights, and pre­ rogatives defining the complex relation between lords and their subjects did not mean committing it to a kind of informal social memory. The documents which have reached us instead reveal a high degree of formalization, of the sort  one would expect to find when dealing with issues so crucial for local 76  Fiore, ‘Dal prestito al feudo’. 77 On the relationship between the different sources of right in medieval society, see Ascheri, ‘Statuti e consuetudini’, pp. 21–31.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

Custom: Rituals of Memory  219 dynamics.78 The fact that, as previously noted, oral norms had a certain degree of flexibility (not unlike written ones, in fact) does not mean that such norms were not in force or were not binding. In a ‘face-to-face’ society such as that of the rural communities analysed here, the act of speaking constituted the main form of the social circulation of meaning. So it is hardly surprising that the norms regulating this process were entrusted to orality.79 However, precisely the centrality of usus and the need to ensure its (relative) stability detached its recollection from every­ day life, framing it within a ceremonial and ritual context capable of lending it a higher le­git­im­ation; memory lost its fluidity and pliability, turning into a codified and ritual memory. Only gradually did the growing pervasiveness and social prestige of writing lead to the obliteration of these ceremonials, after a long phase of coexistence between oral and written norms that is evident in the thirteenthcentury cases from the valleys of Piedmont and Valcamonica, in Lombardy.80 In order to fully understand the peculiar relation between local customs and the sacramentum, it must be stressed that the latter was not necessarily the only possible solution for the public affirmation, in a ceremonial form, of the rights of local lords and of local power balances. Some rarer documents illustrate a different social practice, whereby a lord’s official would publicly proclaim the lord’s rights over a community before the representatives and members of the community itself. It is noteworthy that it was not the lord himself but a local representative of his who would publicly affirm these rights: only someone concretely operating on the local level could have the knowledge and practical know-how required to perform an operation of this kind. At least in principle, the members of the com­ munity could object to this list of rights, whereas their silence amounted to an acceptance of the rights illustrated by the lord’s representative. Let us consider now an example of this second model pertaining to the village of Nuvolera, owned by the abbey of Santa Giulia in Brescia. In January 1154 Guido, the dean ‘de Nuvlarie’ on behalf of the convent, ‘fecit manifestationem de iuriis et redditu quod Sancta Iulia habet in Nuvlarie’. This is followed by the usual, detailed list of rents, albergarie, and services. At the end of the manifestatio, Fr. Brusiado, the nuns’ representative, ‘in publica visinancia’, which is to say before the solemn assembly of the local vicini, stated that this list had been drawn up by the dean and that if anyone had anything to object, he should do so now, before the assem­ bly.81 No one spoke up, which confirmed the validity of the rights listed by the lord’s representative. While the subjects’ role was not completely eclipsed, it was 78  On the strong formalization of oral norms, see Assman, Das Kulturelle Gedächtnis, pp. 30–43. 79  On the central role of orality, see Vollrath, ‘Das Mittelalter in der Typik oraler Gesellschaften’. 80 On Piedmont, see Provero, Le parole dei sudditi, pp. 42–8. On Valcamonica, see Archivio Vescovile di Brescia, Sezione mensa, Registro 5, ff. 28–56, with the sacramenta of the local communities subject to the lordship of the bishop of Brescia, recorded in 1234; on this see Valetti Bonini, Le comunità di valle, pp. 21–30. 81  Le carte di S.  Giulia di Brescia, I, n. 103 (a. 1154). A similar text is Le carte del monastero di S. Ambrogio, III/2, n. 91 (a. 1199).

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

220  The Seigneurial Transformation very limited by comparison to the sacramentum. This ritual was genuinely alternative to the sacramentum sworn by peasant jurors; it was a ceremonial much closer to the lord’s perspective, one which could be controlled more directly and which made it much more difficult for the subjects to make the procedures work in their favour. It seems to me that a ritual of this sort would have been more suit­ able as a way to affirm the rights of a lord in places where subjects had very limit­ed leeway for action and where the lord exercised a more stringent control. However, this is only a hypothesis which cannot as yet be confirmed, given the little evidence collected so far.82 What I would like to emphasize is that, at least from a practical standpoint, the sacramentum ritual was not completely in­ev­it­ able. Alternatives were available that better safeguarded the role of the lord, to the detriment of the subjects’ role. Besides, it must be noted that, at least to some extent, the sacramentum constituted a show of power for lords, who could afford the luxury of (at least formally) entrusting their subjects with a crucial responsi­ bility such as the recollection of local customs, without having to fear the mishaps and problems that an acknowledgement of this sort might lead to.

9.5  When custom turns bad: the malus usus In the previous pages I have discussed custom as the range of shared (and usually oral) norms establishing local power relations, in particular with regard to the relation between a lord and a community; I have further noted how this reality was chiefly described using the expression bonus usus (or equivalent ones). However, in analysing social practices associated with consuetudo, I have also repeatedly noted cases in which the local usus was disputed, with conflicts emer­ ging between the two sides with regard to the content of practices established by custom. These situations of conflict and friction offer a key to better understand the nature of local custom, and the mechanisms regulating the establishment and reproduction of the social order. To perform this operation, it is worth focusing our attention on a different kind of custom, with a fully negative connotation: the malus usus (or, to use an equivalent label, the malae consuetudines). In recent studies published in Italy (as well as elsewhere), this expression is generally interpreted as valuable evidence for the imposition of new forms of seigneurial expropriation, and are said to occur especially in the period between the late eleventh century and the first half of the twelfth.83 First of all, we will endeavour to ascertain, and investigate, the meaning given to this expression in surviving

82  In addition to the texts above mentioned, see also the case, quite similar, of Ceriana, a lordship of the bishop of Genoa: I Libri iurium di Genova, II/2, n. 116 (a. 1156), pp. 411–13. 83  A discussion of malus usus attentive to the rethoric devices of the texts is Sassier, ‘Seigneuries d’eglises’.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

Custom: Rituals of Memory  221 documents. We will then reconstruct the practices with which it was associated, the rhetorical and discursive strategies of which it was part, and its ambiguous relation to the bonus usus. In other words, we will be using this expression as a key to better define the development of political languages in the countryside. First of all, it is interesting to note the nature of the documents featuring the expression in question. Malus usus and equivalent expressions occur rather frequently within deeds of relinquishment, in particular ones by which a lord relinquished a series of rights he had previously (unjustly) exercised on the sub­ jects and subordinates of another lord, or more rarely on his own subjects. One typical example is provided by the document in which in 1077 count Ranieri of the Aldobrandeschi family relinquished the ‘male consuetudines et usitationes’ he had exercised on the peasants living on the estates belonging to the abbey of Monte Amiata.84 However, a lord could also relinquish a malus usus he had exer­ cised even in documents addressed to the community that had been the victim of his abuses, as in the case of charters, contracts, and brevia. One typical case is the waiver which Matilda of Canossa issued to the men of Monticulo, in the Parma area, for the ‘malos et iniustos usos’ locally exercised by her ‘ministeriales’.85 Leaving our rural context aside for a moment, it may be recalled that emperor Henry IV himself, with the aforementioned charter from Lucca, had abolished the ‘consuetudines perversas’ introduced by margrave Bonifacio of Canossa with regard to the governing of the city.86 These examples make it quite clear that the expression malus usus (like its equivalents) is used to describe a range of services and provisions that were regarded as illegitimate and abusive by those expected to provide them: a view that at the time of the drafting of the deed was (at least formally) shared even by the holder of the prerogatives, who thereby sought to relinquish them. At times in  these texts the expression malus usus is replaced by wordier paraphrases through which the lord acknowledges that the provisions in question (albergaria, fodder tax, colta, etc.) had been imposed by him iniuste and/o per vim.87 In any case, it must be stressed that the expression first of all reflects the point of view 84  Codex diplomaticus Amiatinus, II, n. 303 (1077), p. 251. Good examples are also: Le carte della canonica della cattedrale di Firenze, n. 156 (a. 1108), p. 379 (pravum usum); Le più antiche carte di S.  Maria di Val di Ponte, I, n. 78 (a. 1157), pp. 137–8 (malum usum); Archivio Vescovile di Città di Castello, Registro I, f. 11 (a. 1114) (malum usum). 85  Die Urkunden und Briefe der Markgräfin Matilda, n. 132 (a. 1114), pp. 338–40; see also the ­waiver made in 1171 by the abbot of Passignano, concerning the malus usus on his men of Matraia, in northern Tuscany, partially edited in Conti, La formazione della struttura agraria, I, p. 282. Similar waivers by the bishop of Luni are: Il regesto del codice Pelavicino, n. 488 (a. 1039), pp. 506–8; n. 267 (a. 1096), pp. 246–7. 86  Rossetti, ‘Il diploma di Enrico’. On the reference to the custom in imperial (and margravial) ­diplomas to cities see Bordone, La società cittadina, pp. 101–16. 87 Some examples of waivers and pacts with such expressions: Regesto della Chiesa cattedrale di Modena, I, n. 310 (a. 1108), pp. 276 (deeds exercised iniuste by the lord); Le pergamene degli archivi di Bergamo, n. 37 (a. 1068), pp. 68–9 (the lord of Calusco promises his homines to not collect several levies per vim).

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

222  The Seigneurial Transformation of  those on whom power is being exercised, rather than of those exercising such power. In other words, whereas the bonus usus, at least to some extent, is the product of a shared view of power relations, the malus usus reveals a break between those in power and those forced to obey: to be more precise, a conflict between the two sides over the legitimacy of certain specific practices of power. The origin of the expression is probably to be sought within peasant communities subject to the power of lords, and who used it to voice their rejection of certain impositions.88 Its origin notwithstanding, the expression also found its way into the language of lords, who employed it to describe some of the services they expected from their subjects. The fact that the expression first occurs in docu­ ments concerning relations between lords and communities is hardly surprising; what is less obvious is its usage in contexts in which the subjects did not play a leading role, but were merely the object of a transaction. Expressions such as ‘cum omne uso, bono sive malo’ (with each custom, good or bad) are not all infrequent in the transfers of ownership (of an estate as property, as a fief, etc.) by one lord to another, and entailing the transfer of jurisdictional rights over certain areas or groups of individuals.89 It is obvious that in such cases the adjective malus is used to refer to those customary forms of expropriation the legitimacy of which was affirmed by the lord himself but not acknowledged by his subjects. The very formula used probably points to the existence of a dispute between the former lord and his subject with regard to certain services: a conflict inherited by the new dominus. Given these premises, it is worth shifting our attention to some concrete cases that provide further food for thought. In addition to Henry IV’s grant, the Pisa area offers other important texts pertaining to this topic. What is particularly helpful in elucidating the dynamics leading to the development of the so-called ‘negative’ consuetudo is a well-known document with which we have already dealt: the querimonia submitted by the inhabitants of Casciavola against the Longubardi de Sancto Cassiano.90 The account which the former produced for the Pisan judges of their relations with their meddlesome neighbours, and the very terminology they employed, must carefully be reassessed in the light of what has been argued so far. The inhabitants of Casciavola start off by claiming that they are free and have some warehouses (cellae) in the castle of San Casciano, where they enjoy the right of shelter. In listing the obligations deriving from this, the inhabitants of 88 Freedman, The Origins of Peasant Servitude, argues for a peasant origin. But in the same years the expression was used also (with the same meaning) by ‘reformed’ monks; see Sassier, ‘Seigneuries d’eglises’. 89  Le più antiche carte dell’abbazia di S. Maria di Valdiponte, I, n. 78 (a. 1157), pp. 137–8; II, n. 117 (a. 1176), pp. 28–9; Cenci, Codice diplomatico di Gubbio, n. 339 (a. 1173), pp. 392–3; n. 439 (a. 1195), p. 475; Archivio Vescovile di Città di Castello, Registro I, f. 11 (a. 1114). 90  Lettere originali, I, n. 18 (aa. 1098–1106 c.), p. 156. The text is discussed by Wickham, ‘La signoria rurale’, pp. 365–7.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

Custom: Rituals of Memory  223 Casciavola state that ‘Usus autem noster, quem nos faciebamus ad opus castellis talis fuit’.91 Initially this usus consisted in their having to stand guard in the castle and provide two cartloads of wood for every cella they owned within its walls. These services were also repaid through the protection that the San Casciano offered. Later, the lords of San Casciano chose to turn the payment in timber into one in money: 16 denarii for every cella. Thus far, the relation between the two sides would appear to have been a harmonious one, so much so that when, shortly afterwards, the San Casciano—with what the document (retrospectively) describes as ‘falsis precibus et cum inganno’—requested an additional contribution of three cartloads of wood from the Casciavola community, the latter complied. This section of the document ends as it had begun, with the formula ‘iste fuit n ­ ostrum usum’.92 From this moment onwards, the relations between the two sides rapidly deteriorated. After the destruction of their castle, the lords started imposing increasingly burdensome forms of expropriation on the small commu­ nity, an act perceived by now as a real form of extortion. Precisely in stressing the predatory nature of the power exercised by the lords, the document states that this exaction occurred ‘non per usum, nec per posturam neque per nostram voluntatem’.93 In this case, therefore, usus would appear to refer to the seigneurial (or, rather, proto-seigneurial) services provided by the Casciavolesi. The range of these services is clearly defined through a detailed yet not unalterable agreement between the two sides. The services fall within the framework of a relationship that was perceived (at any rate by the peasants) as being based on reciprocity, since the payments and services were counterbalanced by the possibility to make use of the castle’s defences and by the military protection provided by the lords. What we have, then, is not a fixed picture but one subject to developments and changes, as reflected precisely by the flexibility of the usus. When this dynamic balance is broken, the services required, which no longer meet the voluntatem (will) of the community, degenerated in the eyes of its members into mere rapinam (robbery): something that the inhabitants of Casciavola were only able to free themselves of after much effort, through the help of a higher authority (first margravine Beatrix, and then the commune of Pisa). As already noted, the most peculiar aspect of this specific event lies precisely in its conclusion. In most cases, the rapinae must have been regularized and must have rapidly evolved into a genuine malus usus. While disputed by significant segments of local society, customs of this sort could endure for several decades without losing their negative connotation as arbitrary acts. This was the case at Montecchio, near Parma.94 In 1114 the men of this village, with the support of the

91  Lettere originali, I, n. 18 (aa. 1098–1106 c.), p. 156. 92  Lettere originali, I, n. 18 (aa. 1098–1106 c.), p. 156. 93  Lettere originali, I, n. 18 (aa. 1098–1106 c.), p. 156. 94  Die Urkunden und Briefe der Markgräfin Matilda, n. 132 (a. 1114), pp. 338–40.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

224  The Seigneurial Transformation bishop of Parma (who almost certainly exercised his lordship over the area), lodged a complaint with countess Matilda of Canossa for ‘quondam malos et iniustos usos’ imposed by her officers. The inhabitants referred in particular to albergarie, expropriations and other demands. The homines claimed that their forebears had nunquam (never) been subjected to such impositions.95 Having heard these complaints and looked into the matter, Matilda finally accepted to abolish the ‘malos et iniustos usos quos a tempore bone memorie Beatricis matris nostre habuerunt’. The disputed impositions, therefore, were not new—contrary to what the querimonia submitted by the community appears to suggest—but rather constituted a consolidated element within the framework of local power dynamics, since it had been established a few decades earlier. This did not prevent the local community from interpreting the impositions as dangerous and harmful innovations, compared to even earlier times. The members of the community, in other words, looked back to a past (be it a real or imaginary one) in which the consuetudo at the centre of the conflict had not existed, something which allowed them to dispute its legitimacy in the present, through the rhetoric of malus usus. From the surviving evidence, of course, it is impossible to tell whether the homines of Montecchio had continued to regard these claims as illegitimate since their first imposition and had only submitted to them under duress, or whether their choice to dispute them was a recent occurrence, which emerged with the change of local balances (evidenced by the intervention of the bishop of Parma in support of the community).96 What is noteworthy is the fact that the repetition of a practice (and hence its establishment as an usus) over several decades did not automatically lend le­git­ im­acy to it if the subjects did not perceive it as something just. Moreover, the attitude of the local community could change over the years, shifting from rejec­ tion to acceptance, only to eventually revert to the initial opposition. It is difficult to imagine that the Montecchio community uninterruptedly disputed specific seigniorial expropriations for over forty years. It is more likely, instead, that periods of rejection alternated with moments of acquiescence on the subjects’ part. In this respect, the difference between bonus usus and malus usus should be seen not as a fixed and immutable line, but rather as a shifting and flexible one: in other words, the two semantic fields must have been constantly redefined over time. As local power balances changed, given social practices could shift—in the eyes of one of the two sides (or both)—from the field of bonus usus to that of malus usus, and vice-versa. The discourse of consuetudo, then, was used by local actors to interpret social practices and acts of power, to either legitimize or delegitimize 95  Die Urkunden und Briefe der Markgräfin Matilda, n. 132 (a. 1114), p. 339: ‘venerunt homines de Monticulo conquerentes malos et iniustos usos per nostros ministeriales sibi fieri qui nunquam antecessores illorum fuerunt impositi’. 96  The bishop of Parma, who had backed the pleas of the homines de Monticulo to Matilda, promised, for his part, to not collect levies and corveés to ‘nostris [i.e. Matilda’s] arimannis de Monticulo’.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

Custom: Rituals of Memory  225 them: the memory of the usus, and hence of the past, was constantly redefined and manipulated on the basis of the present in an effort to determine the future. Precisely the rhetoric of malus usus reveals that the discourses of fidelity, pacts and (good) custom, however widespread they may have been, did not account for all the actions through which dominici loci exercised their power over their sub­ jects on a daily basis. While all these relations revolve around an idea of consent, albeit with sometimes almost opposite characteristics (horizontality vs verticality, innovation vs memory), malus usus is the label used to define actions that fall outside of a shared horizon, and which in fact express the desire of one side (the lords) to affirm its interests to the detriment of the other side (the mass of sub­ jects). This raises a crucial question: to what extent can oaths of fidelity, records of customs, and pacts, be taken to represent the actual balances of power in the countryside? The available documentary evidence might well provide a distorted picture of the society of this period, by emphasizing the weight of those situations and realities characterized by pactional relations, while neglecting those dynamics more prominently marked by coercion and the imposition of power by force, and which are more closely connected with praxis than with the production of texts. It is essential to correctly answer this question in order to fully understand those processes associated with the emergence and social reproduction of seigneurial power. In the following chapter I will therefore be discussing the more properly and genuinely seigneurial language of violence and arbitrary power.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

10

Violence A Pragmatic Language

In recent decades, in reaction to those theses overemphasizing violence and subjugation as central elements in the development and consolidation of rural lordship—theses particularly entrenched in France—Italian research has justifiably tended to downplay this aspect by drawing attention to the elements of the system associated with stability, consensus, and the reciprocity of the relation between lords and their subjects.1 This important rereading, while certainly due, has led scholars to minimize to some extent the more brutal aspects of the exercise of power in the rural context, and to regard them as ultimately secondary and peripheral. Over the last few years, however, some studies have started focusing on violence once again, by stressing the structural role it played not just in the early stage of development of seigneurial power but even at a later period.2 For the documented reasons I have previously analysed, the language connected to reciprocity and pacts as the basis of power, as well as the related idea of ‘good custom’, might be assigned a centrality—at any rate in the surviving sources— which does not reflect actual power relations in the countryside. Besides, up until the thirteenth century, almost all the information we have about the relation between subjects and lords comes precisely from written pacts, customary oaths and agreements, and hence from texts that, as we have seen, obey an intrinsically consensual logic, highlighting the shared aspect of the relation.3 The first step in order to discuss the crucial topic of violence, then, is to consider what texts are available and how representative they are. Although sources pertaining to violence are far less numerous compared to franchises and written pacts, especially before 1130, they certainly exist. The most obvious example is querimoniae, which is to say those complaints filed with a higher authority by a 1  On the decreasing importance attributed to seigneurial violence, with a focus on Italy, see from different points of view, Sergi, ‘L’esercizio del potere giudiziario’ (very important for our topic the discussion with Chris Wickham, pp. 343–4); Wickham, Courts and Conflicts, pp. 352–61; Provero, L’Italia dei poteri locali, pp. 151–82. 2 See esp. Collavini, ‘Sviluppo signorile’; Collavini, ‘I poteri signorili’. But see also the earlier Carocci, ‘La signoria rurale nel Lazio’. The subject has been relaunched by the great book of T. N. Bisson, The Crisis. The important studies of Gadi Algazi, are instead focused on late medieval Germany, and underline the structural role of violence in the reproduction of seigneurial power; see esp. Algazi,‘Pruning peasants’. 3  See above, Chapters 8 and 9. The Seigneurial Transformation: Power Structures and Political Communication in the Countryside of Central and Northern Italy, 1080–1130. Alessio Fiore, Oxford University Press (2020). © Alessio Fiore. DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198825746.001.0001

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

Violence: A Pragmatic Language  227 party (generally, owing to the nature of the surviving sources, a religious institution, or more rarely, a layman or community) who believed they had been damaged by the actions of a rival party.4 By chiefly drawing upon these sources, with the support of other (documentary, narrative, and epistolary) sources, in the following pages I will trace a trajectory that in many ways stands as a counterpart to the investigation I have previously conducted into pacts and customs.

10.1  Violent practices in the documentary evidence First of all, it must be emphasized that by comparison to other European contexts, such as Catalonia for instance, where a wealth of sources have been very carefully analysed by Thomas N. Bisson, the case of Italy is marked by the dearth of querimoniae.5 The reasons for this are rather obvious: the increasing ineffectiveness of central power, in particular in the phase after 1080, made it very difficult to find a higher institution to which a complaint might be submitted. The problem was worsened by the collapse of great power structures and by the relative horizontality of the seigneurial world in this period. Moreover, it was precisely the most powerful lords (or their vassals), often the descendants of public officials, who resorted to violence in order to turn the pre-existing balance of power to their advantage, or to impose new levies upon their subjects. One classic example of this process is provided by the Aldobrandeschi, who exercised comital power over an extensive area of southern Tuscany. A wellknown complaint produced by the abbey of Monte Amiata clearly shows how the counts were the main source of turmoil, even though they were formally entrusted with maintaining order in the area.6 Only the presence of the sovereign in the area shortly after 1080 allowed the monks to find an avenue for their complaints to be heard. In the text, the monks complain about the occupation of castles, the levying of new taxes on the inhabitants previously under their monastery, and the systematic use of force and violence on the counts’ part to impose their new rule. It is evident from this example that the local political authority which in theory ought to have addressed the complaint coincided with (or at any rate protected) the accused party. By contrast, only fifty years earlier, when the public authorities were still in control, the same monks had turned to the margrave of Tuscany to complain about the infringements committed against them by the bishop of Chiusi. The monks’ querimonia of 1084 is therefore also highly revealing because of its addressee, namely the sovereign—more precisely, Henry IV. Many of the

4  On this documentary typology, see Cammarosano, ‘Carte di querela’. 5 Bisson, Tormented Voices. 6  This text is Codex diplomaticus Amiatinus, II, n. 309 (a. 1084), pp. 261–6. The text is discussed and contextualized in Collavini, Honorabilis domus, pp. 133–42.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

228  The Seigneurial Transformation sources of this kind that have reached us were addressed to the king/emperor at a time in which he found himself in Italy and was capable of imposing his will through his army. More rarely, they were submitted to a public official seen to embody royal power or to a city commune, regarded as being to some extent heir to the old public tradition.7 One obvious problem related to the interpretation of these texts is their onesidedness, a feature intrinsic to sources of this particular kind. The querimoniae are documents issued by a party engaged in a dispute for the specific purpose of casting the accused party in the worst possible light. The facts described are  extrapolated and isolated from their context, as fragments of a much more complex interpretation which are rhetorically reassembled in order to establish the ground for a legal action.8 However, a comparison with documents of a different sort, in particular charters of franchise and oaths, or early lists of ­testimonies, allow us to correct this one-sided perspective to some extent, by reconstructing the contexts in which these acts of violence were perpetrated. As regards the information provided by individual texts, for the most part it seems reliable. In those (rare) cases in which it has been possible to verify the evidence, no significant discrepancies have emerged.9 The strategy adopted by  the authors of these documents consists not in simply making up some accusations (a risky course of action in view of a future trial), but rather in drawing upon actual facts to construct a rhetorically effective argument. The considerable circumstantial evidence provided by the texts further confirms this impression. One additional problem concerns the specific profile of the addressees: the emperor, the pope, royal officials, and urban communes. As these figures varied considerably in terms of their cultural profile and sensibility, the plaintiffs could be led to emphasize certain narrative elements which they felt to be ideologically more effective than others: for example, breaches of honour in texts addressed to the emperor (or secular high officials), and the arbitrariness of levies in ones addressed to urban communes.10 However, the documents are not simply moulded to fit the addressee’s perspective; rather, an attempt is made to find a common 7  One example of the former kind of sources is the querimonia which the abbey of Farfa submitted against the aristocratic family of the Gualcherii to the margrave of the Adriatic March Guarnerio, who had recently been appointed by Henry IV and was clearly perceived as a representative of the royal authorities. See Il Regesto di Farfa, V, n. 1213 (aa. 1099–1119 c.), pp. 204–5. One example of the latter kind of sources is the querimonia which the inhabitants of Casciavola submitted to the commune of Pisa against the lambardi of San Casciano. We will be discussing this document in greater detail later on; the best edition is Lettere originali, n. 18 (aa. 1098–1106 c.), p. 156. 8  On these problems Vallerani, Medieval Public Justice, pp. 77–81. 9  See esp. Die Register Innocenz’ III., n. 377 (a. 1198), pp. 570–3, discussed below, par. 4 of this chapter. But see also the querimonia edited in Regesto di Farfa, V, n. 1213 (aa. 1099–1119 c.), pp. 204–5, discussed in Fiore, Signori e sudditi, pp. 224–9. 10  See respectively Il Registrum Magnum, n. 24 (aa. 1073–5 c.), pp. 40–1 (emperor); Lettere originali, I, n. 18 (aa. 1098–1106 c.), p. 156 (commune of Pisa).

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

Violence: A Pragmatic Language  229 ground between the authors of the text and the authorities they are addressing. Thus, if the theme of arbitrary taxation is to be found in querimoniae addressed to urban communes, this is because it was one familiar to the political culture of the countryside, as is clearly revealed by the franchises, which sought precisely to limit the lords’ discretionary power. Moreover, leaving specific addressees aside, ones notes a marked overlap in the nature of the actions described in the various texts, which actually finds confirmation in sources of a different sort. In any case, what matters most for a structural argument such as the one I am formulating is that, regardless of their factual accuracy, the actions described had to strike the addressee as likely and, more generally, be socially plausible; therefore, they had to be consistent with the actual behavioural models of their age, with respect to which they can serve as useful guides. Having laid out these first, necessary methodological considerations, we can now more directly approach the content of these texts, which offer a coherent and rather homogeneous picture of the exercising of power in the countryside. I believe it is useful to set out from two querimoniae—a well-known one which I have already repeatedly referred to, and a much lesser-known one—such a way as to gain a better idea of these documents. I will focus, of course, on those aspects I am most interested in here, namely acts of violence. The first document is the querimonia which the inhabitants of the village of Casciavola submitted against the lords of San Casciano. As we have already seen in the former chapter, in the second half of the eleventh century, the latter had sought to extend their power over the nearby settlement of Casciavola, by taking advantage of the weakening and subsequent collapse of margravial authority in Tuscany from 1080 onwards.11 ‘[The lords of San Casciano] started robbing us of our things, not according to custom or to any agreement much less to our own will [. . .]. Later, when all public authority had become ineffective and justice itself had perished and vanished from our land, they started seizing our things by force, mocking us, and assaulting our wives as they lay in bed in labour, striking them with sticks, and stripping our homes of all our goods, and beating our children and throwing them into dung and mud, taking our animals away from our homes, ravaging our fields, vegetable gardens and olive groves, stealing the produce, and forcefully snatching our livelihood and that of our children.’12

11  Lettere originali, I, n. 18 (aa. 1098–1106 c.), p. 156. 12  Lettere originali, I, n. 18 (aa. 1098–1106 c.), p. 156: ‘ceperunt nobis facere rapinam de nostris rebus, non per usum nec per posturam neque per nostram voluntatem. [. . .] Postea, cum omnis potestas perdidit virtutem et iustitia mortua est et periit de nostra terra, tunc ceperunt adprehendere et ludere et mulieres nostras assallire in ipso parto cum iacerent in lecto et percutere eas et tollere omnia bona de nostra domo, filios etiam nostros percutere et involvere in piscina et in omni luto, omnes etiam bestias abstraere de casis, omnes agros vastare, ortos de omnis oleribus et fructibus expoliare, et tollere et rapere omnem copiam unde debebamus vivere nos et filii nostri’.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

230  The Seigneurial Transformation The second text is the querimonia filed by the monks of Coltibuono, in Tuscany, against the Firidolfi, a local seigneurial family, in the mid-twelfth century.13 The context, then, is different from the previous one: not the violent exercising of power within the boundaries of their lordship, but the forceful imposition of control over an estate (in this case, a monastic one) to which an enemy lays claim. ‘[The Firidolfi] forcefully seized the church of Montegrossoli, which they had previously granted to us, and shamefully and violently expelled the clerics whom we had installed there from the church and even the castle. When friar R. from Coldibuono complained with Rainaldo [the head of the Firidolfi] about the expulsion, he seized him by the hair and smashed his face against a wall [. . .]. He then wounded our cellerarius Ugo with a mace. Then he cut off Pietro’s beard and struck the lay brother Teuzone with brutal kicks and punches. Then he had Giovanni tied up and, after dragging him along, his esquires seriously wounded him in the head with a sword [. . .]. Then he had Baldo and Carondino stripped and whipped, sending them back to the monastery naked and in a wretched state. Then in one of our courtyards he killed all the hens in wanton fashion (inmoderate) and threw our supply of cheese and eggs to his dogs.’14 It is important to focus our attention on these public acts not for the sake of  historiographical voyeurism, but because these practices and gestures were highly significant for the individuals performing them, as much as for those on the receiving end. They endured in the collective memory of the local inhabitants for years, or even decades; not only that, but they contributed to shaping this memory. What we have are genuine public rituals of violence, performed in order to express local power relations, or at any rate their perpetrators’ idea of such relations. Even a heinous act such as the beating of women about to give birth— as mentioned in the text from Casciavola—should not be interpreted merely as a violent end to itself, but as a brutal ritual whose aim was to express the absolute power of the lords over the villagers, even before their birth.15

13  Archivio di Stato di Firenze, Diplomatico, Vallombrosa, sec. XIII (a. 1171 c.), partial edition in Majnoni, La badia a Coltibuono, pp. 149–50. On this text see Collavini, ‘I poteri signorili’. 14  Archivio di Stato di Firenze, Diplomatico, Vallombrosa, sec. XIII (a. 1171 c.): ‘In primis ecclesiam de Montegrossoli, quam nobis dederunt, nobis violenter abstulerunt, turpiter et inriverenter clericum, quem ibi posueramus, de ecclesia et toto kastro eicientes et causa eiectionis illius clerici, cum presbiter R. frater de Cultubono eum de tanto excessum reprehenderet, ipsum Rainaldus apprehendit per capillos et caput muro illisit. Item quicquid clerico nostro de Montegrossoli abstulit, nec nobis nec sibi restituit. Item fratrem nostrum Ugonem cellerarium cum zaccone vulneravit. Item Petri de Monte barbam depilavit, et Teuzum conversum pugnis et calcibus graviter percussit. Item Iohannem Arronem ligari fecit, et scutiferi eius, per miliarium ipsum ligatum ducentes, caput eius ea cum capulis spatarum gravissime vulneraverunt, et quidam suus villanus postea eundem Ioannem cum ense vulneravit. Item mariscalcum nostrum in stabulo ligavit, et inter pedes equorum ipsum ligatum proiecit. Item Gallum cum zaccone in capite et auricula percussit, ita quod sanguis emanavit. [. . .] Item Baldonem et Carundinum expoliavit et corrigiis verberavit et nudos et excalciatos ad abbatiam remisit. Item in quadam curte nostra inmoderate gallinas occicidit et canibus suis solum caseum et ova ad edendum dedit’. 15  On beating as ritual of subjection (and its origins), see section 4.2.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

Violence: A Pragmatic Language  231 Violence was hardly a novelty in the countryside. Documents pertaining to Carolingian and post-Carolingian (or even Lombard) Italy show that it was a crucial element in conflicts and an important aspect of social and power relations.16 However, the use of violence was far more limited: violence was obviously widely applied in the context of war, but as regards the everyday exercise of power it was almost exclusively directed towards individuals of servile rank, as a means to mark their subordinate status; and even in these cases, it seems as though the use of force was quite limited, both in quantitative and qualitative terms (the sources generally refer to simple beatings).17 Even in texts concerning the emergence and management of local conflicts, up until the early decades of the eleventh century we find a very limited use of violence, at any rate compared to the subsequent period: the threat of force is more common than its actual use.18 The first text featuring acts of violence that largely seem to agree with those described in the querimoniae of the ‘long twelfth century’ (c. 1080–1200) only dates from roughly 1040, and reflects the kind of changes which were to run their full course a few decades later.19 Within the context of the imposition and widespread application of the seigneurial model in the countryside, starting from the last decades of the eleventh century, violence acquired a new centrality within the framework of social practices, but also in relation to the very ideology of power.20 What was new, in my view, was its systematic and ubiquitous application, and especially the fact that it came to shape most power relations. Beatings, whippings, torture, humiliations and rape started becoming part of the everyday life of peasants but also other social groups. The lords carried out what may be regarded as genuine rituals of violence on the public stage in order to express their conception of social relations. This change would appear to be closely associated with the change in lordship patterns. It is no coincidence that some of the querimoniae, in which these acts are described, at the same time bear witness to the imposition of new forms of lordship, as we have seen in the first part of the book.21 Let us take a summary view, then, of the kinds of practices described in the querimoniae and in somewhat analogous sources, before drawing some more general conclusions.22 First of all, it is necessary to distinguish between two 16  See Montanari, ‘Conflitto sociale’. 17 A similar event in Manaresi, I Placiti, I, n. 36 (a. 824), p. 113. For a general overview, see Albertoni, ‘Law and the Peasant’. 18  See for example Chronicon Farfense, I, pp. 78–81, and II, pp. 73–7, about events of the early eleventh century. 19  Casagrande, ‘Il ritrovamento del testo’, pp. 124–7. 20  See section 1.2. 21  See Chapter 3. 22  Other examples comprehend: Cammarosano, La famiglia dei Berardenghi, ed. pp. 140–1 (a. 1075 c.); Documenti per la storia della città di Arezzo, n. 201 (a. 1070 c.), pp. 287–8; n. 311 (a. 1115 c.), pp. 425–6; n. 365 (a. 1163), pp. 493–4; Codex diplomaticus Amiatinus, II, n. 309 (a. 1084), pp. 261–3 Lupus, Codex Diplomaticus Bergomatis, II, p. 775 (a. 1091); Cavallini, ‘Vescovi di Volterra’, n. 129 (twelfth cent. but a.  1100 c.), pp. 81–2; Archivio capitolare di Treviso, Rotoli senza data, sec. XII, Breve recordationis

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

232  The Seigneurial Transformation different categories of action recorded in these texts: those directed at a lord’s own subjects and those directed at the subjects of other lords, within the framework of conflicts. The two categories sometimes overlap, for instance in the case of those areas contested by two powers, but it is in any case possible to draw up two lists. I believe it is important to distinguish these two spheres in order to better understand the material and ideological meaning of acts of violence. I will examine the acts of violence inflicted on other lords, or on monks and clerics, later on; given its complexity and peculiarity, this topic needs to be dealt with separately.23 The violent practices marking lords’ relations with their subjects are as follows. One crucial sphere is that of expropriation, which is ubiquitous in the sources. It ranges from very specific demands on the part of the lords, which in the face of a refusal led to forced expropriation (or the requisition of livestock and work tools as a pledge), or to serious and brutal acts of seizure of a distinctly arbitrary nature. These expropriations are often associated with forced entries, as the lord or his agents break into peasants’ homes to expropriate their property. Closely connected to this is the perpetration of physical acts of violence against subjects, often triggered by resistance (or merely hesitation) in the face of the mounting demands made by the domini. Corporal punishments, often inflicted for petty reasons, are common and take a number of forms, ranging from simple bare hand  beatings to thrashings, whippings or even eye gouging.24 In addition to actual death sentences, we have a few highly significant instances of cold-blooded murder committed by frenzied lords against subjects guilty of petty faults or slight acts of insubordination. On several occasions the texts (prudishly) adumbrate acts of sexual harassment or rape against the wives or daughters of peasants. At least in one case it is clearly stated that in the Treviso area a lord’s henchmen extended the right of hospitality in the homes of their subjects to the point of habitually raping the latter’s wives in their very homes. When the peasants complained about this, the local lord did not intervene, implicitly endorsing this practice, which continued undisturbed.25 Finally, lords could go so far as to set fire to their own villages, after having evacuated them, to prevent them from being pillaged by the enemy. (aa. 1100–1135), ed. in Biscaro, ‘La polizia campestre’, p. 51; Regesta chartarum pistoriensium, II, n. 21 (a. 1132 c.), pp. 22–33; Documenti per la storia ecclesiastica e civile di Roma, n. 4 (a. 1140), pp. 111–13; Cammarosano, Abbadia a Isola, n. 105 (a. 1157 c.), pp. 395–6; Carte di Fonte Avellana, II, n. 356 (a.  1196), pp. 325–8. These texts, quite late, are not formally querimoniae but libelli: Contatore, De Historia Terracinensi, pp. 52–7 (a. 1200 c.); Il ‘Rigestum comunis Albe’, n. 179 (aa. 1200–1 c.), pp. 285–8 (two twin libelli); Die Register Innocenz’ III., I.1, n. 377 (a. 1198), pp. 570–3 (a text containing a long summary of two different libelli). 23  See section 10.3. 24 A full list of possible acts of violence against subjects is offered by Contatore, De Historia Terracinensi, pp. 52–7 (a. 1201). 25  Archivio capitolare di Treviso, Rotoli senza data, sec. XII, Breve recordationis (aa. 1100–35); ed. in Biscaro, ‘La polizia campestre’, p. 51.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

Violence: A Pragmatic Language  233 In the context of conflict with other centres of power, the catalogue of acts of violence obviously becomes much broader. In addition to brutal requisitions, chattels are stolen, especially money and valuable items, as well as livestock. Where the conflict is more intense, any resources that cannot be taken away are destroyed, starting from foodstuffs. The most typical case is the burning of crops or storerooms, but the desire to destroy sometimes takes a meticulous (and—in a peasant society—dramatic) form with the chopping down of vines and orchards or even— as we have seen in the case of Coltibuono—the slaughtering of farm animals. Likewise, peasants’ houses are often set fire to after being ransacked. In these frameworks physical attacks on the peasants, with lashings and thrashings, are clearly very common, although we also find non-lethal sharp-force injuries, to say nothing of the raping of helpless peasant women. In cases such as these, often one or two deaths are recorded: usually unintended deaths caused (often after some time) by the wounds inflicted. Nevertheless, we also find some more serious episodes, where the intention is not merely to pillage and terrorize, but precisely to kill. We read of fires being set at night and in secret, with the manifest aim of murdering peasants in their own homes, or even of wilful mass murders, where the victims are put to the sword. As is evident even at a cursory reading, these are in some way very similar lists, which at least to some extent overlap. What changes is the way in which the violence is perpetrated, and we also find clear quantitative differences. Nevertheless, the actions are much the same. Violence emerges as a key element to understand social and political dynamics in the countryside, and in particular the relationship between the lords (and their henchmen) on the one hand, and the peasants on the other. One first element is the economic side of lordship. The mode of operating of the lords presents, at least occasionally, an element of internal predation, directed towards their very subjects. Wherever customary expropriations (accepted by the subjects) are viewed as a limit to potential exploitation, and wherever the context allows it, a more brutal and arbitrary exercising of power comes into play, which borders on plunder. It is not merely a matter for the lords to obtain what they ask for, but to do so by making a show of brutality and aggression. Sometimes we see lords that treat their own subjects as they would those of their enemies. Lordship (at least occasionally) shows itself to be explicitly oppressive and arbitrary towards subjects. If the latter fail to utterly submit to the will of their lord (or of his local agents), expropriation may take a form that is hardly distinguishable from actual plunder, as we have seen in the case of Casciavola. Likewise, the acts of physical violence committed against subordinates are very similar to those recorded in relation to incursions into enemy villages (although they tend to take a more limited form). What we have, then, is a genuine culture of intimidation and brutality, which permeates the relations between lords—and their cronies—and peasants. Certainly, in dealing with their own subjects the lords never go so far as to carry out mass murders: killing was a counter-productive

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

234  The Seigneurial Transformation action (at any rate in terms of economic exploitation) and therefore the restrictions in this respect remained strong. Still, it is noteworthy that at least individual, exemplary murders are perpetrated against subjects. The significance of such actions as a way of intimidating entire communities should not be underestimated. Besides, we should not forget that the brutal (and often bloody) incursions into enemy villages often concerned settlements to which the perpetrators lay claim. The violence displayed in such cases was conceived as a sort of ‘visiting card’ delivered by the prospective lord to his new subjects: a very clear choice with regard to the nature of the relationship to be established. Violence, therefore, had a practical yet at the same time symbolic and ideo­ logic­al significance. Through the use of force new levies were imposed upon subjects. In this period of economic and productive development, customary boundaries must have been perceived by lords as an intolerable limitation of their ability to gain possession of farming surplus; force was a means to overcome any resistance, extending seigneurial prerogatives and rights. Through violence, however, lords would also impose their way of conceiving social and power relations. The inferiorization of subjects—the victims of such practices—crucially contributed to shaping this conception.26 The fact that violence was (at least) one of the main languages used for political communication in the countryside is highly significant in itself. The intended message was quite clear: as a lord, I wield power, whereas you subjects have no rights and are inferior to me; everything you think you own is actually mine; your very bodies belong to me. In the attempt to define, time after time, the concrete mode in which lordship was exercised, and the specific role of violence within the matrix of political communication at the level of individual villages, a significant role was played by local balances and dynamics. Tight-knit and well-structured communities with considerable military capacities must have been far less subject to the brutality of lords compared to others, insofar as they were capable of putting up an armed resistance, if necessary. One significant episode in this respect comes from Cerea, a major centre near Verona, which in the early twelfth century was under the lordship of the powerful counts of San Bonifacio. In the face of the growing and increasingly aggressive demands made by the lords’ agents, the local subjects reacted with considerable energy: when the count and his homines demanded hospitality from the village for the umpteenth time, the inhabitants (villani) took up arms en masse and, showering the lord and his entourage with arrows, forced them to take flight.27 We do not know how the count reacted, but over the following decades the combative inhabitants of Cerea stood out for their ability to resist 26 On the inferiorization of peasants by lords, see Freedman, Images of the Medieval Peasant, esp. pp. 133–73. 27  Le carte del capitolo di Verona, n. 120 (a. 1145), p. 227, witness of Giovanni di Fasco (the events date back to the early decades of the twelfth century). An overview, in Varanini, ‘Società e istituzioni a Cerea’.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

Violence: A Pragmatic Language  235 seigneurial encroachment, in relation both to the San Bonifacio counts and, later, to the new lords, the canons of Verona. Violence, therefore, could be exercised not just by a lord towards his subjects, but also by the latter towards their dominus, and especially his agents. What strikes me as most interesting is the fact that episodes of this kind are very rare and almost invariably amount to little more than a show of strength.28 An im­port­ ant indicator in this regard may be found in peasant revolts culminating with the murder of at least one seigneurial agent. For the twelfth century I am only aware of a couple of episodes, concentrated in the closing decades, whereas for the thirteenth century a summary perusal of the evidence brings several episodes of this sort to light.29 The capacity of communities to react with violence would therefore appear to have developed within a different framework from the one characterizing our period, as the growing presence of other forms of power in the countryside (in particular, but not exclusively, urban communes) offered subjects leeways that previously were essentially lacking. In other cases still, the particular im­port­ance of a rural centre within the framework of a lordship, or the presence of rival powers in the same area, ready to take advantage of any discord between a lord and his subjects, must have contributed to strongly limiting the more brutal and abrasive practices of domini, who must have been more careful to gain local consensus.30 Finally, a significant role must have been played by the attitudes of individual lords, who would have been more or less prone to violence, depending on their character.

10.2  Urban communities and violence: differences and similarities In order to better understand the mechanisms shaping the seigneurial world in the ‘long twelfth century’ and their discontinuity with respect to the previous period, I believe it is helpful at this stage to shift our perspective, by switching from a rural to an urban setting. A comparison between these two different real­ ities may help us better grasp the contours of the problem. In cities the dynamics of power were very different from those described up until now. Urban space would appear to have been marked by greater continuity in the everyday 28  Another armed riot, without bloodshed, was the revolt of Porcile, near Verona, in 1190, discussed by Simeoni, ‘Il comune rurale’, p. 223. A very similar riot occurred in Quarto, in southern Piedmont; see Balda, ‘Una corte rurale’. 29 On the twelfth century see the many testimonies of 1181 edited in appendix to Scheffer Boichorst, ‘Veroneser Zeugenverhör von 1181’; Liber iurium, n. 182 (a. 1191), pp. 346–7. Some ex­amples of early thirteenth century: Le Liber Censuum, I, n. 270 (a. 1233), p. 536; Fermo città egemone, n. 19 (a. 1253), pp. 19–63; Riganelli, Pian di Carpine, pp. 44–5. 30  As evident in the lordship of the bishop of Lucca over Moriano; see Wickham, Community and Clientele, pp. 80–105.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

236  The Seigneurial Transformation exercising of power. The leading actors vary (from public officials to early ­communal magistrates), yet the practices show a remarkable degree of stability, insofar as they tend to revolve around those forms of collective action typical of the previous period.31 Even where we do not witness any early formal establishment of communal institutions, the bishop still remains a civic leader, who does not exercise any despotic forms of control, but rather continues to move within the framework of the ancient tradition of public power. However, precisely the con­tinu­ity in terms of concrete practices of power characterizing urban contexts allows us to better understand the discontinuity in rural settings. A particularly revealing case is that of Terracina, on the coast of southern Latium, one of the few cities in central or northern Italy to have fallen into the hands of actual lords. Previously this urban centre was directly under the Pope’s control and was therefore governed according to the tradition of public power. The establishment of seigneurial domination marks a clear break in local practices of power, as is most evident from the main source available to us. An account of the seigneurial domination is provided by the inhabitants of Terracina themselves through a querimonia submitted to Innocent III at the very beginning of the thirteenth century, and which formally takes the form of a judicial libellum.32 It describes in considerable detail the violence inflicted upon the local inhabitants by the Frangipane family, starting in 1149, when this powerful Roman household succeeded in establishing a true seigneurie, after having been granted jurisdictional power by the pontiff.33 Although this aristocratic family was a strictly urban one, hailing as it did from Rome, in this period—thanks to the support of the pope—it had started expanding in the Marittima area around Terracina. I would venture to say that the moderation displayed by the Frangipane during the first ten years of their rule in Terracina may be connected to the fact that their seigneurial status was a recent acquisition.34 At this early stage the lords would appear to have operated in continuity with previous practices of power, merely acting on behalf of the papacy as revenue recipients and right-holders. Probably with some exaggeration, the libellum goes so far as to claim that the Frangipane would only enter the walled city unarmed, and with a small retinue, thereby suggesting that their power was very limited. At the same time, the Frangipane started entering more directly in contact with the lords controlling the Marittima countryside through the acquisition of other rural castles. This may have led them

31  Wickham, ‘The “feudal revolution” ’. 32  The text is edited, with many errors in Contatore, De Historia Terracinensi, pp. 52–7; an useful edition (correct albeit partial), is in the ‘Appendix’ (n. 3), to Carocci, ‘Le lexique du prélèvement’. 33  On Terracina and the Frangipane, see Carocci, ‘La signoria rurale nel Lazio’, pp. 192–4. On a more general framework, see Caciorgna, Una città di frontiera. 34  Before the grant of Terracina, the only experience of Frangipane as rural lords was that as counts of Ceccano (by papal grant), in 1120s. See Thumser, ‘Die Frangipane’.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

Violence: A Pragmatic Language  237 to discover more direct, brutal and—significantly—profitable ways of exercising their power.35 In the 1250s, after the death of pope Eugene III, the situation drastically changed. The Frangipane acquired a very different role from the reassuring one of the previous period, when they had stood in continuity with the previous pol­it­ical balances. They required the inhabitants of Terracina to take the hominium oath, or oath of personal fidelity; they seized the weapons of anyone opposing them; and appropriated the considerable public estates of the area, imposing a tax on pasturage and the right to harvest wood from the forests, while strongly limiting the right to make a will. In the event that subjects died without leaving any direct heirs, their goods, including allodial ones, would be confiscated by the lords. More generally, the Frangipane launched a real assault on the private assets of the city’s inhabitants, with requisitions and seizures. They also introduced heavy ad hoc levies, such as the one raised on the occasion of the purchase of the Nettuno castle in 1185. In this case, the inhabitants of Terracina offered to pay 50 lire, an act which elicited an indignant response from the lords, who repeated ‘fifty, fifty, fifty, as many times as it is possible to repeat this without catching your breath’, claiming that that was the sum owed to them. Only after some tense negotiations did the lords settle for 200 lire, a no doubt considerable sum for an urban centre of rather modest size such as Terracina. The text is peppered with descriptions of verbal abuse, acts of violence and even torture: the inhabitants of Terracina are beaten, savagely whipped, and hung on hooks. Here I will only report the description of a genuine public ritual of violence which perfectly encapsulates the climate of brutality and the cruel arbitrariness of the power imposed by the Frangipane, along with the inhabitants’ dismay: ‘Then, much to the shame and dread of the whole populace, they seized the most noble and esteemed citizen and gouged his eyes out, and had him dragged – shamefully naked, except for his privy parts – through the whole city, saying: “Anyone who will mourn or complain about this will receive the same treatment.” This being a noble citizen, forced to undergo such things to the ignominy and shame of the city, many other people who could not hold back their tears had their property seized.’36 While uncommon, the Terracina case is not entirely unique; in the twelfth century a few other cities in Latium witnessed the irruption within their walls of 35  On Frangipane’s seigneurial expansion in Marittima, since 1140s, see Thumser, ‘Die Frangipane’, pp. 131–42. 36 Contatore, De historia terracinensi, p. 56: ‘Deinde ad ignominiam et terrorem totius populi, nobiliorem et maiorem civitatis exocularunt, et nudum vix genitalibus tectis per totam civitatem in conspectu omnium turpiter trahere fecerunt, dicentes: “quicunque de hoc mussitaverit et fleverit, eandem penam incurret”. Unde, cum nobilis esset de civitate et in ignominiam et detrimentum civitatis talia passus esset, multi, qui lacrymas comprimere non poterant, bonorum ammissionem passi sunt’. Indeed the Frangipane were merciful with the weeping subjects; they did not blind them, as they had threatened before, but only seized their lands.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

238  The Seigneurial Transformation brutal practices and forms of expression of seigneurial power which up until then had been limited to the rural sphere.37 Something similar also occurred in the cities of the Po Valley directly governed by the imperial officers in the 1160s. These were German officials utterly foreign to the urban and communal world, whose experience of power was closely related to seigneurial practices of power, and whose rule often coincided with the introduction of the kind of arbitrariness and violence which distinguished power relations in the countryside. The most famous and best documented example is no doubt that of Piacenza, which between 1162 and 1164 fell under the control of Arnold of Dorstadt, known as Barbavaria; but even in Treviso things must not have been much different, judging from a diploma issued by Frederick Barbarossa.38 Precisely the brutality of imperial officials and their inability to establish themselves in continuity with the traditional practices of power in the urban context have been usually—and in my view correctly—identified as one of the triggers of the rebellion against Frederick I, which culminated with the Lombard League. The example of these urban ­centres is significant because it testifies to the traumatic way in which the imposition of seigneurial power was experienced and interpreted by citizens, and therefore clearly expresses the distance existing between urban practices of power—which were closer to the traditional forms taken by the old public order—and rural ones. This is not say that cities and urban (proto-)communes were an irenic world; as we have previously seen, the military element was a central aspect of urban life, and force played a fundamental role in the expansion of urban control over the countryside.39 However, if we look at the space within the city walls, we can still see that it is a different kind of violence compared to seigneurial violence, set as it was within a profoundly different context, in which power remained—from both an ideological and pragmatic point of view—founded on the community and the building of consensus among the cives. Violence in the city was essentially connected to the struggle for power, whereas rural violence was invariably connected to the very exercising of local power.

10.3  Violence among lords Let us get back to the countryside and its lords. We have seen how the most recent studies on seigneurial violence focused on that visited upon peasants, subjects and, more generally, individuals of an inferior rank or, alternatively, monks. While this kind of violence is an undeniable fact, which we will get back to later on, it should not lead us to assume that violence was exclusively directed towards 37  Carocci, ‘La signoria rurale nel Lazio’, p. 194. 38  Güterbock, ‘Alla vigilia della Lega Lombarda’. See also Bisson, The Crisis, pp. 316–19. On Treviso see Diplomata Friderici I., II, n. 444 (a. 1164), pp. 343–4. 39  The reference is Maire Viguer, Cavaliers et citoyens.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

Violence: A Pragmatic Language  239 social inferiors. As already noted in the first part of this book, between the late eleventh century and the early decades of the twelfth, during the stage of the most violent breakdown of the Italian political framework, we witness a considerable rise in the level of violence even among lords. The countless local conflicts marking the Italian countryside at this stage included not only raids or the arson of fields and homes, but also numerous open clashes between knights and armed attacks on castles: military operations that reckoned among their victims not just many milites, but also several high-ranking aristocrats.40 Nor did such incidents exclusively occur in the context of troubled times of war. The querimoniae from this period sometimes describes military operations and ambushes explicitly designed to ensure the physical elimination of rivals: an element essentially absent from older texts.41 The violent death of an enemy, therefore, was not always a fortuitous event; rather, it could actively be pursued within the context of bitter conflicts, where it could prove truly decisive. In the 1130s, the counts of Canavese, who had long sought to gain control of the village of Busano, went so far as to put to the sword the nuns of the local monastery of San Tommaso (razed to the ground on that occasion), who governed the area on behalf of the abbot of Fruttuaria, under whose authority they were.42 This definite increase in violence, however, does not mean that the use of force during conflicts was unregulated. Competition, however militarized it may have been by this stage, followed certain shared rules. Obviously, a lord could attempt to circumvent these rules (or even to openly violate them at times), but this only makes it even more evident that such norms were perceived and acknowledged to be binding ones. For example, not only was the destruction or violation of sacred buildings forbidden—as one would expect43—but so was the physical humiliation of fellow aristocrats or their relatives, as well as that of monks and clerics, which extended to any breaching of their honour. We read that one Lombard lord launched a surprise attack on the turris guarded by an opponent of his (who made a lucky escape in his nightgown and long johns, casimiam et sarabulas, as the text specifies), and then pillaged it, forcing his enemy’s wife and daughter to parade before his warriors naked.44 Similarly, an enemy of the monastery of Farfa in the Marche kidnapped the daughter of one of its vassals in order to give her to one of his men in marriage.45 Surprise attacks without a previous declaration of hostility—inimicitia—were also forbidden. We find the bishop of Luni defending 40  Some examples of open battles ended with the death of several milites in the framework of local conflicts: Il regesto del codice Pelavicino, n. 50 (a. 1124), pp. 72–8 (eastern Liguria); Il Regesto di Farfa, V, n. 1213 (aa. 1099–1119), pp. 204–5 (Marche); n. 1275 (a. 1098), pp. 249–50 (Latium); Anonimo Cumano, De bello, pp. 413–56 (Lombardy). On the killings of high aristocrats in battle, see the list in section 1.2. 41  Il Registrum Magnum, n. 24 (aa. 1073–5 c.), pp. 40–1; Il Regesto di Farfa, IV, n. 883 (aa. 1049–53 c.), pp. 279–80; Codex diplomaticus Amiatinus, II, n. 309 (a. 1084), pp. 261–3. 42  Un’antica cronaca, p. 135. 43  Guglielmo of the Chiusa, Vita Benedicti, p. 204. 44  Il Registrum Magnum, I, n. 24 (aa. 1073–5 c.), pp. 40–1. 45  Il Regesto di Farfa, V, n. 1213 (aa. 1099–1119 c.), pp. 204–5.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

240  The Seigneurial Transformation himself against a charge of this sort, after being accused of attacking a castle under construction by the Malaspina family. The bishop claimed that he had publicly informed one of the margraves that building the castle would be like ‘ripping his liver out’, whereas he had not been required to perform any act of intimation towards another member of the family, as the latter was already his inimicus.46 Finally, what was also forbidden was the cold-blooded mass killing of the subjects of one’s enemies or the arson of settlements furtim (by surprise) and at night time (since this might cause a massacre): two practices mentioned, for instance, in relation to a bitter conflict between the abbot of Ferentillo and the lords of Arrone, in Umbria.47 Violating these rules could provide a highly significant tactical advantage, but could also lead to considerable problems, as in the case of the aforementioned war between the Gualcherii and Farfa, when in all likelihood the former’s repeated breaching of the rules governing military confrontations is what brought an end to an all-out conflict, with the almost complete destruction of the aristocratic family at the hands of the troops rallied by the monastery.48 The considerable intensity of local conflicts is a clear indicator of the profound tension affecting the whole political framework after 1080, when war de facto became endemic to the countryside in central and northern Italy.49 The trad­ition­al mechanisms regulating violence and preventing its proliferation had evidently entered into a deep crisis. The capacity to mobilize armed men, to establish military alliances with neighbours and to subjugate opponents through the use of brute force became the central means to ensure the success of local social actors. Politics became militarized and, at the same time, the attitude towards violence changed, as the kind of censorship and limitations which had been enforced only a few decades earlier no longer applied. The cold-blooded murder of lords, the humiliations and beatings publicly inflicted upon their children or spouses and the degrading and sacrilegious violence often visited upon churchmen provide the clearest indication of the increase in the level of brutality that was socially tolerated (despite being formally illicit), at any rate in an aristocratic context.50 Within this framework, the violence exercised by lay aristocrats (but also ­bishops) against monks acquires a different meaning, as a particular aspect of violence within the seigneurial world. Certainly, the special status of monks allowed lay noblemen to highlight—at times with spectacular results—different aspects compared to those that entered into play in the conflicts between lay lords. 46  Il regesto del codice Pelavicino, n. 50 (a. 1124), pp. 72–8 47  Die Register Innocenz’ III., n. 377 (a. 1198), pp. 570–3. 48 Fiore, Signori e sudditi, pp. 224–8. 49  The issue is discussed in Cammarosano, Storia dell’Italia, p. 384. 50  Annalese ceccanenses, p. 282, s.a. 1123, (decapitations of aristocrats and physical humiliations of their brides and children); Il Registrum Magnum, I, n. 24 (aa. 1073–5 c.), pp. 40–1 (physical hu­mili­ations of brides and daughters of aristocrats); Gregorio di Catino, Regesto di Farfa, V, n. 1213 (aa. 1099–1119 c.), pp. 204–5 (abuses on monks and monastic serfs, male and female); Un’antica cronaca, p. 135 (a little community of nuns slaughtered by warriors).

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

Violence: A Pragmatic Language  241 Through the perpetration of acts of violence, it allowed noblemen to construct at least partly different discourses, as is illustrated for instance by the querimonia submitted by the Farfa monastery against the Gualcherii, which offers a revealing list of possible humiliations against churchmen.51 Leaving aside trivial beatings or  violations of holy buildings, here is a list of the actions perpetrated by the members of this aristocratic clan or their milites, and which often take the form of genuine rituals of inversion, not without a touch of brutal (and humiliating) humour: during the plundering of the monastery, they seized the liturgical vestments and used them to make garments and shoes which they then flaunted; after beating a monk, they threw him naked into a pit, into which they hurled a woman, forcing the two to simulate sexual intercourse; on the same occasion, they placed the abbot’s scapular on a donkey’s shoulder and mockingly addressed the animal with the words ‘Right Reverend Abbot, bless us’; finally, in a public street they pulled a harmless old monk off his horse and, after delivering the customary lashings, dragged him to his mare, forcing him to kiss her anus and vulva. However, this degree of brutality does not change the overall purpose of such gestures within the context of conflict, namely to subjugate and humiliate their opponent by undermining his resistance (while also discouraging potential new rivals). From this perspective, forcing a monk to kiss the privy parts of a mare is not all that different from exposing an enemy’s naked wife to the mockery of one’s soldiers. Moreover, as already noted, the monks themselves (at least partly) shared the brutal military culture of the aristocracy. Certainly, in the monastic (or religious) querimoniae directed against powerful laymen we will not find any recollection of the acts of violence perpetrated by the monks against their enemies, even when such acts are known to have occurred. A letter from Innocent III, dating from 1198, proves particularly revealing. The pontiff recalls receiving from the abbot of Ferentillo, in Umbria, a libellum (which the text sums up) describing the misdeed perpetrated against the monastery by the lords of Arrone. In response to the pope’s request, the noblemen did not deny any of the actions which the monks were complaining about, but in turn submitted a libellum providing a detailed account of the brutal military operations which the abbot had led against them, eliciting a victorious counter-offensive.52 This is a unique text, which allows us to contextualize the querimoniae produced by churchmen, and to reassess them in the light of their partiality.53 In these sources the monks obviously present themselves as poor, innocent victims in need of the merciful help of a higher power—certainly not as the losing party in a military conflict waged between 51  Il Regesto di Farfa, V, n. 1213 (aa. 1099–1119 c.), pp. 204–5 52  Die Register Innocenz’ III., n. 377 (a. 1198), pp. 570–3. 53  A conflict between the bishop of Sabina and the Farfa monks is instead mentioned by Chronicon farfense, IV. n. 883 (a. 1051 c.), pp. 279–80; in this text the prelate emphasizes the acts of violence that the monks are guilty of but try to conceal through their rhetoric of meekness.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

242  The Seigneurial Transformation equals. However, we should not forget that abbots could be just as fierce and remorseless opponents as lay domini, as is compellingly shown even by certain monastic chronicles, most notably that of Subiaco.54

10.4  Violence from the lords’ perspective In emphasizing the role of violence in the seigneurial world, or the viciousness of the clashes between milites, we should not forget that most of the concrete acts of  brutality in the countryside were committed by lords (and their henchmen) against humble and helpless subjects. In other words, these actions had little to do with traditional warrior values. As we approach the end of our investigation, we should attempt to answer a crucial question, which has remained in the background until now: in what way did the lords themselves interpret the violence they exercised? It is a matter here of understanding the role of violence not just in the dynamics of power, but also in the self-representation and system of values of the aristocracy of this period. To attempt to answer this question, it is first of all important to note that at least up until the late twelfth century lords did not regard violence—the use of force against their subjects (and against weak individuals more generally)—as a dirty job to be concealed or whitewashed, but rather something to be proud of. In the sources we find that noblemen did not always delegate the exercise of violence to their lower-ranking cronies, but were eager to personally engage in it. It was the bishop of Alba in person who cracked a rebellious subject’s skull with a blow of his stick. And it was the very head of the powerful Firidolfi clan who smashed a monk’s face with his bare hands and savagely beat others. Violence, therefore, created a deep rift in rural Italian society. On the one hand stood those who exercised violence—savagely beating, humiliating, raping and at times murdering people. On the other hand stood the victims of this violence and abuse (who only occasionally attempted to react). The lords and the members of their armed ret­ inues shared the same culture, which praised violence: by jointly taking part in such acts, the lords and their followers strengthened their bonds, while distancing themselves from the rural population. Bishops would also appear to have shared this culture to a large extent—albeit not completely—as is shown, among many other cases, by that of the prelate of Alba. The bishop of Turin Ubaldo was even deposed by the council of Pisa in 1135 for having completely disregarded his ecclesiastical duties for five years in order to focus exclusively on his milicia.55 54  Chronicon sublacense, pp. 12–18; Chronicon farfense, II, pp. 230–2. 55  On Ubaldo, see Constitutiones, I, p. 578: ‘Quia cum ecclesia per quinquennium iam vacasset, ipse, ecclesiastico spreto officio, soli miliciae vacabat.’ See also the similar case of the bishop Penne, narrated in Libellus de miseriis ecclesie pinnensis, pp. 1461–4. On the more ‘normal’ warrior habits of bishops a good guide is the corpus of Milanese ecclesiastical chronicles: Landolfo Seniore, Mediolanensis

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

Violence: A Pragmatic Language  243 A separate case is that of monks, who—for obvious reasons related to their peculiar status—tended to conceal the more violent and brutal aspects of their power, which were clearly a source of embarrassment: instead of acting in person, they generally entrusted certain tasks to lay agents. However, we should not overemphasize the uniqueness of monks with respect to the more generally seigneurial context. While the available sources do not present monks as the actual perpetrators of the kind of acts of violence, abuse and humiliation typical of this period and directed against subjects (for such actions are delegated to lay officials), monasteries display a very different attitude when it comes to another sort of violence: war-related violence, associated with conflict between lords, in particular between the late eleventh and the mid-twelfth century. As already mentioned, monastic chronicles from this period emphasize—to various degrees— the military exploits of their abbots, engaged in the constant ‘retrieval’ of estates usurped by treacherous lay concessionaires, the defence of their subjects against marauders and enemies, and the fortification of their villages.56 The Chronicon Sublacense is particularly explicit and revealing in this respect. In recounting the deeds of abbot Giovanni at the turn of the 1100s, the author spends a few lines on the latter’s attempt to reform monastic mores, on his building or restoration of churches, and his purchasing of vestments and religious jewellery. The rest of the lengthy narrative instead deals with battles, sieges, the building of castles, raids and peace treatises signed with local aristocrats (and often violated). The abbot does not safely lead these military operations from behind the mighty walls of his monastery, entrusting others with their actual execution; rather, he is always in the front line, riding alongside his milites or taking part in sieges or assaults against enemy castles. Not the slightest hint of criticism is discernible in the text with regard to this attitude, which is actually praised by the author. Indeed, the monastic community had chosen John precisely on account of the fact that his young age and personal disposition (as well as his being a member of a powerful local aristocratic family) made him particularly suited to energetically dealing with the critical circumstances of the period. As the Farfa texts further suggest, a choice of this sort was far from exceptional in such a turbulent context.57 In those years, the monks felt that being a good abbot meant being a fortis proeliator. The abbots do not shy away even from the most brutal aspects of warfare: during the aforementioned conflict, the abbot of Ferentillo went so far as to lead his troops in the plunder of three small villages controlled by his enemies, the lords of Arrone. During this incursion, the three settlements were sacked, their

Historiae; Landulfo Iuniore, Historia Mediolanensis. See also the rich sources about the bishop of Fermo, discussed in Fiore, Signori e sudditi. On the military aggressiveness of the chapter of Lucca, see Die Urkunden und Briefe der Markgrafin Mathilden, n. A8 (a. 1099), pp. 484–7. 56  Chronicon Farfense, II, pp. 228–9, 231, 275.

57  Chronicon farfense, II, pp. 230–2.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

244  The Seigneurial Transformation inhabitants beaten, and a few women were raped and whipped; when the operation was over and the three villages had been torched, the captive—simple peasants, except for a priest—were brought before the abbot and then locked up in a dungeon, where one of them soon died from the beating he had received.58 It is worth noting, however, that while the abbot led the operation, he avoided getting his hands dirty, unlike most lay noblemen. Of course, we should not make too much of this incident and conclude that all monasteries engaged in similar behaviour. Some monasteries, such as that of Fonte Avellana, avoided armed conflict by establishing peace treaties with local lords.59 Still, the fact that sources from monasteries such as those of San Michele della Chiusa, Farfa or Subiaco recounted the military exploits of their abbots, clearly presenting them as a ‘defensive’ measure, with little embarrassment—and often with manifest pride—shows that a considerable section of the monastic world shared the culture of violence embraced by the rural elite of their age, while distancing themselves from its most extreme forms (at least in theory).60 The centrality of warfare in relation to aristocratic virtues emerges— unsurprisingly—from works produced in milieus close to prominent lay lords, such as Donizone’s Vita Mathildis or the biographies of the Guidi counts in the Chronicon Faventinum, which are based on a lost text drafted at the court of the counts of Modigliana.61 Nevertheless, a sort of filter is inserted in these narratives between the protagonists and the authors: an ecclesiastical filter than tones down the more unpleasant aspects, establishing a kind of censorship. Our perception of  the Italian context of these years is therefore influenced by the lack of epics written by lay authors with a lay aristocratic readership in mind, such as the German Herzog Ernst or the French Raoul de Cambrai. In order to grasp the self-perception of lay noblemen and their attitude to warfare and the exercise of violence more generally, it is necessary—as Simone Collavini has recently emphasized in an important study on the topic—to turn to a different field of enquiry, that of (nick)names.62 Starting from the end of the eleventh century, which is to say the years in which violence started spreading throughout the countryside, many representatives of the high aristocracy of Italy, belonging to leading household of margraves or counts, were give nicknames (which often evolved into surnames) that are semantically associated with warfare or violence. The nickname Malabranca (‘Bad family-branch’) is used by 58  Die Register Innocenz’ III., n. 377 (a. 1198), pp. 570–3. 59  On the rejection of violence by Pier Damiani, Fonte Avellana’s abbot, see his letter to Ulcandino, bishop of Fermo, edited in Pier Damiani, Die Briefe, II, n. 87 (a. 1062), pp. 508–9 (for a discussion of this text see section 1.2). 60  Chronicon farfense, II, pp. 230–2 (war against the Ottaviani); Guglielmo of the Chiusa, Vita Benedicti (armed conflict between the abbey of San Michele della Chiusa and the Arduinic margraves). 61  See respectively Riversi, La memoria dei Canossa; and Collavini, ‘Comites palatini / paladini’. 62  Collavini, ‘Sviluppo signorile’. On the characters mentioned in the next lines I refer to the sources quoted there; I will directly quote sources and studies only when not quoted therein.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

Violence: A Pragmatic Language  245 Ranieri II Aldobrandeschi (1070–96), one of whose sons is known as Malagalea (‘Bad Helmet’); three of the Obertenghi margraves active in the early decades of  the twelfth century are known respectively as Malnipote (‘Bad Nephew’), Malaspina (‘Bad Thorn’) and Pelavicino (‘Flays Neighbour’), the last two of which were even passed down to the counts’ heirs; the margrave Bonifacio, who was active in Piedmont at the turn of the 1100, was known as de Wasto;63 one branch of his descendants instead came to be known as Lancia (‘Spear’);64 finally, starting in 1099, the epithet Guerra (‘War’) spread among the Guidi counts and continued to be attached to several of his successors over the course of the twelfth century, as well as to one of the counts of Ventimiglia, in Liguria, around 1150.65 In the immediately subsequent generations, these nicknames also spread among the families of the middle aristocracy and, finally, among milites and henchmen: within a few decades, the epithets spread from a handful of leading noble households to the rural aristocracy as a whole, in the broadest sense of the term. While these epithets are chiefly attested in Tuscany, probably on account of the larger number of documents surviving from local notaries, they appear throughout central and northern Italy—according to a similar pattern and in the same years. As such, they serve as a more general indicator. It is essential to note that these nicknames, which often have explicitly negative overtones (as is shown by the frequency of the prefix mal-), were not at all perceived as a mark of infamy. In other words, they were not evoked by the lords’ opponents but rather by their very bearers, by their relatives, or in official documents pertaining to them (including imperial charters). At times they were so striking and distinctive as to obliterate the lords’ Christian names. These nicknames (be they ones chosen by their bearers or bestowed by their peers) provide a real key to grasp the self-perception of these figures, their system of values and cultural horizon. A detailed analysis of the semantic areas recalled by nicknames yields some interesting information. We find epithets generally associated with warfare, such as Guerra, Lancia, Malagalea and de Wasto; other nicknames more specifically refer to acts of violence and warfare in a seigneurial context, as in the case of Abbassaconte (‘Debases Count’), Ammazzaconte (‘Kills Count’), Pelavicino (‘Flays Neighbour’), Cacciabate (‘Hunts Abbot’) or Cacciaconte (‘Hunts Count’), but also Malnipote (‘Bad Nephew’), Malfiaster (‘Bad Half-Son’) and Malaparte 63  See for example Diplomata Friderici I., II, n. 382 (a. 1162), p. 251. The epithet de Wasto or de Guasto, referred to Boniface (and later to his sons) has traditionally been seen as a reference to the guastis locis (wastelands) of southern Piedmont seized by the margrave. Chronology, onomastic framework, and the very same personal story of Boniface (lead, with his sons, of the great war for the Arduinic inheritance in Piedmont) point instead toward a non-territorial origin of the nickname. Provero, Dai marchesi del Vasto, pp. 113–14, provides traditional explanation, but underlines its fragility. 64  The first to bear the nickname was Manfredo (I) Lancia, margrave of Busca, active in the second half of twelfth century; see Merkel, Manfredi I, pp. 1–52. 65  Ascheri, ‘I conti di Ventimiglia’, p. 16.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

246  The Seigneurial Transformation (‘Bad Share'’, referring to heritage partitions)—all of which to various extents recall the idea of conflict within a kinship group.66 As one would expect, many nicknames refer to the exercise of violence against the weak, and in particular against peasants: Guastavilla (‘Wrecks Village’), Guastavillanum (‘Wrecks Peasant’), Manducalomini (‘Eats Men’), Pelavacca (‘Sheares Cow’), Appillaterra (‘Seizes the Land’), Sforza (‘Rapes’), Malapresa (‘Bad Clutch’) and Sagittaclericus (‘Bolts Churchman’), to mention but a few.67 Finally, other epithets still, which are far from rare, would appear to be connected to slyness, or boldness, or ruthlessness, as in the case of Sineanima (‘Soulless’), Enganna (‘Deception’), Malconsilio (‘Bad Advice’), Malaspina (‘Bad Thorn’) or Ingannamaggiore (‘Deceives the Greater’). Violence and brutality, but also the positive value assigned to deception and subterfuges, clearly emerge as a key element in aristocratic self-representation and, more generally, in that composite ‘knightly’ world that had the bearing of arms and the exercising of power in all its forms as its distinguishing feature. Besides, the frequency and considerable number of nicknames specifically connected to violence against the weak and harmless shows that aristocratic groups felt no embarrassment with regard to such gestures, but rather pride and satisfaction. In fact, they were perceived as specifically defining their belonging to an aristocratic group: performing such gestures was a constitutive feature of ‘knightly’ identity. A clear confirmation of the kind of acts to which these epithets refer is to be found in querimoniae and other sources pertaining to violence. As such, the nicknames in question help us interpret the actions described in these texts not as the account of abnormal or exceptional events, but rather as reliable testimonies regarding the concrete (albeit not exclusive) ways in which lords exercised their power in the countryside. As regards the way in which violence and acts of intimidation were actually interpreted by their perpetrators, I would like to end my survey with a significant testimony pertaining to the counts of Biandrate, one of the most prominent aristocratic families of northwestern Italy. At a trial held in 1186 and concerning the jurisdiction over Villanova, in southern Piedmont, which was contested between the counts and the nunnery of San Felice at Asti, one of the witnesses, Andrea, claimed that for the past twenty-seven years the counts had been illegitimately claiming jurisdiction over the place, even though they could only lay claim to certain land and personal rights (comandariae), limited to a handful of peasant families. In support of his statements (confirmed by many other witnesses, who stress how 66  It seems significant to me that in the late twelfth century the two nicknames Abbassaconte and Ammazzaconte were adopted by two brothers from the Buscareto family of lords in the Marche, who may well have been involved in a conflict with one of the many comital dynasties in the area. Note that a third brother was instead called Montefeltranus. This is also a surname—perhaps connected with the same conflict—but has a different origin: see Villani, Signori e comuni, pp. 26–7. Another Abbassaconte is mentioned in southern Umbria: see Voltaggio, ‘Le più antiche carte’, n. 35 (a. 1179), pp. 92–3. 67  For the count Sforza (known only with his nickname) active near Jesi, in the Marche, around 1150, see Villani, Signori e comuni, p. 15.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

Violence: A Pragmatic Language  247 the counts were exercising their prerogatives per vim et iniuste, with force and unrightfully), Andrea recounts one significant anecdote. He states that he was on good terms with count Umberto of Biandrate, and that once, when the two of them were riding together with members of the count’s entourage in the area, he had teased him (in derisione): ‘What do you have at Villanova? All you have there are wrongs.’ Far from taking offence, the count answered him in kind: ‘Quite right. However, wrongs are dearer to me than reason.’68 Umberto’s mocking words—addressed not just to Andrea but also to the members of the entourage, who belonged to the same ‘knightly’ milieu—reflect the same complacent attitude to the abuse of power and violence that emerges from the lords’ epithets from the same period. In this respect, it seems quite clear to me that the final decades of the eleventh century, which witnessed the crisis of public institutions and of the forms of exercise of power they involved, marked a significant watershed. Compared to the previous stage, in which the power exercised by public officials played a crucial role as a source of legitimacy for seigneurial power, violence acquired a new prominence, from both a practical and ideological perspective, permeating most social and power relations. In this respect, it may be argued that violence was one of the cornerstones of the legitimacy of power in the rural context, where it reinforced the cohesion of the group of power holders (in the broadest sense of the term) and expressed its otherness and superiority—in an almost anthropological sense—vis-à-vis the rural masses. The language of violence, moreover, served as a powerful counterbalance to the management of relations with their subjects through pacts and established customs, as witnessed by surviving agreements and sacramenta. It freed seigneurial power from the limits imposed on gestures and verbal communication, offering the domini loci full freedom of action, as illustrated by their power to dispose of the bodies of their own subjects as they wished. The activation of the language of violence enabled lords to directly reassert their power, detaching it from their subjects’ consensus. The structural function of this language would appear to have been to prevent peasants from forgetting their subordinate position, thereby crucially contributing not only to reproduce, but also to naturalize, aristocratic rural dominance in the eyes of subjects.

68  ‘ “Quid habetis vos in Villanova? Vos non habetis ibi nisi tortum”. [. . .] “Immo habeo, sed tamen plus est michi carum tortum quam rationem” ’. See Codex Astensis, III, n. 815 (a. 1186), pp. 901–4 (quoted from p. 902).

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

Conclusions A Seigneurial Revolution (and More)

Having reached the end of such a long and complex investigation, one feels the need to draw an even sharper assessment than usual. It is necessary, therefore, to try and sum up the many points made, in such a way as to draw as comprehensive an overview as possible of the many different vantage points adopted over the course of the enquiry. Here I would like to stress the fact that I regard the following conclusions as partly provisional ones: the aim of the present book is not to solve a problem, but to raise it by encouraging observations, critiques, and fresh interpretations. Hence, it is from this perspective that the following concluding remarks are to be read. I shall start with a summary of the investigation conducted and an overall analysis of the results. I will then move on to discuss future research trajectories and present some considerations based on a comparison between the process that shaped central and northern Italy and the more or less long-term ones that occurred in other European regions such as Castile, Catalonia, northern France, England, and southern Italy. This comparison will make it possible to identify a first set of parameters worth investigating in order to define a genuine matrix for the transformation of the local socio-political balances in the countryside. The first element worth stressing is that, in my view at least, the starting hypothesis of my enquiry has been confirmed. Overall, the period around 1100 marked a real watershed for the Italian countryside, from a range of different perspectives: from the conformation of local societies to the material aspects of settle­ments, from the overall role played by the royal authorities to the modes of government at the village level. This change swept across a wide range of different yet highly interconnected areas: within a couple of generations, the modes in which power and local social balances functioned, just like the discourses adopted to interpret this reality, underwent radical redefinition. Territorial lordship, which around 1080 was far from dominant in the countryside—if not in certain limited stretches of the Po Valley—became by 1130 the system of power governing the lives of the vast majority of the inhabitants in rural central and northern Italy. Even in those places where seigneurial power had already been present before the 1080s, it generally became better structured and more pervasive than in the previous stage (Chapter  3). Indeed, it may reasonably be assumed, in the light of the surviving sources, that the first half of the fifty years under scrutiny, corresponding to one The Seigneurial Transformation: Power Structures and Political Communication in the Countryside of Central and Northern Italy, 1080–1130. Alessio Fiore, Oxford University Press (2020). © Alessio Fiore. DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198825746.001.0001

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

Conclusions  249 generation, witnessed the spread and extensive application of the dominatus loci model, while the second half was characterized by a process of stabilization and entrenchment, based on the foundations laid in the immediately previous stage. More particularly, the process that led to the extension of the model of ­seigneurial power fits within a context marked by the breakdown of territorial structures and the localizing of political practices, in close connection with the spread of military conflicts (section 1.2). The great civil wars which began in 1080  unfolded within a context already marked by an increasing willingness to resort to arms, but it pushed to the utmost limits tendencies that, plausibly, would other­wise have carried far more limited weight and consequences. The war between the Gregorian party and the pro-imperial one led to a situation of permanent and endemic military conflict, which took a heavy toll on all forms of social organization. Warfare brought such a degree of instability that it accelerated (and sometime caused) the disintegration of old territorial structures (either a total or partial one, depending on the context); but it was also the main means by which new centres of power emerged as poles of reorganization and recomposition (section 1.3). The capacity to defend a territory (and to enlarge it) by force of arms probably became the primary element for the selection of leading political figures. However, all this should not lead us to accept a simplistic interpretation of the political game and of the exercising of local power, by reducing them to the logic of sheer brutality. Military effectiveness was the product of a complex and wideranging mode of territorial action, based on the reshaping of local society (in such a way as to promote the establishment of knightly elites), the drawing up of military pacts with subject communities, and the construction of new and more effective fortifications, but also the use of new legitimizing discourses on the local level (Chapters 3 and 6). In other words, the capacity to extract and redistribute material and immaterial resources, by operating in a new fashion compared to the past, proved utterly crucial for operating successfully in the political-military arena. The context of warfare was therefore inextricably bound up with the kind of militarization of local society that emerges as the hallmark of seigneurial trans­ form­ation in central and northern Italy—to an even greater degree than in other European contexts (section  4.1). The radical change in the structure of castles, which grew larger and sturdier, the boom in the number of milites, the im­port­ance of military obligations in pacts with subjects, and the new centrality of the discourse of violence in the creation of social hierarchies constitute, in this respect, convergent data. The redefinition of the whole system was so profound and structural that even when the civil war had by and large come to an end in the early 1110s, pronounced militarization remained a key feature of the political and social balances in the area, and warfare became an entrenched, structural factor. With regard to these dynamics, it is important to note that political dislocation appears to have reached its height in the 1090s, which is to say during the

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

250  The Seigneurial Transformation harshest stage of the civil war. Already from the early years of the 1100s, and even more clearly from the 1120s, we witness the emergence of processes of the opposite sort: processes of territorial regrouping around a series of centres of power (sections 1.3 and 5.1). The spread of the dominatus loci, therefore, would appear to coincide with the stage of greatest instability and fragmentation, whereas the following period of reorganization is associated with the normalization and entrenchment (or indeed, in certain respects, the naturalization) of the new system of power. As we have seen, the centres that played a leading role in the re­organ­iza­tion that distinguishes this second stage include, most prominently, some early urban communities that successfully established themselves as political hubs for the surrounding countryside (section  5.1). However, many of these centres of reorganization clearly display a seigneurial character: these are the (new kinds of) territorial principalities that took shape through the actions of major aristocratic families or, to a lesser extent, of powerful ecclesiastical institutions (sections 1.3 and 1.4). Principalities and proto-communes no doubt shared a whole range of power practices, systems of control, and government models, but certain differences between these two kinds of political structures are also discernible. In particular, principalities are almost invariably marked by the application of the typical features of the seigneurial model on a much wider scale, whereas the action of proto-communes in the rural context would appear to have been characterized by collective forms of control, albeit not exclusively so. After all, we should not forget that most of the centres that acknowledged the political hegemony of urban communities, at any rate outside their immediate environs, were subject to territorial lordships. In considering centres of political reorganization, we should not underestimate the role played by the monarchy (and, at a more local level, by the imperial marches). In the 1110s, royal power sought to establish itself as the linchpin for a significant project based—like the coeval principalities and proto-communes— on the direct control of rural centres by royal officials (Chapter 2). In this respect, royal power by this time had come to show considerable affinities with the modes of operating typical of seigneurial principalities (section 2.3). However, the failure of this project in the face of competition from local political actors shows that the latter, while individually far less powerful than the monarchy, were better equipped to come out on top in a game where the key to success lay in the cap­acity to think and act on a local scale. The crucial importance of this phase is also evident from an analysis of the system of political communication in the countryside. In the decades around 1100, we observe a profound redefinition of the matrix of discourses of power triggered by the crisis of royal power, which had hitherto constituted the linchpin of the system of legitimation and of rural political culture (Chapter  6). Once deprived of its traditional centre of gravity, this constellation of political discourses soon took on a completely new form: while the elements involved

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

Conclusions  251 remained the same, their position and mutual relations changed. The political culture that emerged was that of a de facto headless society which needed to organize itself independently, without being able to rely on an acknowledged leadership (which only occasionally made itself felt during imperial military expeditions in Italy). The language of pacts probably represents the most striking symbol of this new situation: the pact between lords, and especially between lords and subjects, acquired unprecedented centrality, in a way that is somewhat unique in the European context, at any rate as far as the relation between lords and their subjects is concerned (Chapter 8). Indeed, it is plausible that its importance within the framework of rural political culture—which endured, with various nuances, for a very long period of time—is to be connected precisely to the de­cisive role played by the language of pacts during the emergence of the lordship model.1 This new kind of legitimation (coinciding with the legitimation of a largely innovative form of power compared to the past) proceeded from below and rested on pacts: it revolved around reciprocity, albeit one of an asymmetrical, and often even fictional, sort. The new seigneurial context, however, also led to a marked redefinition of more traditional languages previously connected with royal power, such as the languages of fidelity and consuetudo. The latter, with the complex rituals it entailed, was closely associated with the discourse of pacts, which it reinforced by drawing upon the memory of a legitimizing (yet often fictional and instrumental) past (Chapter  9). Personal fidelity instead spread well beyond the aristocratic world, in which it still continued to play a key role as a means of defining mutual relations (section 7.1). The new village elites, which by now had become mili­tar­ ized, were bound to the domini loci precisely by the use of the language of fidelity and the public ceremonies associated with it. Yet, the most interesting aspect in the development of this discourse lies in its innovative use to define the relationship between lords and subjects (section 7.2). Whereas in the past, ‘territorial’ fidelitas had only applied to the relation between the sovereign and the inhabitants of the kingdom as a whole, within the new context of local powers, it increasingly began to be used as a means to interpret and structure the relation between the lord and the population of the territory he controlled (or laid claim to). The entrenchment of this kind of power turned fluid forms of dependence into a far more rigid and cogent relationship. In this respect, it may be argued that while the pactum reflects a view of local power relations closer to what must have been the subjects’ perspective, given its horizontal dimension (broadly speaking), fidelitas is closer to the lords’ point of view, insofar as it emphasizes the vertical and hierarchical nature of the relation—the difference between ruler and ruled. This emphasis on

1  On the longue durée of pactional language (and its complicated developments) see now Gamberini, The Clash of Legitimacies.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

252  The Seigneurial Transformation the pactional aspect limited the gap between the dominus loci and his subjects; the emphasis on fidelitas increased and reinforced it. All things considered, the language which in my view most prominently contributed to the definition of hierarchies was that of violence (Chapter 10). On the one hand, political leadership appears to have been inextricably bound up with the exercising of violence: the capacity to independently exercise it is what made autonomous local actors stand out from everyone else, thereby crucially restructuring political society, in the countryside and beyond; but, at the same time, it was also crucial for the definition of hierarchies within the complex world of lords—and, more generally, within the political world, which also comprises autonomous rural communities and urban proto-communes. However, it is especially in the understanding of the differences between rulers and ruled that violence and brutality played a decisive role, insofar as they made seigneurial predominance something natural in the eyes of the subjects (section 10.4). From the aristocratic point of view, violence crucially counterbalanced those political discourses that tended to downplay the distance between rulers and ruled; it approached the hierarchical perspective that distinguishes fidelity, which it cast in a more brutal and coercive light, thereby concealing the more honourable aspects of the relationship based on fidelitas. In this respect, it may no doubt be argued that pacts and violence represented the two opposite poles of political discourse in the countryside at the turn of the year 1100, in particular as far as relations between lords and subjects were concerned. It does not seem enough to stop at these observations; rather, it is necessary to try and identify the underlying causes of this complex transformation. In this respect, I have already emphasized the importance of warfare and of the context of endemic conflict that emerged; however, it would be simplistic to view war as the driving force behind socio-political change. We have already seen how, in the fifteen years leading up to an all-out civil war around 1080, the level of violence in the countryside increased to such an extent as to alarm the political authorities. We have also seen how parallel processes of the localization of power had already been at work for several decades (Chapter 1). In light of these considerations, it may be more useful to view warfare as both a symptom and an accelerating factor for the transformation of rural power balances. Warfare was a symptom insofar as the revolts and armed conflicts which affected many of the main territorial units starting in 1060 clearly reveal the sharp structural tensions which came to pervade the old political order through the process of the localization of aristocratic rule. Warfare is an accelerating factor because it is undoubtedly the case that the outbreak of civil war in 1080—an event not directly connected to the processes of  transformation already underway—contributed to unleashing the territorial potential of local political actors, crucially promoting the breakdown of trad­ition­al political institutions, the crisis of legitimation associated with the exercising of public power, and the solidifying (or creation) of new forms of seigneurial power.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

Conclusions  253 On the one hand, the civil wars that racked the kingdom from 1080 onwards were so intense and endemic because they emerged within an already conflictual and increasingly militarized milieu. On the other hand, the enduring and widespread warfare typical of this period, along with the contemporary ma­ter­ial and ideological crisis of central power, provided an ideal setting in which the seigneurial (but also proto-communal) transformation of power already underway could fully run its course, within a very short period of time. In other words, a prolonged phase in which political actors gradually increased their power at a local level— partly, no doubt, thanks to the king/emperor’s prolonged periods of absence from Italy over the course of the eleventh century—was followed by a shorter period of swift and intense expansion of local power: a process in which the aristocracy played a crucial, albeit not exclusive, role. It is important to stress the active role played by the royal authorities, who did not passively endure the crisis, but aggressively sought to exploit it in order to implement new and more direct forms of territorial control, bypassing the trad­ ition­al intermediaries who had hitherto maintained political balances within the kingdom (sections 2.2 and 2.3). In order to attain his goals, the sovereign did not hesitate to promote the dissolution of some major public districts that were still solid and operational, as in the case of the march of Tuscany and that of Turin. But while the breakdown of existing structures was all too successful—clearly owing to the self-serving support shown by minor political actors—the development of a new system of central power proved a far more challenging task, which ultimately met with almost complete failure. The reason for this is that the project in question clashed with the ambitions of individual centres of local power, which were better organized to come out on top in a competition where rootedness and the capacity for action at the local level were utterly crucial. In those areas, such as Friuli, where the monarchy instead supported traditional political structures, albeit with certain necessary adjustments, these structures successfully survived the crisis. The royal plan to reorganize the means of control over Italy thus probably contributed in a decisive way to the process of the redefinition and localization of power structures (Chapters 1 and 2)—an issue to be further investigated in the future. What has remained outside the scope of our analysis is the development of territorial lordship after 1130. I have chosen this rather arbitrary date because it corresponds to a moment in which lordship had already become an entrenched and well-defined reality in the countryside of central and northern Italy. After this phase, however, it underwent adaptations and changes owing to its progressive transformation within the overall socio-political context; polities of a different kind started implementing policies that brought together increasingly extensive and complex political territories, in which there was also room for lordship, yet in different forms, depending on the specific local context. Clearly, what it meant to be a lord varied depending on whether the territory involved was

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

254  The Seigneurial Transformation under the hegemony of an urban commune or a (lay or ecclesiastical) prince, or an area subject to the attempt to reorganize central power carried out by the Staufer (as in southern Piedmont, Tuscany, Marche, and Umbria). But even individual urban communes adopted different attitudes to rural lordships, depending on the local political structures. Each context implied different ways of relating with lordships, ranging from profound symbiosis (especially evident in many major principalities) to marked hostility (as in the case of the few urban communes). In certain areas, lordships chiefly relied on their control over landed property and on personal ties of fidelity (as in the environs of Milan), whereas in  other areas what remained central was their ‘territorial’ dimension. Even as regards the political language adopted, different contexts implied at least partly different legitimizing discourses.2 Up until 1200, lordship remained one of the basic political building blocks throughout northern Italy. Only over the course of the thirteenth century did its prominence start to substantially decline in certain sub-regions, such as Tuscany, the Marche, and the Veneto. However, in several contexts—especially in northwestern Italy, in Romagna, and in Latium—lordship remained an important mode for the organization of the countryside, and a considerable percentage of the rural population continued to live under the rule of lords. Indeed, from the 1300 onward, the spread of regional states led to a new spreading of the lordship model, particularly in ‘monarchical’ territories (such as the duchy of Milan, the county/duchy of Savoy, and papal Latium), through the ‘feudalization’ of rural centres that had hitherto been under the direct control of the central authorities. By contrast, in areas governed by republics (such as Florence, Siena, and Venice), lordship came to play a substantially marginal role (with the exception of Genoa). Notwithstanding the wide range of detailed studies on the subject, such changes have yet to be made the object of an overall investigation, of the sort which seems crucial in order to grasp the nature of the structural transformations affecting the  lordship model—an investigation also based on a comparative analysis of sub-regional areas.3 Another crux of which researchers have only scratched the surface is the economic dimension of the dominatus loci in our period. More particularly, it is a matter of understanding exactly how lordship structurally fit within the broader Italian context at the turn of the 1100s.4 In this regard, lordship may be regarded as an aristocratic means to manage and profit from rural growth: a phenomenon that—as we have seen—had probably begun far earlier, at a slower pace, but had been gaining momentum for decades at the time when the transformation of 2  Like in Piedmont or in Umbria: see respectively Fiore, Signori e sudditi; and Provero, Le parole dei sudditi. 3  But on the period post-1300, see now Carocci (ed.), La signoria rurale nel XIV–XV secolo. 4 On the economic dimension of seigneurial power the reference is now Carocci, Lordships, pp. 377–469, focused on southern Italy.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

Conclusions  255 lordship occurred.5 The structuring of the dominatus loci may be interpreted as having been a way to at least partly overcome the constraints associated with the extraction of surplus derived from landed property, and to operate in a more direct and unfettered way (section  3.2). Jurisdictional levies—generally applied alongside land-based levies, which they sometimes partially replaced—made it possible to increase and adapt charges, affecting those peasants who had trad­ ition­al­ly been exempt from rents (as in the case of allodiaries). More generally, jurisdictional levies enabled lords to lay their hands on the increasing rural surplus ensured by economic growth, whereas in the immediately previous phase, any surplus had probably most benefited the peasants themselves. A clear indication of the extent of this long-term expansion in our period is the prolonged and feverish military phase that brought this growth to a substantial halt. The swift recovery of centres that had been destroyed—a few peculiar exceptions aside— bears witness to the context of economic development in which these armed conflicts occurred (sections  1.2 and  3.3). The spread of the seigneurial model had a significant impact on this process of growth, at least partly influencing its development. Future archaeological research and the improvement of dating ­methods—which are still rather imprecise regarding our period (at any rate as far as the specific aspects of interest to us are concerned)—will no doubt provide new, crucial data in the coming years.6 The conclusions I will be drawing on the matter are therefore still provisional ones, open to correction. Having said this, it is reasonable to argue, first of all, that the lords’ capacity to concentrate surplus— thereby reinforcing the ‘aristocratic’ capacity for demand—accelerated the growth process.7 This is also consistent with the view that the twelfth century marked the crucial moment in which the economy of central and northern Italy really took off. After all, what distinguishes the dominatus loci was its capacity to make significant investments and to promote rural productivity (through the coercion of farmers and the imposition of heavier levies than in the past), while also making human resources available in sectors other than agriculture.8 Moreover, lordship must be regarded as a means not merely to increase taxation, but also to redistribute the resources acquired, and hence to restructure the social contexts of individual villages (Chapter 4). In this respect, the structuring of territorial lordships went hand in hand not just with the militarization of village elites, but also with their strengthening, leading to an increase in demand. From a more general perspective, the turn of the 1100s in the countryside would appear to have been characterized by a new capacity on the local elites’ 5  Bianchi, Collavini, ‘La competizione per le risorse’; on long-term economic growth, in a wider European framework, see Devroey, Économie rural. 6  Bianchi, ‘Archeologia della signoria’. 7  On the centrality of the demand of elites in structuring early medieval economy, see Wickham, Framing, pp. 691–831. 8  On seigneurial coercion as crucial stimulus for the increasing of peasant productivity, see Duby, The Early Growth, pp. 221–69.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

256  The Seigneurial Transformation part (not just lords, but also members of autonomous communities) to use their new and direct jurisdictional control to syphon off the rural surplus and amass resources either directly, via taxation, or indirectly, which is to say by creating favourable conditions for land investments, as was the case in the cities’ rural hinterland (Chapter 3 and section 5.1). Territorial lordship, therefore, should not be seen as the driving force behind the acceleration of growth in the countryside (and beyond) in the twelfth century, but as a crucial contributing factor; and its spread and general extension account for many—albeit not all—of the distinguishing features of this process of development. From this standpoint, it might be more accurate to identify the driving force behind the acceleration of rural growth with this innovative and incisive capacity of the elites to create political contexts more suited to their economic requirements, at any rate compared to the immediately preceding decades. The bulk of the peasant population would appear to have benefited in a very marginal way from the overall improvement in economic conditions, at least before the midtwelfth century, which is to say several decades after the period we have been examining.9 The increase in rural productivity, and hence in rural surplus, was largely drained by the elites through jurisdictional taxation, in addition (and sometimes, especially in the case of lordships, in place of) land-based levies. Although in certain contexts the overall increase in levies based on jurisdictional rights does not seem very substantial, it was still enough to enable local elites to intercept all or most of the increased production, essentially leaving the sub­or­ din­ate social  classes empty-handed. This productive growth was also achieved through the imposition of heavier workloads on the peasants, either directly (through the new building or upkeep corvées) or indirectly (through an increase in census and taxes). Increased agricultural productivity probably also allowed more peasants to quit their work in the fields in comparison to the past, thereby enabling the demographic development of urban centres and large rural villages in the early decades of the twelfth century, as well as the wide-scale walling-up process in the rural and urban context. Widespread political instability and armed conflict favoured dense settlement patterns at various levels, giving rise to better structured settlements that could more easily face war-related emergencies (section 3.3). A process of selection wiped out a significant portion of the minor rural centres, concentrating the population into a far smaller number of sites compared to the past, albeit to a degree that varied depending on the area. It is quite likely that the sudden urban growth that urban centres like Pisa and Bologna would appear to have experienced in this period was directly associated with this context.10 9  Wickham, ‘Archeologia e mondi rurali’. 10  On Bologna, Bocchi, ‘Dalla grande crisi’, pp. 68–78, 82–4, 92–4, 101–3; on Pisa, Garzella, Pisa com’era. I’m preparing a book on the expansion of urban fabrics in Italy in this period.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

Conclusions  257 Another crucial theme to be explored more systematically in the future is the process of the transformation of local power across the various areas of western Europe. Recent scholarship is showing increasing awareness of the fact that the trajectories that led to the affirmation of territorial lordship in (almost) all of western Europe varied considerably from region to region, owing to factors associated with local social and political dynamics.11 According to this perspective, which is far less rigid than the one that was prevalent up until the early 1990s, the peculiarities of individual regional contexts had a decisive impact on the way in which this process unfolded (suddenly or gradually, violently or in a relatively peaceful way), as well as on its chronology—a short or long one, extending from the last decades of the tenth century to the mid-twelfth. From this perspective, what we need is a matrix—based on a suitably broad range of case studies—cap­able of viewing the various (sub-)regional socio-political characteristics in relation to the specific processes related to local power’s entrenchment. Clearly, a similar work of  assessment remains a far-off prospect; however, a comparison between the regnum Italiae, the north of France, northern Spain, England, and southern Italy can already offer some interesting insights in this respect, making it possible—as we shall see—to identify an initial series of parameters and indicators that might help us account for the differences across the various regions.12 Moreover, it must be emphasized that these differences concern not just the trajectories of the process of entrenchment, but also its actual outcomes. As we shall soon see in greater detail, the process of local power’s entrenchment, while prevalent, was not entirely inevitable, and even the concrete ways in which lordship became structured at the local level varied more or less significantly depending on the context. In northern France, the shift towards a fully ‘seigneurial’ system, which is to say one marked by the privatization of jurisdictional rights and by a marked for­mal­iza­tion of local power practices, occurred in a slow and gradual manner between the late tenth and early twelfth centuries. The context for this process was a society in which aristocratic domination had been strong since the Carolingian age, and the presence of small freeholders very limited, if not wholly absent. The gradual shift towards territorial lordship significantly altered the nature of how power was exercised on individuals at the local level compared to the Carolingian period, yet it occurred within a rural context already strongly marked by subordination. According to Mazel, this process of territorialization and the entrenchment of lordship only fully unfolded in the last decades of the

11  For an ample discussion of this process, see Bisson, The Crisis, pp. 182–288. 12  On norther Francia, see West, Reframing Feudal Revolution, pp. 173–98 (Champagne); Barton, Lordship in the County; Fossier, La terre et les hommes (Picardy), pp. 477–572; and the general overview in Mazel, Féodalités, esp. pp. 447–92. On Catalonia, see Bonnassie, La Catalogne; on the other sub-regions of northern Iberia, with a similar standpoint, see also Larrea, La Navarre; and Pastor, Resistencias y luchas; see also the essays collected in Jular Pérez-Alfaro and Estepa Dìaz (eds.), Land, Power, and Society.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

258  The Seigneurial Transformation eleventh century; however, it would not appear to have been associated with an extensive use of violence by noblemen.13 The very few episodes of violence against subjects recorded in the surviving sources seem to constitute exceptions reflecting particular local conditions, rather than exemplary cases revealing a more structural tendency.14 If, as seems likely, conditions worsened for peasants, this occurred in a slow and progressive way (in accordance with the ‘boiling frog’ model), and the lords were able to manage the whole process without sys­tem­at­ic­al­ly resorting to violence against subordinates as a means to accelerate change. What West has described in his recent study on Champagne and Lorraine is essentially in line with such a model. Other areas are instead marked by very different developments, which are explained by very different starting socio-political conditions, but also by particular political developments that reflect exogenous as well as endogenous factors. England, for example, presents a different pattern of development, even though the underlying context is not all that different from northern France. On the one hand, the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of the early tenth century may be seen as the ‘most Carolingian’ of all: as the one in which the innovations brought about by the Franks were implemented to the fullest extent.15 However, despite the power of the aristocracy and the presence of a peasant class characterized in certain cases by very heavy forms of dependence, the process of entrenchment and allodialization of leadership and jurisdictional rights did not occur: with very few exceptions, such rights remained in the hands of the central authorities. Therefore, at least in the eyes of a Continental historian, the lordship model in England never fully took off, despite its unquestionable power and its capacity to influence economic and social contexts. A push towards a more Continental direction occurred in the country with the so-called Anarchy, the major civil war that broke out during Stephen’s reign.16 However, in the aftermath of this war, royal power regained complete control and nipped the process of privatization of justice in the bud, to such a degree that no parallels for this are to be found on the Continent— not even in Norman southern Italy where territorial lordships were definitely more developed, albeit in a strong royal framework.17 The case of England, then, shows that a particularly solid central power could manage seigneurial development while avoiding the processes of fragmentation and the privatization of power and jurisdictional rights typical of Continental kingdoms. In Catalonia, where peasant communities were stronger, not least owing to the significant presence of freeholders, the process unfolded in a swifter and more 13 Mazel, Féodalités, pp. 447–92. 14  A good example is the case of Viry, discussed in Zerner, ‘Note sur la seigneurie’. 15  On the ‘Carolingian’ nature of Anglo-Saxon kingdom, see Wickham, The Inheritance of Rome, 453–71. 16 Crouch, The Reign of King Stephen. 17 Amt, The Accession on Henry II; on Norman southern Italy, see Carocci, Lordships, pp. 69–113.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

Conclusions  259 violent way, within a few decades in the first half of the eleventh century—again, in conjunction with a crisis of central power (in this case, comital power). In other words, violence was crucial in order to define the place of the subordinate classes within the new and harsher context of lordship. From this perspective, the case of Italy appears much closer to that of Catalonia. Here too the presence of communities of freeholders enjoying a considerable degree of autonomy was associated with a transformation entailing a phase of marked acceleration, characterized by a striking increase in violence and coinciding with a crisis of central power.18 According to Bonnassie’s thesis, lords took advantage of a moment of great weakness on the part of the count of Barcelona in order to launch an all-out campaign of violence against peasant society in an attempt to subject and deprive it of its traditional autonomy. Up until then, rural communities, which were very strong and existed in a symbiotic relationship with the central authorities, had constituted a substantial obstacle to the development of aristocratic power.19 In the wake of the crisis, the counts of Barcelona (and later the king of Aragon as well) were not stripped of their power, but forced to strike a new balance with local authorities; the importance of the structural connection with the aristocracy increased, while the traditional connection with the communities of freeholders weakened considerably.20 As far as the area of Castile and León is concerned, in recent decades studies have emphasized the marked difference between rural socio-political balances in the early tenth century, characterized by the presence of strong peasant communities and of well-established public power, and in the twelfth century, when seigneurial domination was so pervasive as to heavily influence the very ways in which kings exercised power at the local level.21 Close analogies are to be found between this process and the one outlined for Catalonia, albeit with a longer chronology and a more progressive development. However, it is worth noting that in this case it might be possible to identify a phase of acceleration in the civil wars of the early twelfth century, in the wake of which the jurisdictional powers of lords became far more visible than in the previous decades. Proof of this trans­ form­ation is arguably to be found in the numerous subjects’ revolts and rebellions in the early decades of the twelfth century: events which may be seen as a response to a transformation (and deterioration) of power relations which occurred so rapidly as to be clearly perceived by the victims themselves.22 Nevertheless, even in a strictly rural context, communities across central and  northern Italy would appear to have exercised even greater power than in Catalonia, as is shown by the numerous examples of independent communities

18 Bonnassie, La Catalogne, pp. 539–80. 19  Feliu i Montfort, ‘La pagesia catalana’. 20  But this old link did not disappear, as shown in Bisson, Tormented Voices. 21  Jular Pérez-Alfaro and Estepa Dìaz (eds.), Land, Power, and Society. 22  Reyna Pastor, Resistencias y luchas.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

260  The Seigneurial Transformation capable of successfully taking up arms against lords (section 5.2). While in many contexts lords were able to assert their power, with or without the use of violence (the latter typically being the case where bonds of dependence were already strong), they did not succeed in doing so everywhere. And in many places where they did succeed in gaining the upper hand, they were also forced to draw pacts granting their subjects various degrees of autonomy and leeway (section 8.2): violence, in other words, was not enough to structure rural power relations, but was combined with negotiation, giving rise to a generally far less oppressive context than the Catalan one. By contrast, in the north of France, where—as we have seen—the affirmation of seigneurial power occurred more gradually and aristocratic predominance vis-à-vis a weak peasant society constituted a more trad­ ition­al phenomenon, we find practically no trace of the language of pacts in relations between lords and subjects. In northern France (Picardy, Normandy, and Flanders), from the late eleventh century onwards domini defined their relations with subjects through grants and franchises, that were, at least formally, purely the lords’ initiative: a clear sign of the structural robustness of lordship in this context, especially from an ideological standpoint.23 Seigneurial domination was regarded as stable and consolidated, and it was the lords who granted their subjects rights, or rather privileges. As a category, pacts were instead essentially reserved for agreements between lords: a significant difference compared to what was typically the case in central and northern Italy.24 The latter stands out precisely on account of the dearth of letters of privilege (in the strict sense of the term) at least up until the late twelfth century (Chapter 8). By contrast, the language of pacts was the one most widely employed to define relations not just within the seigneurial group, but also between individual lords and their subjects. What possibly accounts for this element is not so much—or not exclusively—the (relative) weakness of the lordship model compared to northern France, but rather its greater ideological fragility, i.e. its sudden emergence and often ‘revolutionary’ and subversive role with respect to pre-existing balances, by contrast to France, where it ultimately constituted a direct development of the old power structure. The case of southern Italy falls somewhere between the two. Here gratuitous concessions by lords coexisted, in a rather balanced way, with genuine pacts, at least up until the late twelfth century.25 This may be seen to reflect a different background situation. Lordship chiefly emerged through the break made with the old power balances under the influence of the Normans, but it was soon legitimized (and at the same time regulated) by the major powers that soon established themselves (princes and, later, kings). This somewhat hybrid nature of territorial lordship, at the crossroads between legitimacy and ‘revolutionary’ innovation, would find

23 Fossier, Chartes de Coutume; Van Caenegem, ‘Coutumes et législation’. 24 Fossier, Chartes de Coutume, pp. 129–33. 25 Carocci, Lordships, pp. 167–90.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

Conclusions  261 expression in the coexistence of pacts and gratuitous concessions among the documents from this region. This brief, and still schematic, comparative exercise clearly suggests that the presence of freeholders, the autonomy of peasant communities, the landed power of local aristocracy, and the strength of central power are among the crucial parameters to explain the regional forms, dynamics, and chronologies associated with this transformation. However, the role played by other, equally important elements, such as economic growth, remain to be fully explored. Naturally, these are but a few, simple insights that will have to be discussed and investigated in greater depth in more systematic studies, by integrating the growing amount of archaeological data, which is of crucial importance as far as the economic aspect is concerned. The comparative dimension, this time narrowed down to the sub-regional level, also allows us to better reflect on the problem of the very nature of the process of socio-political transformation in central and northern Italy—including its specific trajectory and ‘inevitability’ (or lack thereof). We have seen how the dynamics which reached full maturation in our area in the decades around 1100 were far more ancient and long-standing. In his recent landmark study on the feudal revolution, Charles West has hypothesized that the process of allodialization and the entrenchment of power typical of the seigneurial world in some way represents the inevitable outcome of Carolingian developments, which is to say of the process of the reorganization of forms of power brought about by Charlemagne and his successors.26 From this perspective, the Carolingian power reform would constitute the crucial precondition for the subsequent processes of seigneuralization: the most evident confirmation of this would lie in the spread of essentially similar models throughout ‘Carolingian’ Europe (from its heart to more peripheral areas). While, as we have seen, individual regional contexts had a marked impact on the ways in which this process occurred and on its chronology, its trajectory and final outcome would be essentially predetermined. At first glance, the Italian example would largely seem to confirm this hypothesis; yet the presence, alongside territorial lordships, of political actors not found in other parts of Europe, such as autonomous urban and rural communities, suggests a more nuanced picture. Precisely because West’s interpretation is so compelling, Italy’s case is worth discussing from this specific perspective, in the light of the data which has emerged over the course of the research conducted thus far. The first evident peculiarity in Italy’s case is the prominent role played by (many) urban communities in the countryside, a role which really took off in the period we are examining. The capacity of urban communities to shape political 26 West, Reframing Feudal Revolution. I’ve discussed the thesis of Charles West, focusing on its applicability to Italy, in Fiore, ‘Ripensare la “rivoluzione feudale” ’; on this issue see also Wickham, ‘The “Feudal revolution” ’.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

262  The Seigneurial Transformation and social balances in the countryside, even quite a distance away from the city  walls, by establishing a complex dialogue with the seigneurial authorities, constitutes a key element to understand rural power balances. Proto-communes successfully imposed their hegemony on different seigneurial centres, but also directly imposed their power on many villages in the surrounding countryside. What is less significant from a quantitative perspective, yet in my view crucial from a qualitative one, is the presence of non-urban autonomous communities in the countryside. This specific power model seems particularly important because it offers a different model for the organization of political power compared to the dominatus loci, one which—by contrast to urban proto-communes—is exclusively rural in nature. This model appears to be based not on the allodialization of jurisdiction, but on its exercise at a collective rather than a merely formal level. In this respect, the communities in question may be seen as tracing a different course of development compared to lordships, which shows that the latter did not constitute an inevitable development within the post-Carolingian political framework, but only one possible outcome. It is evident that the maturation and entrenchment of these political entities rested on endogenous foundations, namely the development of practices and tendencies which had been at work in the countryside for centuries, as in the case of the collective management of goods, the protection of religious institutions, and interaction with royal power. Not least through the crisis of the traditional political system, the troubled years at the turn of the 1100s brought about an acceleration and (subsequent) for­mal­iza­tion of such tendencies, in parallel to what was occurring in the strictly seigneurial context.27 Nevertheless, it is important to note that while lordship is associated with the capitalization of power, the same does not hold true for autonomous communities, where power remains something collective, not subject to the typical dynamics of property ownership. Entrenchment and localization are common to both political models, yet at the same time, some significant differences apply. The emerging picture suggests that West’s interpretation needs to be qualified somewhat, yet the case of Italy is a peculiar one in other respects, too. Even if we were to keep within the ‘aristocratic’ rural framework, it is possible to identify a specific (and peculiar) sub-regional case that suggests, if nothing else, the possibility of a development at least partly different from that typically characterizing territorial lordships. This is the aforementioned case of the patri­ arch­ate of Aquileia in Friuli, an evidently anomalous case which apparently shows that while the seigneuralization (and/or entrenchment of power at a local level) constituted a likely development given the Carolingian preconditions, it was not  an entirely obvious or inevitable outcome. In north-east Italy, the solution adopted by the royal authorities around 1070 in the face of local difficulties was to 27 On the patterns of collective action in Carolingian and post-Carolingian countryside, see Provero, ‘Peasant society and communities’.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

Conclusions  263 submit the county of Friuli, which was still fully operating on the basis of Carolingian parameters, to the patriarch of Aquileia, who acquired all the trad­ ition­al public prerogatives (Chapter  2). This solution proved highly successful, and the area was almost completely spared by the processes of dissolution typical of the period. In the following centuries, Friuli displayed a remarkable degree of continuity with the Carolingian period in terms of its social, political, and economic balances; territorial lordship instead only emerged in a far more limited number of local contexts. However, we should not view Friuli merely as some kind of fossil; rather, it is more helpful to see it as representing a different trajectory, characterized by a more linear and less innovative development, or at any rate one much closer to the starting Carolingian model compared to the outcomes typically found across the rest of central and northern Italy. Among the many distinguishing features of Friuli’s case, we might mention continuity in the modes of the exercise of public power, the lack of development of territorial lordship, an aristocracy relying on large-scale land ownership (with widely scattered properties), the survival of the mansus, and the importance of communities of freeholders.28 Therefore, the endurance of fully Carolingian models of power was possible, at least to some degree, and the flourishing of territorial lordship was not an inevitable outcome. What distinguishes the Italian context, then, is the peculiar role played by urban communities in rural areas, but also—to limit ourselves to those au­thor­ities based in the countryside—the presence of non-seigneurial autonomous communities, and the survival of a system of Carolingian origin in Friuli. This is a varied scenario, characterized by a peculiar range of outcomes. The dominatus loci appears to be only one of several parallel developments that unfolded in rural central and northern Italy, which is distinguished by the presence of a relatively complex socio-political ecosystem, featuring a wide variety of political units. The outcome is a process of coevolution, whereby each individual trajectory of evolution influences all others and is in turn influenced by them, in a complex way.29 It follows that we cannot interpret this process teleologically, on the basis of the outcomes it produced, although it cannot be ruled out that the peculiar prom­in­ence of cities (and possibly of several rural centres, too) compared to other European regions— possibly from as early as the late Lombard period—is what brought these outcomes about around the year 1100.30 While these topics remain to be fully explored, it seems to me that the time is ripe to highlight the wide range of developments and opportunities that emerged within a context that was particularly suited to

28 For a general overview, see Cammarosano (ed.), Il patriarcato di Aquileia; see also, Zanin, L’evoluzione dei poteri. 29  On the notion of coevolution, see Thompson, The Coevolutionary Process. 30  On the strong identities of northern Italian city in precomunal age, see La Rocca, Majocchi (eds.), Urban Identities.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 06/02/20, SPi

264  The Seigneurial Transformation experimentation and to the pursuing of new political projects, owing to the collapse of the structural limits imposed by royal control. A comparative study taking other transalpine regions into account, and a close examination of areas displaying specific patterns of seigneurial development, may help to further clarify the nature of the processes that led to the emergence of the seigneurie not just in Italy but in Europe more generally, freeing them from overly-teleological interpretations and yielding a more nuanced picture of the past—one still difficult to decipher and open to very different outcomes from those ultimately realized. In other words, the process of seigneurial trans­form­ation (or, if we like it better, of the feudal revolution) is still an open problem.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 08/02/20, SPi

Abbreviation for Primary Sources and Journals BISIME Bullettino dell’Istituto storico italiano per il medioevo BSBS Bollettino storico-bibliografico subalpino Le carte della canonica di Firenze Le carte della canonica della cattedrale di Firenze (723–1149), ed. R. Piattoli (Rome, 1938). Le carte di S. Maria dell’Acquafredda Le carte dei monasteri di S. Maria dell’Acquafredda di Lenno e di S. Benedetto in val Perlana (1042–1200), ed. R. Pezzola, retrieved from accessed 20 March 2019. Le carte di Sassovivo MEFREM Mélanges de l’École française de Rome. Moyen Age MGH Monumenta Germaniae Historica QFIAB Quellen und Forschungen auf italienischen Archiven und Bibliotheken RIS erum Italicarum Scriptores

Bibliography Primary sources Location of unpublished material Archivio Capitolare di Ascoli Piceno. Archivio Capitolare di Treviso, Rotoli senza data. Archivio di Stato di Ascoli Piceno, Archivio segreto anzianale. Archivio di Stato di Firenze, Diplomatico, Coltibuono, S. Lorenzo. Archivio di Stato di Firenze, Diplomatico, Santa Trinita. Archivio di Stato di Firenze, Diplomatico, Vallombrosa. Archivio di Stato di Verona, S. Maria in Organo, Pergamene. Archivio Storico del Comune di Todi, Fondo Trinci. Archivio Storico Diocesano di Pavia, Mensa vescovile. Archivio Vescovile di Brescia, Sezione mensa. Archivio Vescovile di Città di Castello.

Published sources Annales Brixienses, ed. L.  Bethmann, in MGH, Scriptores, XVIII (Hannover, 1863), pp. 811–20. Annales Ceccanenses, ed. G.  Pertz, in MGH, Scriptores, XIX (Hannover, 1886), pp. 275–302. Annales Pisani, ed. M.G. Pert, in MGH, Scriptores, XIX (Hannover, 1866), pp. 236–66. Annales Camaldulenses, III, ed. G.B. Mittarelli (Venezia, 1758).

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 08/02/20, SPi

266  Abbreviation for Primary Sources and Journals Annalista Saxo, Annales, ed. G.  Waitz, in MGH, Scriptores, VI, (Hannover, 1844), pp. 542–777. Anonimo Cumano, De bello et excidio urbis Comensis, ed. G.M. Stampa, RIS, V (Milan, 1724). Un’antica cronaca piemontese inedita, ed. G. Calligaris (Turin, 1889). Archivum Mensae episcopalis: Chartularium Imolense, II: Archivia Minora, 1033–1200, eds. S. Gaddoni, and G. Zaccherini (Imola, 1912). Arnolfo of Milan, Liber gestorum recentium, ed. I. Scaravelli (Bologna, 1996). Gli atti del comune di Milano fino all’anno MCCXVI, ed. C. Manaresi (Milan, 1919). Gli atti privati milanesi e comaschi del secolo XI, 4 vols., eds. C. Manaresi, and G. Vittani (Milan, 1933–69). Bernold of Konstanz, Chronicon 1054–1100, in Die Chroniken Bertholds von Reichenau und Bernold von Kostanz. 1054–1100, ed. I.S.  Robinson, MGH, Scriptores rerum Germanicarum, new series, XIV (Hannover, 2003), pp. 383–540. Bertini, F., Memorie e documenti per servire all’istoria della città di Lucca, IV (Lucca, 1833). Biancolini, G., Notizie storiche delle Chiese di Verona, II (Verona, 1749). I Biscioni, I/2, eds. G.C. Faccio, and M. Ranno (Turin, 1939). Breviarium Ecclesiae Ravennatis (Codice Bavaro): secoli VII–X, ed. G. Rabotti (Rome, 1985). I capitolari italici. Storia e diritto della dominazione carolingia in Italia, eds. C. Azzara, and P. Moro (Rome, 1998). Capitularia Regum Francorum, I, ed. A. Boretius, in MGH, Leges (Hannover, 1883). Cartario della abazia di S. Solutore, ed. F. Cognasso (Pinerolo, 1908). Cartario delle valli Stura e Grana fino a 1317, ed. A. Tallone (Pinerolo, 1912). Le carte cremonesi dei secoli VIII–XII, 4 vols., ed. E. Falconi (Cremona, 1988). Le carte degli archivi reggiani (1051–1060), eds. F.S. Gatta, and P. Torelli (Reggio Emilia, 1938). Le carte dei monasteri di S. Maria dell’Acquafredda di Lenno e di S. Benedetto in val Perlana (1042–1200), ed. R. Pezzola, . Le carte del capitolo della cattedrale di Verona, 2 vols., ed. E. Lanza (Rome, 1998–2006). Le carte del monastero di S. Ambrogio di Milano, vol. 3/1, ed. M.L. Mangini (Pavia, 2007), Codice diplomatico della Lombardia medievale, accessed 10 March 2019. Le carte del monastero di San Faustino sull’Isola Comacina, ed. R. Pezzola (Pavia, 2011), in Codice diplomatico della Lombardia medievale, accessed 10 March 2019. Le carte del monastero di S.  Sepolcro di Astino (1118–1145), II, ed. G.  Cossandi (Pavia, 2007), in Codice diplomatico della Lombardia medievale, accessed 10 March 2019. Le carte del monastero di S. Pietro in Monte di Serle (Brescia) 1039–1200, eds. E. Barbieri, and E. Cau (Brescia, 2000). Le carte del monastero di S. Vittore delle Chiuse sul Sentino, ed. R. Sassi, Milano 1962. Le carte del monastero di Santa Giulia di Brescia, I, eds. E. Barbieri et al. (Pavia, 2008), in Codice diplomatico della Lombardia medievale, accessed 10 March 2019. Le carte del vescovo di Pavia (secoli VIII–XII), ed. E. Bucchi de Giuli, tesi di laurea, Facoltà di Lettere e Filosofia dell’Università di Pavia, rel. M. Ansani, 2002. Le carte dell’abbazia di Chiaravalle di Fiastra, I, ed. A De Luca (Spoleto, 1997). Le carte dell’abbazia di S.  Croce di Sassovivo, eds. G.  Cencetti et al., 7 vols. (Florence, 1973–83).

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 08/02/20, SPi

Abbreviation for Primary Sources and Journals   267 Le carte dell’archivio arcivescovile di Pisa. Fondo arcivescovile, II (1101–50), ed. S.P.P. Scalfati (Pisa, 2006). Le carte dell’archivio capitolare di S. Maria di Novara, II, eds. F. Gabotto et al. (Pinerolo, 1915). Le carte dell’archivio capitolare di Vercelli, I, eds. D. Arnoldi, and F. Gabotto (Vercelli, 1912). Le carte dell’archivio comunale di Voghera fino al 1300, ed. A. Tallone (Pinerolo, 1918). Le carte dell’archivio vescovile di Ivrea, ed. F. Gabotto, (Pinerolo, 1900). Le carte dell’archivio di S. Pietro di Perugia, I, eds. T. Leccisotti, and C. Tabarrelli (Milan, 1956). Le carte della canonica della cattedrale di Firenze (723–1149), ed. R. Piattoli (Rome, 1938). Le carte della chiesa di Santa Maria del Monte Velate, I, ed. P. Merati (Varese, 2005). Le carte della Mensa Vescovile di Lodi (883–1200), ed. Ada Grossi (Pavia, 2004), in Codice diplomatico della Lombardia medievale, < lombardiabeniculturali.it/cdlm/> accessed 10 March 2019. Le carte di Fonte Avellana, I, ed. C. Pierucci, A. Polverari (Rome, 1972). Le carte di Fonte Avellana, II, ed. C. Pierucci, A. Polverari, (Rome, 1977). Le carte di San Pietro di Perugia, I, eds. T. Leccisotti, C. Tabarelli (Milan, 1950). Cavallini, M., ‘Vescovi di Volterra fino al 1100. Esame del Regestum volaterranum, con  appendice di pergamene trascurate da Fedor Schneider’, Rassegna volterrana, XXXVI–XXXIX (1972), pp. 3–83. Il Chronicon Farfense di Gregorio di Catino, 2 vols., ed. U. Balzani (Rome, 1903). Chronicon sublacense, ed. R. Morghen, in RIS2, XXIV.6 (Bologna, 1923). Codex Astensis, III, ed. Q. Sella (Rome, 1880). Codex Diplomaticus Amiatinus, II, ed. W. Kurze (Tübingen, 1982). Codex diplomaticus Langobardiae, II (Turin, 1873). ‘Codice diplomatico di Gubbio’, ed. P. Cenci, Archivio ecclesiastico per la storia dell’Umbria, II (1915), pp. 125–534. Codice diplomatico del comune di Perugia. Periodo consolare e podestarile (1139–1254), ed. A. Bartoli Langeli (Perugia, 1988). Codice Diplomatico Padovano, 2 vols., ed. A. Gloria (Venezia 1877–9). Compagnoni, P., Memorie istorico-critiche della chiesa de’ vescovi di Osimo, V (Rome, 1783). Constitutiones, I, ed. L. Weiland, MGH, Constitutiones (Hannover, 1893). Contatore, D.A., De Historia Terracinensi libri V (Rome, 1706). La Cronaca di Novalesa, ed. G.C. Alessio (Turin, 1982). Deusdedit, Libellus contra invasores et symoniacos, ed. E.  Sackur, MGH, Libelli de lite imperatorum et pontificum, II (Hannover, 1892). Diplomata, Cuonradi III., ed. F. Hausmann, MGH, Diplomata, IX (Wien-Köln-Graz, 1969). Diplomata, Friderici I., 5 vols., ed. H. Appelt, MGH, Diplomata, X (Hannover, 1975–90). Diplomata Henrici II., ed. H. Bresslau, MGH, Diplomata, III (Hannover, 1900–3). Diplomata Henrici III., ed. H. Bresslau, F. Kehr, MGH, Diplomata, V (Berlin, 1931). Diplomata Henrici IV., 3 vols., ed. D.  Von Gladiss, A.  Gawlick, MGH, Diplomata, VI (Berlin-Hannover, 1941–78). Diplomata Henrici V., ed. M. Thiel, MGH, Diplomata, VII, , accessed 10 March 2019. Diplomata Lotharii III., eds. E.  Von Ottenthal, and H.  Hirsch, MGH, Diplomata, VIII (Berlin, 1927). Diplomata Ottonis I., ed. T. Sickel, MGH, Diplomata, I (Hannover, 1879–84). Diplomata Ottonis III. ed. T. Sickel, MGH, Diplomata, II (Wien, 1893). I diplomi di Berengario I, ed. L. Schiaparelli (Rome, 1903).

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 08/02/20, SPi

268  Abbreviation for Primary Sources and Journals I diplomi italiani di Lodovico III, I diplomi di Ludovico III e di Rodolfo II, ed. L. Schiaparelli (Rome, 1910). I diplomi italiani di Rodolfo II, in I diplomi di Ludovico III e di Rodolfo II, ed. L. Schiaparelli (Rome, 1910). I diplomi di Ugo e Lotario, in I diplomi di Ugo e di Lotario e di Berengario II e di Adalberto, ed. L. Schiaparelli (Rome, 1924). Documenti degli archivi di Pavia relativi alla storia di Voghera, ed. I.C.  Bollea (Pinerolo, 1909). Documenti di Scarnafigi, ed. G. Colombo (Pinerolo, 1902). Documenti inediti e sparsi sulla storia di Torino, ed. F. Cognasso (Pinerolo, 1914). Documenti per la storia dei conti Guidi in Toscana, ed. N. Rauty (Florence, 2003). Documenti per la storia della città di Arezzo nel Medio Evo, I, ed. U.  Pasqui (Florence, 1899). Documenti per la storia ecclesiastica e civile di Rome, ed. E. von Ottenthal, in Studi e documenti di storia e diritto, VII (1886), pp. 101–22, 195–212, 317–36, and continuing. The Ecclesiastical History of Orderic Vitalis, VI, ed. M. Chibnall (Oxford, 1968). Ekkeardus, Chronicon, ed. G. Waitz, in MGH, Scriptores, VI (Hannover, 1844), pp. 33–265. Fantuzzi, M., Monumenti ravennati, IV (Venezia, 1801). Gasparolo, F., Memorie storiche di Sezzè Alessandrino, II, Documenti (Alessandria, 1912). Gesta triumphalia per Pisanos facta, ed. G. Scalia (Florence, 2010). Goffredo Malaterra, De rebus gestis Rogerii Calabriae et Siciliae comitis et Roberti Guiscardi ducis fratris eius, ed. E. Pontieri (Bologna, 1927–8). Guglielmo of the Chiusa, Vita Benedicti abbati Clusensis, ed. Bethmann, in MGH, Scriptores, XII (Hannover, 1856). Landolfo Iuniore, Historia Mediolanensis ab a. 1095 usque ad a. 1137, ed. C. Castiglioni, RIS2, IV.2 (Bologna, 1934). Landolfo Seniore, Mediolanensis Historiae libri VI, ed. A.  Cutolo, RIS2, IV.2 (Bologna, 1942). Lehmann, K., Consuetudines Feudorum (Libri Feudorum, Ius feudale Langobardorum) I, Compilatio Antiqua, (Göttingen, 1892). Lettere originali del medioevo latino (VII–XI sec.), I, Italia, ed. A. Petrucci et al. (Pisa, 2004). Libellus de miseriis ecclesie pinnensis, ed. A. Hofmeister, MGH, Scriptores, XXX.2 (Leipzig, 1934), pp. 1461–4. Le Liber Censuum de l’église romaine, I, eds. P. Fabre, and L. Duchesne (Paris, 1889). Liber iurium dell’episcopato e della città di Fermo (977–1266), ed. D. Pacini, G. Avarucci, U. Paoli, (Ancona, 1996). Liber Potheris comunis civitatis Brixiae, ed. F.  Bettoni Cazzago, and L.F.  Fè d’Ostiani, Monumenta Historiae Patriae, XIX (Turin, 1899). Liber privilegiorum ecclesiae ianuensis, ed. D. Puncuh (Genova, 1962). I Libri iurium della Repubblica di Genova, I.1, ed. A. Rovere (Genova, 1992). I Libri iurium della Repubblica di Genova, II.1, eds. M. Lorenzini and F. Mambrini (Genova, 2007). Il libro rosso del comune di Fabriano, ed. A.  Bartoli Langeli, E.  Irace, A.  Maiarelli, II (Fabriano, 1998). Il libro verde della chiesa di Asti, ed. G. Assandria (Pinerolo, 1904). Lupus, M., Codex Diplomaticus Bergomatis, II (Bergamo, 1799). Manaresi, G., I placiti del regnum Italiae, III (Rome, 1960). Manuel di San Giovanni, G., Memorie storiche di Dronero e della Val Maira, III, Cartario (Turin, 1868). Muratori, LA., Antiquitates Italicae Medii Aevi, III (Milan, 1740).

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 08/02/20, SPi

Abbreviation for Primary Sources and Journals   269 Ottonis et Rahewini Gesta Friderici I imperatoris, eds. G. Waitz, and D. de Simson, MGH Scriptores rerum Germanicarum in usum scholarum, XLVI (Hannover-Leipzig, 1912). Papsturkunden 896–1046, ed. H. Zimmermann (Wien, 1985). Le pergamene degli archivi di Bergamo (aa. 1059–1100), eds. M.  Cortesi, and A.  Pratesi (Bergamo, 2000). Le pergamene del secolo XII della Chiesa Maggiore di Milano (Capitolo Maggiore—Capitolo Minore—Decumani) conservate presso l’Archivio di Stato di Milano, ed. M. F. Baroni (Pavia, 2005), in Codice diplomatico della Lombardia medievale, accessed 10 March 2019. Le pergamene della basilica di S. Vittore di Varese (899–1202), ed. L. Zagni (Pavia, 2001), in  Codice diplomatico della Lombardia medievale, accessed 10 March 2019. Pergamene medievali savonesi (998–1313), vol. 1, ed. A. Roccatagliata, (Savona, 1982). Pier Damiani, Die Briefe, 4 vols., MGH, Epistolae, II: Die Briefe der deutschen Kaiserzeit, I–IV, ed. K. Reindel (München, 1983–93). Le più antiche carte dell’abbazia di S.  Maria di Val di Ponte, ed. V. De Donato, I (Rome, 1962). Le più antiche carte dell’archivio capitolare di Asti, ed. F. Gabotto (Pinerolo, 1904). I più antichi documenti del monastero di S.  Maria di Rosano (secoli XI–XIII), ed. C. Strà (Rome, 1982). Regesta Chartarum Pistoriensium. Vescovado (secolo XI e XII), ed. N. Rauty (Pistoia, 1974). Il regesto del codice Pelavicino, ed. M.L. Gentile (Genova, 1912). Regesto della Chiesa cattedrale di Modena, I, ed. E.P. Vicini (Rome, 1931). Il Regesto della chiesa di Tivoli, ed. L. Bruzzi (Rome, 1880). Il Regesto di Farfa, 5 vols., eds. I. Giorgi, and U. Balzani (Rome, 1876–92). Regesto Mantovano. Le carte degli Archivi Gonzaga e di Stato in Mantova e dei monasteri mantovani soppressi, ed. P. Torelli (Rome, 1914). Il Regesto Sublacense del secolo XI, eds. L. Allodi, and G. Levi (Rome, 1885). Register Gregors VII., ed. E. Caspar, MGH in usum Scholarum, II (Berlin, 1920). Die Register Innocenz’ III., I.1, eds. O. Hageneder, and A. Haidacher (Graz-Köln, 1964). Registri della Catena del Comune di Savona, I, eds. D.  Puncuh, and A.  Rovere (Rome, 1986). Il registro della curia arcivescovile di Genova, ed. T.  Belgrano, Atti della società Ligure di Storia Patria, II (1862–71). Il Registrum Magnum del comune di Piacenza, I, eds. E. Falconi, and R. Peveri (Milan, 1984). Il “Rigestum comunis Albe”, ed. E. Milano (Pinerolo, 1903). Tabarrini, M. Regesta Firmana, in G. De Miniciis, Cronache della città di Fermo (Florence, 1870). S. Tommaso di Reggio, ed. A. Castagnetti, in Inventari altomedievali di terre, coloni e redditi, ed. A. Castagnetti et al. (Rome, 1979), pp. 193–8. Scheffer Boichorst, P., ‘Veroneser Zeugenverhör von 1181. Ein Beitrag zu den Regesten Kaiser Friedrichs  I.  und zur Geschichte der Reichsburg Garda’, Neues Archiv des Gesellschaft für ältere deutsche Geschichtskunde, XIX (1893), pp. 575–602. Statuta et privilegia civitatis Secusiae, ed. L. Cibrario, Historia Patriae Monumenta, Leges Municipales, IV (Turin, 1838). Stumpf, K.F., Die Kaiserurkunden des X., XI. und XII. Jahrhunderts (Innsbruck, 1865–83). Tiraboschi, G., Storia dell’augusta badia di San Silvestro dì Nonantola, aggiuntovi il Codice Diplomatico della medesima illustrato con note, 2 vols. (Modena, 1784–9). Die Urkunden und Briefe der Markgrafin Mathilde von Tuszien, ed. E. Goez and W. Goez, in MGH, Laienfürsten-und Dynastenurkunden der Kaiserzeit, II (Hannover, 1998).

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 08/02/20, SPi

270  Abbreviation for Primary Sources and Journals Vecchio, D., ‘I testimoniali del processo di Leno (1194–1195). Considerazioni archivistiche’, Brixia sacra, XI (2006), pp. 343–92. Verci, G. Storia della Marca Trivigiana e Veronese, I (Venezia, 1786). Voltaggio, R., ‘Le più antiche carte della chiesa e ospedale di S.  Giacomo de Redere di Amelia’, in Scrineum—Rivista, V (2008), pp. 89–249. Wieruszowski, H., ‘A Twelfth-Century ‘Ars Dictaminis’ in the Barberini Collection of the Vatican Library’, Traditio, XVIII (1962), pp. 382–93.

Secondary Literature Abbatepaolo, M., I dittici consolari tardoantichi (Bari, 2009). Albenga, G., Il Marchesato d’Incisa dalle origini al 1514 (Turin, 1970). Albertoni, G., Provero, L., Il feudalesimo in Italia (Rome, 2003). Albertoni, G., ‘Law and the peasant: rural society and justice in Carolingian Italy’, Early Medieval Europe, XVIII (2010), pp. 417–45. Albertoni, G., Vassalli, feudi, feudalesimo (Rome, 2015). Albesano, D., ‘La costruzione politica del territorio comunale di Alba’, BSBS, LXIX (1971), pp. 87–174. Albini, G., ‘Crema dall’XI al XIII secolo: il processo di formazione del territorio’, in Crema 1185. Una contrastata autonomia politica e territoriale (Crema, 1988), pp. 37–54. Algazi, G., ‘ “Sich selbst Vergessen” in späten Mittelalter: Denkenfiguren und Soziale Konfigurationen’, in O.G. Oexle (ed.), Memoria als Kultur (Göttingen, 1995), pp. 387–427. Algazi, G., Herrengewalt und Gewalt der Herren im späten Mittelalter: Herrschaft, Gegenseitigkeit und Sprachgebrauch (Frankfurt, 1996). Algazi, G., ‘Lords Ask, Peasants Answer: Making Traditions in Late-medieval Village Assemblies’, in G. Sider, G. Smith (eds.), Between History and Histories. The Making of Silences and Commemorations (Toronto-Buffalo-London, 1997), pp. 199–229. Algazi, G., ‘Pruning peasants: private war and maintaining the lords’ peace in late medieval Germany’, in E. Cohen, M. De Jong (eds.), Medieval transformations. Texts, Power, and Gifts in Context (Leiden, 2001), pp. 245–74. Althoff, G., Spielregeln der Politik im Mittelalter: Kommunikation in Frieden und Fehde (Darmstadt, 1997). Althoff, G., Heinrich IV. (Darmstadt, 2006). Ambrosini, A., ‘S. Ambrogio alla fine del XII secolo’, in eadem, Milano, papato e impero in età medievale. Raccolta di studi (Milan, 2003), pp. 85–120. Amt, E., The Accession on Henry II: Royal Government Restored 1149–1159 (Rochester, NY, 1993). L’an Mil. Rythmes et acteurs d’une croissance, monographic number of Médiévales, XXI (1991). Andenna, G., ‘Formazione, strutture e processi di riconoscimento giuridico delle signorie rurali tra Lombardia e Piemonte orientale (secoli XI–XIII)’, in G. Dilcher, C. Violante, (eds.), Strutture e trasformazioni della signoria rurale nei secoli X–XIII (Bologna, 1996), pp. 123–67. Andenna, G., ‘I conti di Biandrate e le città della Lombardia occidentale (secoli XI e XII)’, in Formazione e struttura dei ceti dominanti nel Medioevo: marchesi, conti, visconti (secoli IX–XII) (Rome, 1996), pp. 57–84. Andenna, G., ‘I conti di Biandrate e le loro clientele vassallatiche alla prima crociata’, in  idem, and R.  Salvarani (eds.), Deus non voluit. I lombardi alla prima crociata (1100–1101). Dal mito alla ricostruzione della realtà (Milan, 2003), pp. 233–62. Anderson, P., Passages from Antiquity to Feudalism (London, 1974).

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 08/02/20, SPi

Abbreviation for Primary Sources and Journals   271 Ansani, M., ‘Appunti sui brevia di XI e XII secolo’, Scrineum Rivista, IV (2006–7), pp. 107–52. Ascheri, M., ‘I conti di Ventimiglia e le origini del Comune di Ventimiglia’, Intemelion, IX–X (2003–4), pp. 5–24. Ascheri, M., ‘Statuti e consuetudini: tra storia e storiografia’, in R. Dondarini et al., Signori, regimi signorili e statuti nel tardo Medioevo (Bologna, 2003), pp. 21–31. Assman, J., Das Kulturelle Gedächtnis: Schrift, Erinnerung und Politische Identität in frühen Hochkulturen (Munich, 1992). Aurell, M., Les noces du comte: mariage et pouvoir en Catalogne (785–1213) (Paris, 1995). Balda, E., ‘Una corte rurale nel territorio di Asti nel medioevo: Quarto d’Asti e l’amministrazione del capitolo canonicale’, BSBS, LXX (1972), pp. 5–122. Balzaretti, R., ‘The monastery of Sant’Ambrogio and dispute settlement in early medieval Milan’, Early Medieval Europe, III (1994), pp. 1–18. Banfo, G., Compresenze e sovrapposizioni di poteri territoriali di qualità diversa tra X e XIII: il caso del basso Monferrato, Tesi di dottorato di ricerca in Storia medievale, Università degli Studi di Torino, 2002. Banfo, G., ‘Da Aleramo a Guglielmo “il Vecchio”: idee e realtà nella costruzione degli spazi politici’, in B.A., Raviola (ed.), Cartografia del Monferrato. Geografia, spazi e confini di un antico Stato italiano tra Medioevo e Ottocento (Milan, 2007), pp. 47–74. Barbero, A., ‘Vassalli vescovili e aristocrazia consolare a Vercelli nel XII secolo’, in Vercelli nel secolo XII. Atti del quarto Congresso storico vercellese (Vercelli, 2005), pp. 217–309. Barthélemy, D., L’ordre seigneurial, XIe–XIIe siècles (Paris, 1990). Barthélemy, D., The Serf, the Knight, and the Historian, Eng. Trans. (Ithaca, NY, 2009). Barthélemy, D., From Charters to Notices: the Example of Saint-Aubin, Angers, in Barthélemy, The Serf, pp. 37–67. Bartocci, G., ‘Il monastero di Sant’Angelo e il comune di Ascoli (1250–1300)’, in Le Marche nei secoli XII e XIII, pp. 66–79. Barton, R.E., Lordship in the county of Maine, c. 890–1160 (Woodbridge, 2004). Becher, M., Eid und Herrschaft. Herrscherethos bei Karl dem Grossen (Sigmaringen, 1993). Belloni, L.M., L’isola Comacina e la sua antica pieve (Como, 1966). Benigni, T., San Ginesio illustrata (Fermo, 1793). Beolchini, V., Tusculum II. Tuscolo, una roccaforte dinastica a controllo della valle Latina: fonti storiche e dati archeologici (Rome, 2006). Beolchini, V., P.  Delogu, P., La nobiltà romana altomedievale in città e fuori: il caso di Tusculum, in S. Carocci (ed.), La nobiltà romana nel medioevo (Rome, 2006), pp. 137–69. Berkhofer III, R.F., ‘Abbatial authority over lay agents’, in idem et al. (eds.), The Experience of Power in Medieval Europe, 950–1350 (Aldershot, 2005), pp. 43–58. Bernacchia, R., Incastellamento e distretti rurali nella marca anconitana (secoli X–XII) (Spoleto, 2002). Bianchi, G. ‘Archeologia della signoria di castello (X–XIII secolo)’, Archeologia medievale, special number (2014), pp. 145–66. Bianchi, G., ‘Costruire castelli tra X e XII secolo’, in L’incastellamento: quarant’anni dopo Les structures du Latium médiévale di Pierre Toubert, in press. Bianchi, G., and Collavini, S.M., ‘Risorse e competizione per le risorse nella Toscana dell’XI secolo’, in Lorè et al., Acquérir, prélever, controller, pp. 171–88. Biccherai, M., Malaspina, Alberto, in Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, LXVII (2006), http://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/alberto-malaspina_(Dizionario-Biografico)/ accessed 29 March 2019. Biscaro, G., ‘La polizia campestre negli statuti del comune di Treviso’, Rivista italiana per le scienze giuridiche, XXXIII (1902), pp. 3–106.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 08/02/20, SPi

272  Abbreviation for Primary Sources and Journals Bisson, T.N., Tormented Voices. Power, Crisis, and Humanity in Rural Catatonia, 1140–1200 (Cambridge, MA, 1998). Bisson, T.N., The Crisis of Twelfth Century. Power, Lordship and the Origin of European Government (Princeton, NJ, 2009). Bizzocchi, R., In famiglia. Storie di interessi e affetti nell’Italia moderna (Rome-Bari, 2001). Bloch, M., Slavery and Serfdom in the Middle Ages (Berkeley, CA, 1975). Bocchi, F., Dalla grande crisi all’età comunale, in idem (ed.), Bologna, 3 vol., (Bologna, 1996), I, pp. 51–114. Bois, G., The Transformation of the Year One Thousand, Eng. Trans. (Manchester, 1991). Bonnassie, P., La Catalogne du milieu du Xe à la fin du XIe siècle, 2 vols. (Toulouse, 1975–6). Bonnassie, P. (ed.), Fief et féodalité dans l’Europe méridionale (Italie, France du Midi, Péninsule ibérique) du Xe au XIIIe siècle (Tolouse, 2002). Bordone, R., ‘Civitas nobilis et antiqua. Per una storia delle origini del movimento comunale in Piemonte’, in Piemonte medievale. Forme del potere e della società. Studi in onore di Giovanni Tabacco (Turin, 1985), pp. 29–63. Bordone, R., Città e territorio nell’alto medioevo. La società astigiana dal dominio dei Franchi all’affermazione comunale (Turin, 1980). Bordone, R., ‘Le origini del comune di Genova’, in Comuni e memoria storica. Alle origini del comune di Genova (Genova, 2002), pp. 237–59. Bordone, R., ‘Il caso di Alessandria in area piemontese’, in M.C.  De Matteis and B.  Pio (eds.), Sperimentazioni di governo nell’Italia centro-settentrionale nel processo dal primo comune alla signoria, ed. Bologna 2011, pp. 35–50. Bortolami, S., Territorio e società in un comune rurale veneto (sec. XI–XIII). Pernumia e i suoi statuti (Venezia, 1978). Bortolami, S., ‘Monselice “oppidum opulentissimum”: formazione e primi sviluppi della comunità semiurbana del Veneto medioevale’, in A.  Rigon (ed.), Monselice: storia, cultura e arte di un centro “minore” del Veneto (Monselice, 1994), pp. 101–60. Bougard, F., G.  Bührer-Thierry, R.  Le Jan, R., ‘Les élites du haut Moyen Âge. Identités, stratégies, mobilité’, Annales. Histoire, Sciences Sociales, LXVIII (2013), pp. 1079–112. Bournazel, E., Poly, J.P. (eds.), Les féodalités (Paris, 1998). Brambilla, M., Brogiolo, G.P., ‘Case altomedievali dell’Isola Comacina’, Archeologia Medievale, XXI (1994), pp. 463–7. Brancoli Busdraghi, P., ‘Patti di assistenza giudiziaria e militare in Toscana fra XI e XII secolo’, in Nobiltà e ceti dirigenti in Toscana tra XI e XIII secolo: strutture e concetti (Florence, 1982), pp. 29–55. Brancoli Busdraghi, P., ‘Masnada e boni homines come strumento di dominio delle signorie rurali in Toscana’, in Strutture e trasformazioni, pp. 287–342. Brancoli Busdraghi, P., Il feudo lombardo come diritto reale (Spoleto, 1998). Brancoli Busdraghi, P., ‘Genesi e aspetti istituzionali della “domus” in Toscana fra XI e XIII secolo’, in La signoria rurale, II, pp. 1–62. Brancoli Busdraghi, P., ‘Aspetti giuridici della faida in Italia nell’età precomunale’, in D. Barthélemy et al. (eds.), La vengeace, 400–1200 (Rome, 2006), pp. 159–73. Bresc, H., Gli Aleramici in Sicilia, in R.  Bordone (ed.), Bianca Lancia d’Agliano fra il Piemonte e il Regno di Sicilia (Alessandria, 1995), pp. 147–63. Brugnoli, A. ‘Il castrum e il territorio di San Giorgio nel medioevo: vicende istituzionali e tracce materiali’, Annuario storico della Valpolicella, (1999–2000), pp. 25–48. Brugnoli, A., ‘Pares illorum famuli. Una tipologia documentaria veronese per negozi tra persone di condizione servile’, in A. Brugnoli and G.M. Varanini (eds.), Magna Verona vale. Studi in onore di Pierpaolo Brugnoli (Verona, 2008), pp. 27–48.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 08/02/20, SPi

Abbreviation for Primary Sources and Journals   273 Brugnoli, P., ‘Sala, Val Salaria, Montecchio e Fumane’, Studi storici veronesi, XVIII–XIX (1968–1969), pp. 1–18. Brunhofer, U., Arduin von Ivrea und seine Anhänger. Untersuchungen zum letzen italienischen Königtum des Mittelalters (Ausburg, 1999). Burla, U., Malaspina di Lunigiana. Dalle origini sino alla fine dei feudi imperiali (La Spezia, 2001). Busch, J., ‘Die Diplome der Salier als Spiegel ihrer Italienpolitik’, in T.  Struve (ed.), Die Salier, das Reich und der Niederrhein (Köln-Weimar-Wien, 2008), pp. 283–302. Caciorgna, M.T., Una città di frontiera. Terracina nei secoli XI–XIV (Rome, 2008). Cameli, M., ‘Note di diplomatica vescovile duecentesca. Frammenti di registri vescovili nell’archivio capitolare di Ascoli Piceno’, Rassegna degli archivi di stato, new series, I–II (2005), pp. 171–201. Cammarosano, P., La famiglia dei Berardenghi. Contributo alla storia della società senese nei secoli XI–XIII (Spoleto, 1974). Cammarosano, P., Le campagne nell’età comunale (metà sec. XI - metà sec. XIV) (Turin, 1974). Cammarosano, P., Abbadia a Isola. Un monastero toscano nell’età romanica. Con una edizione dei documenti 953–1215 (Castelfiorentino, 1993). Cammarosano, P., ‘Cronologia della signoria rurale e cronologia delle istituzioni comunali cittadine in Italia: una nota’, in A. Spicciani and C. Violante (eds.) La signoria rurale nel medioevo italiano, 2 vols. (Pisa, 1997), I, pp. 11–18. Cammarosano, P. (ed.), Il Patriarcato di Aquileia: uno stato nell’Europa medievale (Udine, 1999). Cammarosano, P., ‘Patriarcato, Impero e Sede Apostolica’, in idem (ed.), Il Patriarcato di Aquileia, pp. 25–64. Cammarosano, P., Storia dell’Italia medievale dal VI all’XI secolo (Rome-Bari, 2001). Cammarosano, P., ‘Carte di querela nell’Italia dei secoli X–XIII’, Frühmittelalterische Studien, XXXVI (2002), pp. 397–402. Cammarosano, P., ‘Comunità rurali e signori’, Rivista storica del Lazio, XXI (2005–2006), pp. 7–10. Cammarosano, P., ‘Strutture di insediamento e società nel Friuli in età patriarchina’, in idem (ed.), Studi di storia medievale. Economia, territorio, società, Trieste 2009, pp. 111–34. Canaccini, F. (ed.), La lunga storia di una stirpe comitale. I conti Guidi tra Romagna e Toscana (Florence, 2009). Cantarella, G.M., Pasquale II e il suo tempo (Naples, 1997). Cantarella, G.M., ‘Imola tra il papato e l’impero’, in M. Montanari (ed.), La storia di Imola, (Imola, 2000), pp. 143–60. Cantarella, G.M., ‘Dalle chiese alla monarchia papale’, in idem et al., Chiesa, Chiese e movimenti religiosi (Rome-Bari, 2001), pp. 5–79. Cantarella, G.M., Il sole e la luna: la rivoluzione di Gregorio VII papa, 1073–1085 (Rome-Bari, 2005). Carocci, S., Baroni di Roma. Dominazioni signorili e lignaggi aristocratici nel Duecento e nel primo Trecento (Rome, 1993). Carocci, S., ‘Genealogie nobiliari e storia demografica. Aspetti e problemi (Italia centrosettentrionale, XI–XIII secolo)’, in R.  Comba and I.  Naso (eds.), Demografia e società nell’Italia medievale (Cuneo, 1994), pp. 87–105. Carocci, S., ‘Signoria rurale e mutazione feudale’, Storica, VIII (1997), pp. 49–91. Carocci, S., ‘La signoria rurale nel Lazio (secoli XII e XIII)’, in La signoria rurale nel medioevo, I, pp. 167–98.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 08/02/20, SPi

274  Abbreviation for Primary Sources and Journals Carocci, S., ‘Feudo, vassallaggi e potere papale nello Stato della Chiesa (metà XI sec.–inizio XIII sec.)’, in Fief et féodalité, pp. 43–73. Carocci, S., ‘Poteri signorili e mercato della terra (Italia ed Europa occidentale, secc. XI–XIV)’, in S.  Cavaciocchi (ed.), Il mercato della terra. Secc. XIII–XVIII (Florence, 2004), pp. 194–221. Carocci, S., ‘Le lexique du prélèvement seigneurial: note sur les sources italiennes’, in M. Bourin and P. Martinez Sopena (eds.), Pour une anthropologie du prélèvement seigneurial dans les campagnes médiévales, II, Les mots, les temps, les lieux (Paris, 2007), pp. 137–57. Carocci, S., ‘Archeologia e mondi rurali dopo il Mille: uno sguardo dalle fonti scritte’, Archeologia medievale, XXXVII (2010), pp. 259–66. Carocci, S., Lordships of Southern Italy. Rural Societies, Aristocratic Powers and Monarchy in the 12th and 13th Centuries, Eng. Trans. (Rome, 2018). Carocci, S. (ed.), La signoria rurale nel XIV­–XV secolo: per ripensare l’Italia tardomedievale, in press. Casagrande, G., ‘Il ritrovamento del testo completo del Polittico delle malefatte – anno c.a. 1040’, in G. Badini (ed.), Reggiolo medievale. Atti e memorie del convegno di studi matildici (Reggio Emilia, 1979), p. 101–32. Castagnetti, A., Le comunità rurali dalla soggezione signorile alla giurisdizione del comune cittadino (Verona, 1983). Castagnetti, A., Società e politica a Ferrara dall’età postcarolingia alla signoria estense (Bologna, 1985). Castagnetti, A., Mercanti, società e politica nella marca veronese-trevigiana (secoli XI–XIV) (Verona, 1990). Castgnetti,  A., ‘L’età precomunale e la prima età comunale (1024–1213)’, in idem and G.M.  Varanini (eds.), Il Veneto nel medioevo. II. Dai comuni cittadini al predominio scaligero nella Marca (Verona, 1991), pp. 1–162. Castagnetti, A., La Valpolicella dall’alto medioevo all’età comunale (Verona, 1984). Castagnetti, A., Arimanni in Romania fra conti e signori (Verona, 1988). Castagnetti, A., ‘Arimanni e signori dall’età post-carolingia alla prima età comunale’, in Dilcher and Violante (eds.), Strutture e trasformazioni, pp. 169–285. Castagnetti, A., Fra i vassalli: marchesi, conte, ‘capitanei’, cittadini e rurali (Verona, 1999). Castagnetti, A., Comitato di Garda, Impero, duchi guelfi, cittadini e comune di Verona da Lotario III ad Enrico VI (Verona, 2002). Castagnetti, A., ‘Guelfi ed Estensi nei secoli XI e XII. Contributo allo studio dei rapporti fra nobiltà teutonica ed italica’, in Formazione e strutture dei ceti dominanti nel Medioevo: marchesi conti e visconti nel Regno Italico (secc. IX–XII), 3 vols. (Rome, 2003), III, pp. 41–102. Castagnetti, A., Il processo per Ostiglia. L’arbitrato di Oberto dell’Orto tra Ferrara e Verona (1151) (Verona, 2016). Castiglioni, B., L’altro Feudalesimo: Vassallaggio, servizio e selezione sociale in area veneta nei secoli XI–XII (Venezia, 2010). Ceccarelli, M.L., ‘La fondazione di Semifonte nel contesto della politica di affermazione signorile dei conti Alberti’, in P. Pirillo (ed.), Semifonte in Val d’Elsa e i centri di nuova fondazione dell’Italia medievale (Florence, 2004), pp. 213–33. Ceccarelli Lemut, M.L., ‘Terre pubbliche e giurisdizione signorile nel comitatus di Pisa  (secoli XI–XIII)’, in eadem, Medioevo Pisano. Chiesa, famiglie, territorio (Pisa, 2005), pp. 453–503. Ceci, G., Todi nel medioevo (Todi, 1897). Cengarle, F., ‘La comunità di Pecetto contro i Mandelli feudatari (1444): linguaggi politici a confronto’, in eadem et al. (eds.), Poteri signorili e feudali nelle campagne dell’Italia

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 08/02/20, SPi

Abbreviation for Primary Sources and Journals   275 settentrionale fra Tre e Quattrocento: fondamenti di legittimità e forme di esercizio (Florence, 2005), pp. 105–26. Cengarle, F., Immagine di potere e prassi di governo. La politica feudale di filippo Maria Visconti (Rome, 2006). Cerrato, M., ‘Concorrenze religiose e signorili al confine fra i due antichi comitati di Torino e Auriate’, BSBS, CIX (2011), pp. 5–38. I ceti dirigenti in Toscana in età precomunale (Pisa, 1981). Ciccopiedi, C., Governare le diocesi. Assestamenti riformatori in Italia settentrionale fra linee guida conciliari e pratiche vescovili (secoli XI e XII) (Spoleto, 2016). Collavini, S.M., ‘Grosseto nel quadro della contea aldobrandesca (sec. XIII)’, in V. Burattini (ed.), La cattedrale di Grosseto e il suo popolo (1295/1995) (Grosseto, 1996), pp. 127–51. Collavini, S.M., Honorabilis domus et spetiosissimus comitatus. Gli Aldobrandeschi da conti a principi territoriali (Pisa, 1998). Collavini, S.M., ‘Il prelievo signorile nella Toscana meridionale del XIII secolo: potenzialità delle fonti e primi risultati’, in Pour une anthropologie, pp. 535–50. Collavini, S.M., ‘La condizione dei rustici/villani nei secoli XI–XII. Alcune considerazioni a partire dalle fonti toscane’, in La signoria rurale, II, pp. 331–84. Collavini, S.M., ‘Le basi economiche e materiali della signoria dei Guidi tra prelievo signorile e obblighi militari (1075 c. – 1230 c.)’, in Società e storia, CXV (2007), pp. 1–32. Collavini, S.M., ‘Comites palatini / paladini: ipotesi sulle forme di legittimazione del principato dei Guidi’, BISIME, CX (2008), pp. 57–101. Collavini, S.M., ‘I poteri signorili nell’area di San Michele di Passignano (secc. XI–XII)’, in Moretti and Pirillo (eds.), Passignano in Val di Pesa, pp. 183–220. Collavini, S.M., ‘Formes de coseigneurie dans l'espace toscan. Réflexions préliminaires à partir de quelques exemples en Maremme (fin XIIe-XIIIe siècle)’, MEFRM, CXXII.1 (2010), pp. 35–54. Collavini, S.M., ‘I signori rurali in Italia centrale (secoli  xii-metà  xiv): profilo sociale e forme di interazione’, MEFRM, CXXIII.2 (2011), pp. 301–18. Collavini, S.M., ‘Signoria ed élites rurali (Toscana, 1080-1225  c.)’, MEFRM, CXXIV.2 (2012), pp. 479–93. Collavini, S.M., Luoghi e contenitori di stoccaggio dei cereali in Toscana (VIII–XII secolo): le evidenze delle fonti scritte, in A. Vigil-Escalera Guirado et al. (eds.), Horrea, barns and silos. Storage and incomes in Early Medieval Europe (Pamplona, 2013), pp. 57–76. Collavini, S.M., ‘Il principato vescovile di Volterra nel XII secolo (in base ad alcune testimonianze dell’ottobre 1215)’, in Studi storici e archeologici in onore di Maria Luisa Ceccarelli Lemut (Pisa, 2014), pp. 91–106. Collavini, S.M., Varanini, G.M., ‘Pallavicino, Oberto I’, Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, LXXX (2014), , accessed 29 March 2019. Collavini, S.M., ‘1183. I comuni italiani nel secolo XII’, in G.  Albertoni, and T.  Lazzari (eds.), Introduzione alla storia medievale (Bologna, 2015), pp. 273–81. Collavini, S.M., ‘I beni fiscali in Tuscia tra X e XI secolo: forme di circolazione e ricadute sulle forme documentarie. Nuovi dati e nuove riflessioni a partire da tre documenti di S. Michele di Marturi’, in press. Collavini, S.M., and Tomei, P., ‘Beni fiscali e “scritturazione”. Nuove proposte sui contesti di rilascio e di falsificazione di D. O III. 269 per il monastero di S. Ponziano di Lucca’, in  Originale—Fälschungen—Kopien. Kaiser- und Königsurkunden für Empfänger in Deutschland und Italien (9.–11. Jahrhundert) und ihre Nachwirkungen im Hoch- und Spätmittelalter (bis ca. 1500), eds. N. D’Acunto, W. Huschner, and S. Roebert (Leipzig, 2017), pp. 205–15.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 08/02/20, SPi

276  Abbreviation for Primary Sources and Journals Collodo, S., ‘I vicini e i comuni del contado (secoli XII–XIII)’, in Storia di Treviso, 4 vol. (Venezia, 1991), II, pp. 271–97. Collodo, S., ‘I vicini e i comuni di contado nel Trevigiano (secoli XII e XIII)’, in eadem, Società e istituzioni in area veneta. Itinerari di ricerca (secoli XII–XV) (Fiesole, 1999), pp. 141–60. Comba, R., Metamorfosi di un paesaggio rurale: uomini e luoghi del Piemonte sud-occidentale dal X al XVI secolo (Turin, 1983). Conti, E., La formazione della struttura agraria moderna nel contado fiorentino. I. Le campagne nell’età precomunale (Rome, 1965). Cortese, M.E., Signori, castelli, città. L’aristocrazia del territorio fiorentino tra X e XII secolo, Firenze 2007. Cortese, M.E., ‘Signorie rurali e centri di nuova fondazione in Toscana (1100–1200 ca.)’, Ricerche Storiche, XLI (2011), pp. 393–408. Cortese, M.E., ‘Poteri locali e processi di ricomposizione politico-territoriale in Toscana (1100-1200 ca)’, in Poteri centrali e autonomie, pp. 59–82. Cortese, M.E., Aristocrazia signorile e città (XI–XII sec.), in M.T.  Caciorgna et al. (eds.),  I  comuni di Jean-Claude Maire Vigueur. Percorsi storiografici (Rome, 2014), pp. 69–94. Cortese, M.E., ‘Incastellamento e città’, in L’incastellamento. Creighton, O., Early European Castles. Aristocracy and Authority, AD 800–1200 (London, 2012). Crouch, D., ‘A Norman conventio and Bonds of Lordship in Middle Ages’, in G. Garnett, J. Huston (eds.), Law and Government in Medieval England and Normandy (Cambridge, 1994), pp. 299–324. Crouch, D., The Reign of King Stephen, 1135–1154 (London, 2000). D’Acunto, N., I laici nella chiesa e nella società secondo Pier Damiani. Ceti dominanti e riforma ecclesiastica nel secolo XI (Rome, 1999). D’Acunto, N., ‘Chiesa romana e chiese della Lombardia: prove ed esperimenti di centralizzazione nei secoli XI e XII’, in Römisches Zentrum und kirchliche Peripherie. Das universale Papsttum als Bezugspunkt der Kirchen von den Reformpäpsten bis zu Innozenz III. (Berlin, 2008), pp. 207–33. D’Acunto, N., L’età dell’obbedienza (Naples, 2009). Davidsohn, R., Forschungen zur alteren Geschichte von Florenz (Berlin, 1896). Davidsohn, Geschichte von Florentz, I, (Berlin 1896). Daviso, M.C., ‘La carta di Tenda’, BSBS, XLVII (1949), pp. 131–41. De Angelis, G., ‘Esordi e caratteri della presenza vescovile in area montana (secoli X–XII). Le modalità di costituzione del patrimonio fra disegni egemonici e concorrenze locali’, in R. Rao (ed.), Bergamo e la montagna nel Medioevo Il territorio orobico fra città e poteri locali (Bergamo, 2010), pp. 33–50. di San Quintino, G., Osservazioni critiche sopra alcuni particolari delle storie del Piemonte e della Liguria nell’undecimo e dodicesimo secolo (Monaco, 1851). Debàx, H., La féodalité languedocienne (XIe–XIIe siècle). Serments, hommages et fiefs dans le Languedoc de Trencavel (Toulouse, 2003). Debàx, H., La seigneurie collective. Pairs, pariers, paratge, les coseigneurs du XIe au XIIe siècle (Rennes, 2012). Degrandi, A., Definizioni teoriche e prassi di governo nella politica territoriale del Comune di Vercelli (secolo XII), in Vercelli nel secolo XII (Vercelli, 2005), pp. 451–73. Della Misericordia, M., ‘ “Per non privarci de nostre raxone, li siamo stati desobidienti”. Patto, giustizia e resistenza nella cultura politica delle comunità alpine nello stato di Milano (XV secolo)’, in C.  Nuvola and A Würgler (eds.), Forme della comunicazione

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 08/02/20, SPi

Abbreviation for Primary Sources and Journals   277 politica in Europa nei secoli XV–XVIII. Suppliche, gravamina, lettere (Bologna, 2004), pp. 147–215. Della Misericordia, M., ‘Principat, communauté et individu au bas Moyen Âge. Cultures politiques dans l’État de Milan’, Médiévales, LVII (2009), pp. 93–111. Delogu, P., ‘La Giustizia nell'Italia meridionale longobarda’, in La Giustizia nell’alto Medioevo (secoli IX–XI) (Settimane del CISAM, 44), (Spoleto, 1997), pp. 257–308. Delumeau, J.P., Arezzo. Espace et sociétés, 715–1230. Reserches sur Arezzo et son contado du VIIIe au début du XIIIe siècle, 2 vols. (Rome, 1996). Devroey, J.P., Économie rurale et société dans l’Europe franque (Paris, 2003). Di Renzo Villata, G., ‘La formazione dei Libri feudorum (tra pratica di giudici e scienza di dottori)’, in Il feudalesimo nell’Alto Medioevo, pp. 651–721. Dilcher, G., and Violante, C. (eds.), Strutture e trasformazioni della signoria rurale nei secoli X-XIII (Bologna, 1996). Duby, G., La Société aux XIe et XIIe siècles dans la région mâconnaise (Paris, 1953). Duby, G., The Early Growth of the European Economy: Warriors and Peasants from the Seventh to the Twelfth Century, Eng. Trans. (Ithaca, NY, 1974). Duby, G., The Three Orders: Feudal Society Imagined, Eng. Trans. (Chicago, IL, 1981). Elias, N., The Court Society, Eng. Trans. (Oxford, 1983). Fabbri, C., Statuti e riforme del comune di Terranuova (1487–1675). Una comunità del contado fiorentino attraverso le sue istituzioni (Florence, 1989). Faini, E., ‘Le fonti diplomatistiche per la storia fiorentina dei secoli XI e XII: una visione d’insieme’, Archivio storico italiano, CLXVII (2009), pp. 3–55. Faini, E., Firenze nell’età romanica (Florence, 2010). Farinelli, R., I castelli nella Toscana delle “città deboli”. Dinamiche del popolamento e del potere rurale nella Toscana meridionale (secoli VII–XIV) (Florence, 2007). Fasola, L., ’Una famiglia di sostenitori milanesi di Federico I (per la storia dei rapporti dell’imperatore con le forze sociali e politiche della Lombardia)’, QFIAB, LII (1972), pp. 116–218. Fasoli, G., ‘Il dominio territoriale degli arcivescovi di Ravenna fra l’VIII e l’XI secolo’, in C. G. Mor, H. Schmidinger (eds.), I poteri temporali dei vescovi in Italia e Germania nel medioevo (Bologna, 1979), pp. 87–140. Feller, L., Les Abruzzes mediévalés. Territoire, économie et société en Italie centrale du IXe au XIIe siècle, (Rome, 1998). Feller, L., ‘Elements de la problematique du fief en Italie’, in O.G. Oexle (ed.), Die Gegenwart des Feudalismus, (Göttingen, 2002), pp. 153–74. Feller, L., ‘Les institutions féodales en Italie centrale (IXe–XIe siècle). Développements internes et apports extérieurs’, in Bonnassie (ed.), Fief et féodalité, pp. 25–41. Il feudalesimo nell’alto medioevo (Settimane del CISAM, 47) (Spoleto, 2000). Filangieri, L., Famiglie e gruppi dirigenti a Genova (secoli XII-metà XIII), Tesi di Dottorato, Università di Firenze, 2010. Fiore, A., ‘L’Impero come signore. Strutture del potere imperiale in Italia nel XII secolo’, Storica, XXX (2004), pp. 31–60. Fiore, A., ‘Bonus et malus usus. Potere, consenso e coercizione nelle campagne signorili dell’Italia centro-settentrionale (secoli XI–XII)’, Quaderni storici, CXXXIV (2010), pp. 501–32. Fiore, A., ‘La dimensione locale del potere imperiale: asseti istituzionali e linguaggi politici nel regno d'Italia (1177–1197)’, Rivista storica italiana, CXXII (2010), pp. 1088–120. Fiore, A., ‘Norma della città e norma del territorio: una relazione complessa (1000–1200 c.ca)’, in M. Davide (ed.), Identità cittadine e aggregazioni sociali in Italia (secoli XI–XV) (Trieste, 2012), pp. 51–76.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 08/02/20, SPi

278  Abbreviation for Primary Sources and Journals Fiore, A., ‘Giurare la consuetudine. Pratiche sociali e memoria del potere nelle campagne dell’Italia centro-settentrionale (secc. XI–XIII)’, Reti Medievali Rivista, XIII (2012), pp. 47–80. Fiore, A., ‘Dal prestito al feudo. Strategie di affermazione signorile nel Piemonte meridionale del Trecento’, BSBS, CXIII (2015), pp. 189–225. Fiore, A., ‘Les châteaux et la compétition pour le contrôle des ressources économiques (900–1120 c.)’, in Loré et al. (eds.), Acquérir, prélever, contrôler, pp. 189–206. Fiore, A., ‘Refiguring Local Power and Legitimacy in the Kingdom of Italy, c. 900–c. 1150’, Past & Present, CCXLI.1 (2018), pp. 33–67. Fiore, A., ‘Strategie dinastiche, ambizioni personali, affetti familiari (Italia centrosettentrionale, 1050–1150)’, in press. Feliu i Montfort, G., ‘La pagesia catalana abans de la feudalització’, Anuario de Estudios Medievales, XXVI (1994), pp. 19–41. Fossier, R., La terre et les hommes en Picardie jusqu’à la fin du XIIIe siècle, 2 vols., (Paris, 1968). Fossier, R., Chartes de Coutume en Picardie (XIe—XIIIe siecles) (Paris, 1974). Francovich, R., and Valenti, M. (eds.), Poggio imperiale a Poggibonsi. Il territorio, lo scavo, il parco (Milan, 2007). Franke, T., ‘Studien zur Geschichte der Fuldaer Äbte im 11. und frühen 12. Jahrhundert’, Archiv für Diplomatik, Schriftgeschichte, Siegel- und Wappenkunde, XXXIII (1987), pp. 55–237. Freedman, P., The Origins of Peasant Servitude in Medieval Catatonia (Cambridge, 1991). Freedman, P., Images of the Medieval Peasant (Stanford, CA, 1999). Fresia, R., Comune Civitatis Albe. Affermazione, espansione territoriale e declino di una libera città medievale. XII–XIII secolo (Cuneo, 2002). Frisi, A.F., Memorie storiche di Monza e della sua corte (Milan, 1794). Galletti, A., ‘Evoluzione dei rapporti di dipendenza nel XIII secolo: il caso dell’affrancazione di Casalina’, Benedictina, XIX (1972), pp. 289–317. Gamberini, A., La città assediata. Poteri e identità politiche a Reggio in età viscontea (Rome, 2003). Gamberini, A., Lo stato visconteo. Linguaggi politici e dinamiche costituzionali (Milan, 2005). Gamberini, A., La legittimità contesa. Processi di costruzione statale e culture politiche nel basso medioevo (Lombardia, secoli XII–XV) (Rome, 2016). Gardoni, A., ‘Élites cittadine fra XI e XII secolo: il caso mantovano’, in Castagnetti A. et al. (eds.), Medioevo. Studi e documenti, 2 vols. (Verona, 2007), II, pp. 281–350. Garzella, G., Pisa com’era (Naples, 1990). Geary, P., ‘Land, language and memory in Europe, 700–1100’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 6th series, IX (1999), pp. 169–84. Gentile, M., ‘La vendetta di sangue come rituale. Qualche osservazione sulla Lombardia fra Quattro e Cinquecento’, in Salvestrini F. et al. (eds.), La morte e i suoi riti in Italia tra medioevo e prima età moderna (Florence, 2007), pp. 209–41. Gianoncelli, M., ‘Note storiche su Isola Comacina’, Periodico della Società storica comense, XLII (1968), pp. 37–48. La giustizia nell’alto medioevo (secoli IX–XI) (Settimane del CISAM, 44) (Spoleto, 1997). Goetz, E., Beatrix von Canossa und Tuszien. Eine Untersuchung zur Geschichte des 11. Jahrhunderts (Sigmaringen, 1995). Goetz, E., ‘Der Thronerbe als Rivale: König Konrad, Kaiser Heinrichs IV. älterer Sohn’, Historische Jahrbuch, CXVI (1996), pp. 1–49.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 08/02/20, SPi

Abbreviation for Primary Sources and Journals   279 Goetz, E., ‘Zwischen Reichszugehörigkeit und Eigenständigkeit: Heinrich V. und Italien. Ein Werkstattbericht’, in Heinrich V. in seiner Zeit, pp. 215–32. Golinelli, P., ‘L’Italia dopo la lotta per le investiture: la questione dell’eredità matildica’, Studi medievali, XLII (2001), pp. 509–28. Grendi, E., ‘La pratica dei confini: Mioglia contro Sassello, 1715–1745’, Quaderni storici, LXIII (1986), pp. 811–45. Grillo, P., ‘Una fonte per lo studio dei comuni rurali lombardi all’inizio del secolo XII: il poema De bello et excidio urbis Comensis’, in Mucciarelli R. et al. (eds.), La costruzione del dominio cittadino sulle campagne: Italia centro-settentrionale, secoli XII–XIV (Siena, 2009), pp. 59–76. Gross, T., Lothar III. und die mathildischer Güten (Frankfurt am Main, 1990). Grundman, J.P., The popolo at Perugia (Perugia, 1992). Guglielmotti, P., ‘Unità e divisione del territorio della Valsesia’, BSBS, 96 (1998), pp. 125–56. Güterbock, F., ‘Alla vigilia della Lega Lombarda. Il dispotismo dei vicari imperiali a Piacenza’, Archivio storico italiano, XCV.1 (1937), pp. 188–217; XCV.2 (1937), pp. 64–77. Hay, P., The Military Leadership of Matilda of Canossa, 1046–1115 (Manchester, 2010). Hessel, A., Storia della città di Bologna dal 1116 al 1280, It. Trans. (Bologna, 1975). Hubert, E., ‘L’incastellamento dans le Latium. Remarques à propos de fouilles récentes’, Annales. Histoire, Sciences Sociales, LV.3 (2000), pp. 583–99. Inguscio, A., Reassessing Civil Conflicts in Genoa, 1160–1220, PhD Thesis, Oxford University, 2012. Jular Pérez-Alfaro, C., and Estepa Dìaz, C. (eds.), Land, Power, and Society in Medieval Castile. A Study of Behetría Lordship (Turnhout, 2009). Kantorowicz, E.H., The King’s Two Bodies (Princeton, NJ, 1957). Keller, H., Signori e vassalli nell’Italia delle città (secoli IX–XII), It. Trans. with new Introduction (Torino, 1995). Keller, H., ‘Gli inizi del comune in Lombardia’, in Bordone  R. and Jarnut  J. (eds.), L’evoluzione delle città italiane nell’XI secolo (Bologna, 1998), pp. 45–70. Keller, H., and Dartmann, C., ‘Inszenierung von Ordnung und Konsens. Privileg und Statutenbuch in der symbolischen Kommunikation mittelalterlicher Rechtsgemeinschaften’, in G. Althoff (ed.), Zeichen—Rituale—Werte (Münster, 2004), pp. 201–23. Keller, H., ‘Die Herrscherurkunden. Botschaften des Privilegierungsaktes – Botschaften des Privilegientextes’, in Significare e comunicare nell’alto medioevo (Settimane del CISAM, 52) (Spoleto, 2005), pp. 231–83. Keller, H., Ast, S., ‘Ostensio cartae. Italienische Gerichtsurkunden des 10. Jahrhunderts zwischen Schriftlichkeit und Performanz’, Archiv fur Diplomatik, LIII (2007), pp. 99–122. Keller, H., ‘La decisione a maggioranza e il problema della tutela della minoranza nell’unione dei comuni periferici di Chiavenna e Piuro (1151–1155)’, in idem, Il laboratorio politico del comune medievale (Naples, 2014), pp. 263–309. Klaar, K.E., Die Herrschaft der Eppensteiner in Kärnten (Klagenfurt, 1966). Kosto, A.J., ‘The convenientia in the early middle ages’, Medieval Studies, LX (1998), pp. 1–54. Kosto, A.J., Making Agreements in Medieval Catalonia. Power, order, and the Written Word, 1000–1200 (Cambridge, 2001). Koziol, G., The Politics of Memory and Identity in Carolingian Royal Diplomas: The West Frankish Kingdom (840–987) (Turnhout, 2012). Larrea, J.J., La Navarre du IVe au XIIe siècle. Peuplement et société (Paris-Brussels, 1998). Laudadio, V., ‘Farfa e le autonomie locali nella Marca meridionale’, in Donadarini R. (ed.), Farfa. Abbazia imperiale (Negarine, 2006), pp. 357–92.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 08/02/20, SPi

280  Abbreviation for Primary Sources and Journals Gamberini, G., and Petralia, P. (eds.), Linguaggi politici nell’Italia del Rinascimento (Rome, 2007). Le Goff, J., ‘Les gestes symboliques dans la vie sociale. Les gestes de la vassalité’, in Simboli e simbologia nell’alto medioevo (Settimane del CISAM, 23) (Spoleto, 1976), pp. 678–779. Longo, U., ‘Gregorio da Catino’, Dizionario biografico degli Italiani, L (2002), http://www. treccani.it/enciclopedia/gregorio-da-catino_(Dizionario-Biografico)/, accessed 29 March 2019. Loré, V., ‘Sulle istituzioni nel Mezzogiorno longobardo. Proposta di un modello’, Storica, XXIX (2004), pp. 27–55. Lorè, V. et al. (eds.), Acquérir, prélever, contrôler: Les ressources en compétition (400–1100) (Turnhout, 2017). Lubich, G. (ed.), Heinrich  V.  in seiner Zeit. Herrschen in einem europäischen Reich des Hochmittelalters, (Köln-Weimar-Wien, 2013). Lucioni, A., ‘Presenze fruttuariensi nel Piemonte meridionale dei secoli XI–XIII. Ricerche per un inventario degli insediamenti’, in Comba R. and Merlo G.G. (eds.), All’ombra dei signori di Morozzo All’ombra dei signori di Morozzo. Esperienze monastiche riformate ai piedi delle marittime (XI–XV secolo) (Cuneo, 2003), pp. 57–86. Luzzatto, G., ‘Le sottomissioni dei feudatari e le classi sociali in alcuni comuni marchigiani’, in idem, Dai servi della gleba agli albori del capitalismo (Bari, 1966), pp. 353–93. Mainoni, P., ‘A proposito della “rivoluzione fiscale” nell’Italia settentrionale del XIII secolo’, Studi storici, XLIV (2003), pp. 5–42. Mainoni, P., ‘Sperimentazioni fiscali e amministrative nell’Italia del nord (secoli XII-inizio XIII)’, in Andenna  G. (ed.), Pensiero e sperimentazioni istituzionali nella Societas Christiana (1046–1250) (Milan, 2007), pp. 705–59. Maire-Viguer, J.C., Cavaliers et citoyens: Guerre, conflits et société dans l’Italie communale, XIIe-XIIIe siècles (Paris, 2003). Maire-Vigueur, J.C., ‘Centri di nuova fondazione e comuni di castello: riflessioni sulle strategie della piccola nobiltà signorile’, in La Marca di Ancona, pp. 71–92. Majnoni, F., La badia a Coltibuono. Storia di una proprietà (Florence, 1981). Mancassola, N., Uomini senza storia. La piccola proprietà rurale nel territorio di Piacenza dalla conquista carolingia alle invasioni ungariche (774–900) (Spoleto, 2013). La Marca di Ancona fra XII e XIII secolo: le dinamiche del potere (Ancona, 2004). Marro, R., ‘Valdieri, Andonno e la valle Gesso nell’inedita carta del 1262. I primi passi dello sviluppo comunale e l’emergere dello “jus proprium”: esiti di una ricerca storicogiuridica’, Bollettino della Società per gli Studi Storici, Archeologici ed Artistici nella Provincia di Cuneo, CVI (1992), pp. 5–28. Matilde di Canossa e il suo tempo (Atti del XXI congresso internazionale di studi sull’alto medioevo) (Spoleto, 2016). Mazel, F., ‘Pouvoir aristocratique et Église aux Xe-XIe siècles. Retour sur la Révolution féodale dans l’oeuvre de Georges Duby’, Médiévales, LIV (2008), pp. 137–52. Mazel, F., Féodalités (888–1180) (Paris, 2010). McKitterick, R., Charlemagne. The Foundation of a European Identity (Cambridge, 2008). Menant, F., ‘Les Giselbertines, comtes du comté de Bergame et comtes palatines’, in Formazione e strutture dei ceti dominanti nel medioevo: marchesi, conti e visconti nel Regno Italico, 3 vols. (Rome, 1988), I, pp. 115–86. Menant, F., Lombardia feudale. Studi sull’aristocrazia padana nei secoli X–XIII (Milan, 1992). Menant, F., ‘Alle origini della società cremasca: l’immigrazione bergamasca e cremonese’, in idem, Lombardia feudale, pp. 245–76.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 08/02/20, SPi

Abbreviation for Primary Sources and Journals   281 Menant, F., ‘Gli scudieri (‘scutiferi’), vassalli rurali dell'Italia del Nord nel XII secolo’, in idem, Lombardia feudale, pp. 277–93. Menant, F., Campagnes lombardes du Moyen Âge. L’economie et la société rurales dans la région de Bergame, de Crémone et de Brescia du Xe au XIIIe siècle (Rome, 1993). Menant, F., ‘La féodalité italienne entre XIe et XIIe siècles’, in Il feudalesimo nell’alto medioevo, pp. 347–83. Menant, F., ‘La prima età comunale’, in Andenna  G. (ed.), Storia di Cremona. Dall’alto medioevo all’età comunale (Cremona, 2004), pp. 198–281. Menant, F., ‘Les chartes de franchise de l’Italie communale: un tour d’horizon et quelques études de cas’, in Bourin M. and Martinez Sopena P. (eds.), Pour une anthropologie du prélèvement seigneurial dans les campagnes de l’Occident médiéval, I, Réalités et représentations paysannes (Paris, 2004), pp. 239–69. Menant, F., ‘Pourquoi les chartes  de franchise italiennes n’ont-elles  pas de préambules?’, in  Bourin  M. and Martinez Sopena  P. (eds.), Pour une anthropologie du prélèvement seigneurial, II, Les mots, les temps, les lieux du prélèvement (Paris, 2007), pp. 253–74. Merkel, C., Manfredi I e Manfredi II Lancia. Contributo alla storia politica e letteraria italiana nell’epoca sveva (Turin, 1886). Merlone, R., ‘La discendenza aleramica “qui dicitur de Seciago” (secoli XI–XII). I marchesi di Sezzadio, signiferi del regno italico’, in Il tempo di san Guido Vescovo e Signore di Acqui (Acqui Terme, 2003), pp. 103–33. Micheletto, E., ‘L’insediamento rurale in Piemonte fra X e XIII secolo’, Archeologia medievale, XXVII (2010), pp. 15–28. Milani, G., ‘Lo sviluppo della giurisdizione nei comuni italiani del secolo XII’, in Arlinghaus  A.J. et al. (eds.), Praxis der Gerichtsbarkeit in europäischen Städten des Spätmittelalters (Frank­furt am Main, 2006), pp. 21–45. Milani, G., I comuni italiani. Secoli XII–XIV (Rome-Bari, 2010). Miller, M., ‘The crisis in the Investiture Crisis narrative’, History Compass, VII (2009), pp. 1570–80. Molinari, A., ‘Siti rurali e poteri signorili nel Lazio (secoli X–XIII)’, Archeologia Medievale, XXVII (2010), pp. 129–42. Montanari, M., ‘Conflitto sociale e protesta contadina nell’Italia altomedievale’, in Protesta e rivolta contadina nell’Italia medievale’, Annali dell’istituto ‘Alcide Cervi’, XVI (1994), pp. 17–25. Mordini, M., ‘Aspetti della disciplina del feudo ecclesiastico nei secoli XII e XIII. Parte I. La feudistica da Pillio da Medicina all’apparato ordinario’, Studi Senesi, 3rd series, CXXII.2 (2010), pp. 208–85. Moretti, I., and Pirillo, P. (eds.), Passignano in Val di Pesa. Un monastero e la sua storia, I.  Una signoria sulle anime, sugli uomini, sulle comunità (dalle origini al sec. XIV) (Tavarnelle Val di Pesa, 2009). Morsel, J., ‘Le prélèvement seigneurial est-il soluble dans les Weistümer? Appréhensions franconiennes (1200-1400)’, in Bourin  M. and Martinez Sopena  P. (eds.), Pour une anthropologie du prélèvement seigneurial dans les campagnes de l’Occident médiéval, I, Réalités et représentations paysannes (Paris, 2004), pp. 155–210. Morsel, J., Ce qu’écrire veut dire au Moyen Âge. Observations préliminaires à une étude de la scripturalité médiévale, https://halshs.archives-ouvertes.fr/halshs-00291802/document accessed 27 March 2019. Nobili, M., Gli Obertenghi e altri saggi (Spoleto, 2006). Nobili, M., ‘L’evoluzione delle dominazioni marchionali in relazione alla dissoluzione delle circoscrizioni marchionali e comitali e allo sviluppo della politica territoriale dei comuni

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 08/02/20, SPi

282  Abbreviation for Primary Sources and Journals cittadini nell’Italia centro-settentrionale (secoli XI–XII)’, in idem, Gli Obertenghi, pp. 151–76. Nobili, M., ‘Le signorie territoriali degli Obertenghi in Lunigiana’, in idem, Gli Obertenghi, pp. 291–307. Orazi, A.M., L’Abbazia di Ferentillo: centro politico, religioso, culturale dell’alto Medio Evo (Rome, 1979). Da Ottone III a Massimiliano  I.  Gorizia e i Conti di Gorizia nel Medioevo (Mariano del Friuli, 2004). Padoa Schioppa, A., ‘Aspetti della giustizia milanese dal X al XII secolo’, in Milano e il suo territorio in età comunale (Atti dell’11o congresso internazionale di studi sull’Alto Medioevo), (Spoleto, 1989), pp. 459–549. Pallotti, R. Pubblici poteri e signorie di castello nella Romagna nord-occidentale (secoli XI–XIII), Tesi di dottorato, Università degli Studi di Bologna, 2014. Pallotti, R., Castelli e poteri signorili nella Romagna settentrionale (secoli XI–XIII) (Cesena, 2018). Panero, F., Terre in concessione e mobilità contadina. Le campagne fra Po, Sesia e Dora Baltea (secoli XII–XIII) (Bologna, 1984). Panero, F., Servi e rustici. Ricerche per una storia della servitù, del servaggio e della libera dipendenza rurale nell’Italia medievale (Vercelli, 1990). Panero, F., Schiavi, servi e villani nell’Italia medievale (Turin, 1999). Panero, F., Villenove medievali nell’Italia nord-occidentale (Turin, 2004). Pastor, R., Resistencias y luchas campesinas en la época del crecimiento y consolidación de la formación feudal: Castilla y León, siglos X–XIII (Madrid, 1980). Pecchio, G., ‘Sviluppi signorili dopo la marca: dalla morte di Adelaide di Torino al primo ventennio del secolo XII’, BSBS, CIV (2006), pp. 393–466. Perrin, C.E., ‘Chartes de franchises et rapports de droits en Lorraine’, Le Moyen Âge, LII (1946), pp. 11–42. Pescaglini Monti, R., ‘I conti Cadolingi’, in I ceti dirigenti in Toscana in età precomunale (Pisa, 1981), pp. 191–205. Petti Balbi, G., ‘I conti di Lavagna’, in Formazione e strutture, I, pp. 83–109. Pinto, G., and Tanzini, L. (eds.), Poteri centrali e autonomie nella Toscana medievale e moderna (Florence, 2012). Pinto, G., Ascoli (Spoleto, 2013). Pirani, F., Fabriano in età comunale. Nascita e affermazione di una città manifatturiera (Florence, 2003). Pirani, F., Fermo (Spoleto, 2013). Pirillo, P., and Zorzi, A. (eds.), Il castello, il borgo e la piazza: i mille anni di Figline Valdarno, 1008–2008 (Florence, 2012). Poly, J.P., and Bournazel, E., The Feudal Transformation 900–1200, Eng. Trans. (New York, 1990). Poudret, J.F., ‘Le rôle des plaids généraux dans la formation, la transmission et l’enregistrement de la costume d’apres les sources romandes du moyen âge’, Memoires de la société pour l’histoire du droit et des institutions des anciens pays bourguignons, comtois et romands, XL (1983), pp. 177–93. Prodi, P., Il sacramento del potere. Il giuramento politico nella storia costituzionale dell’Occidente (Bologna, 1992). Provero, L., Dai marchesi del Vasto ai primi marchesi di Saluzzo: sviluppi signorili entro quadri pubblici (Turin, 1992). Provero, L., Aristocrazia d’ufficio e sviluppo di poteri signorili nel Piemonte sud-occidentale (secoli XI–XII), in Studi medievali, 3a serie, 35 (1994), pp. 577–627.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 08/02/20, SPi

Abbreviation for Primary Sources and Journals   283 Provero, L., L’Italia dei poteri locali, secoli X–XII (Rome, 1998). Provero, L., ‘Dalla realtà locale alla complessità di un modello: Chris Wickham e le comunità lucchesi’, Quaderni storici, C (1999), pp. 269–83. Provero, L., ‘Forty Years of Rural History for the Italian Middle Ages’, in I. Alfonso (ed.), The Rural History of Medieval Europeans Societies. Trends and Perspectives (Turnhout, 2007), pp. 141–72. Provero, L., ‘Conflitti di potere e culture politiche nelle campagne del Duecento: la chiesa di Casale Monferrato dopo la distruzione del 1215’, BSBS, CV (2007), pp. 281–391. Provero, L., ‘Le trasformazioni del prelievo nel confronto tra signori e comunità (Piemonte meridionale, XII–XIII secolo)’, in L. Feller (ed.), Calculs et rationalités dans la seigneurie médiévale: les conversions de redevances entre XIe et XVe siècles (Paris, 2009), pp. 219–36. Provero, L., Le parole dei sudditi. Scritture e azioni della politica contadina nel Piemonte del Duecento (Spoleto, 2013). Provero, L., ‘Peasant Society and Communities in Carolingian Italy’, in press. Puglia, A., Potere marchionale, amministrazione del territorio, società locali dalla morte di Ugo di Tuscia a Guelfo VI di Baviera (1001–1160), Tesi di dottorato di ricerca in Storia medievale, Università degli studi di Milano, 2003. Puglia, A., Aspetti politici e sociali della signoria vescovile a Volterra tra X e XII secolo, in A. Alberti (ed.), Medioevo in Valdera (San Miniato, 2012), pp. 87–111. Quirós Castillo, J.A., El incastellamento en el territorio de la ciudad de Luca (Toscana): Poder y territorio entre la Alta Edad Media y el siglo XII (Oxford, 1999). Rando, D., ‘I vassalli del vescovo di Treviso, 1179–1201. Scritture e strutture feudali nella prima età comunale’, in G.G. Merlo (ed.), Vescovi medievali (Milan, 2003), pp. 1–23. Reynolds, S., Fiefs and Vassals. The Medieval Evidence Reinterpreted (Oxford, 1994). Revel, J., Jeux d’échelles. La micro-analyse à l’expérience (Paris, 1996). Riganelli, G., Pian di Carpine. La storia nella microstoria (Perugia, 1985). Ripart, L.  ‘Le comté de Tende a-t-il relevé des marquis arduinides?’, in A.  Venturini Le comté de Vintimille et la famille comtale (Menton, 1998), pp. 147–67. Rippe, P., ‘Feudum sine fidelitate. Formes féodales et structures sociales dans la région de  Padoue à l'époque de la première Commune (1131–1237)’, MEFRM, 87 (1975), pp. 187–239. Rippe, P., Padoue et son contado (Xe–XIIIe s.): société et pouvoirs (Rome, 2003). Riversi, E., La memoria dei Canossa. Saggi di contestualizzazione della Vita Mathildis di Donizone (Pisa, 2013). Robinson, P., Die Fürstabtei St. Gallen und ihr Territorium (St Gallen, 1995). La Rocca, C., and Majocchi, P. (eds.), Urban Identities in Northern Italy (Turnhout, 2016). Ronzani, M., Chiesa e civitas di Pisa nella seconda metà del secolo XI (Pisa, 1996). Ronzani, M., ‘I conti Guidi, i conti Alberti e Pistoia dall'inizio del secolo XII al 1177’, Bullettino storico pistoiese, CXII (2010), pp. 91–108. Ronzani, M., ‘L'affermazione dei Comuni cittadini fra Impero e Papato: Pisa e Lucca da Enrico IV al Barbarossa (1081–1162)’, in Poteri centrali e autonomie, pp. 1–57. Rölker, R., Nobiltà e comune a Modena. Potere e amministrazione nei secoli XII e XIII (Modena, 1997). Romeo, R., ‘Il monastero di Sant’Ambrogio e il comune di Origgio nel XIII secolo’, Rivista storica italiana, LXIX.1 (1957), pp. 340–77; LXIX.2 (1957), pp. 473–507. Rosenwein, B., ‘The family politics of Berengar I, king of Italy (888–924)’, Speculum, LXXI (1996), pp. 247–89. Rosenwein, B., Negotiating Space. Power, Restraint and Privileges of Immunity in Early Medieval Europe (Manchester, 1999).

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 08/02/20, SPi

284  Abbreviation for Primary Sources and Journals Rossetti, G., Società e istituzioni nel contado lombardo durante il Medioevo: Cologno Monzese, Tomo I, Sec.VIII–X (Milan, 1968). Rossetti, G., Le istituzioni comunali a Milano nel XII secolo, in Milano nell’alto medioevo (Atti del X Congresso internazionale di studi sull’alto medioevo) (Spoleto, 1986), pp. 83–112. Rossetti, G., ‘Pisa e l’impero tra XI e XII secolo. Per una nuova edizione del diploma di Enrico IV ai pisani’, in C. Violante (ed.), Nobiltà e chiese nel medioevo e altri saggi. Scritti in onore di Gerd Tellenbach (Rome, 1993), pp. 159–82. Rothberg, R.I. (ed.), State Failure and State Weakness in a Time of Terror (Cambridge, MA, 2003). Ruiz Doménec, J.E., L’estructura feudal: sistema de parentiu i teoria de l’aliança en la societat catalana (c. 980–c. 1220) (Barcelona, 1985). Salvadori, F., ‘Zooarcheologia e controllo delle risorse economiche locali nel medioevo’, Postclassical archeologies, I (2011), pp. 195–244. Sanna, A., Conduzione fondiaria e diritti signorili dell’abbazia di Fruttuaria fino alla metà del Duecento, Tesi di laurea in Scienze Storiche, Università di Torino, 2015. Santi, P. et al., ‘Provenance of medieval pietra ollare artefacts found in archaeological sites of central-eastern Italy: insights into the Alpine soapstone trade’, Archaeometry, XLVII (2005), pp. 253–64. Santoni, F., ‘Fra lex e pugna: il placito di Garfagnolo (1098)’, Scrineum—Rivista, II (2004), pp. 5–45. Sassier, Y., ‘Seigneuries d’eglises, pouvoirs locaux et mauvaises coutumes en Auxerrois (debut Xe-fin XIe siècle)’, in idem, Structures du pouvoir, royauté et res publica (France, IXe–XIIe siècle) (Rouen, 2004), pp. 23–48. Savigni, R., ‘Rapporti vassallatico-beneficiari, lessico feudale e “militia” a Lucca (secc. XII–XIII): primi sondaggi’, in Merlo A. and Pellegrini L. (eds.), Praeterita facta. Scritti in onore di Amleto Spicciani (Pisa, 2006), pp. 235–308. Scarmoncin, F., ‘Tra comune e signoria in Bassano. Alcuni aspetti di un complesso rapporto’, in Cracco G. (ed.), Nuovi studi ezzeliniani (Rome, 1992), pp. 373–80. Scheffer Boichorst, P., ‘Veroneser Zeugenverhör von 1181. Ein Beitrag zu den Regesten Kaiser Friedrichs  I.  und zur Geschichte der Reichsburg Garda’, Neues Archiv des Gesellschaft für ältere deutsche Geschichtskunde, XIX (1893), pp. 575–602. Schneider, F., Siena. Città libera imperiale, Ital. Trans., (Siena, 2002). Schumann, R., Authority and the commune, Parma, 833–1133 (Parma, 1973). Scott, J.C., Weapons of the weak. Everyday forms of peasant resistance (New Haven-London, 1985). Sergi, G., Potere e territorio lungo la strada di Francia. Da Chambery a Torino fra X e XIII secolo (Naples, 1981). Sergi, G., ‘La geografia del potere nel Piemonte romanico’, in Romano G. (ed.), Piemonte romanico (Turin, 1994), pp. 13–36. Sergi, G., I confini del potere. Marche e signoria tra due regni medievali (Turin, 1995). Sergi, G. (ed.), Storia di Torino, I, Dalla preistoria al comune medievale (Turin, 1997). Sergi, G., ‘L’esercizio del potere giudiziario dei signori territoriali’, in La giustizia nell’alto medioevo, pp. 313–41. Sergi, G., ‘Poteri temporali del vescovo: il problema storiografico’, in Francesconi G. (ed.), Vescovo e città nell’alto medioevo: quadri generali e realtà toscane (Pistoia, 2001), pp. 1–16. Sergi, G., ‘Storia agraria e storia delle istituzioni’, in Cortonesi A. and Montanari M. (eds.), Medievistica italiana e storia agraria. Risultati e prospettive di una stagione storiografica (Bologna, 2001), pp. 155–64.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 08/02/20, SPi

Abbreviation for Primary Sources and Journals   285 Settia, A.A., Erme torri: simboli di potere fra città e campagna (Cuneo-Vercelli, 2007). Siciliano, L., Bologna nella prima età comunale, Tesi di dottorato in storia medievale, Università di Firenze, 2007. Simeoni, L., ‘Bologna e la politica italiana di Enrico V’, Atti e memorie della Regia Deputazione di Storia Patria per l’Emilia e la Romagna, II (1937), pp. 147–66. Simeoni, L., Studi su Verona nel medioevo, 4 vols. (Verona, 1959–63). Simeoni, L., ‘Le origini del comune di Verona’, in idem, Studi su Verona, I, pp. 87–151. Simeoni, L., ‘Comuni rurali veronesi. Valpolicella – Valpantena – Gardesana’, in idem, Studi su Verona, IV pp. 109–202. Simeoni, L., ‘Antichi patti tra signori e comuni rurali’, in idem, Studi su Verona, IV pp. 89–108. Simeoni, L., ‘Il comune rurale nel territorio veronese’, in idem, Studi su Verona, IV Verona 1963, pp. 203–50. Soliani, G., ‘Antichi signori di Borgo S. Donnino e Bargone’, Archivio storico per le Provincie Parmensi, 4th series, XXXVII (1985), pp. 101–37. Sommo, G. (ed.), Luoghi fortificati fra Dora Baltea, Sesia e Po. Atalante aereofotografico dell’architettura fortificata sopravvissuta e dei siti abbandonati, I, Valsesia e alto Vercellese (Vercelli, 1991). Spicciani, A., ‘Concessioni livellarie, impegni militari non vassallatici e castelli: un feudalesimo informale (secoli X–XI)’, in Il feudalesimo nell’alto medioevo, pp. 175–222. Spicciani, A., Protofeudalesimo: concessioni livellarie, impegni militari non vassallatici e castelli (secoli X–XI) (Pisa, 2001). Spicciani, A., and Violante, C. (eds.), La signoria rurale nel medioevo italiano (Pisa, 1997). Stih, P., I conti di Gorizia e l’Istria nel Medioevo (Rovigno, 2013). Stroll, M., The Medieval Abbey of Farfa: Target of Papal and Imperial Ambitions (Leiden–New York, 1997). Szabo, T., ‘Zur Geschichte des boni homines’, in D. Balestracci et al., Uomini paesaggi storie. Studi di storia medievale per Giovanni Cherubini, I (Siena, 2012), pp. 301–22. Tabacco, G. I liberi del re nell’Italia carolingia e post-carolingia (Spoleto, 1968). Tabacco, G., The struggle for power in medieval Italy: structures of political rule, English trans. (Cambridge, 1990). Tabacco, G., ‘Regno, impero e aristocrazie nell’Italia postcarolingia’, in Il secolo di ferro (Settimane del CISAM, 38) (Spoleto, 1991), pp. 243–69. Tabarrini, M., ‘Le operae e i giorni. Un elenco di censi e servizi dell’abbazia di S. Michele di Passignano (ultimo quarto del secolo XII) tra paleografia e storia’, Quaderni storici, CLII (2016), pp. 383–413. Taddei, R., ‘Comuni rurali e centri minori dell’Italia centrale tra xii e xiv secolo’, MEFRM, CXXIII.2 (2011), pp. 319–34. Tarpino, A., ’I marchesi di Romagnano: l’affermazione di una famiglia arduinica fuori della circoscrizione d’origine (secoli XI–XII)’, BSBS, LXXXVIII (1990), pp. 5–50. Teuscher, S., Lords’ rights and peasant stories. Writing and the formation of tradition in later middle ages, Eng. Trans. (Philadelphia, PA, 2012). Thompson, J.N., The coevolutionary process (Chicago, IL, 1996). Thumser, M., ‘Die Frangipane’, QFIAB, LXXI (1991), pp. 106–63. Tiberini, S., ‘Origini e radicamento territoriale di un lignaggio umbro-toscano nei secoli X-XI: i marchesi di Colle (poi del Monte S. Maria)’, Archivio storico italiano, CLII (1994), pp. 481–559. Tiberini, S., ‘I marchesi di Colle dall’inizio del secolo XII alla metà del XIII: la costruzione del dominato territoriale’, Archivio storico italiano, CL (1997), pp. 199–264. Tiberini, S., Le signorie rurali nell’Umbria settentrionale. Perugia e Gubbio, sec. XI–XIII (Rome, 1999).

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 08/02/20, SPi

286  Abbreviation for Primary Sources and Journals Tomei, L., ‘Genesi e primi sviluppi del Comune nella Marca meridionale. Le vicende del comune di Fermo dalle origini alla fine del periodo svevo (1268)’, in Società e cultura nella Marca meridionale tra alto e basso medioevo (Grottammare, 1995), pp. 139–242. Toubert, P., Les structures du Latium médiéval. Le Latium meridionale et la Sabine du XIe siécle à la fin du XIIe siécle (Rome, 1973). Torre, A., Il consumo di devozioni: religione e comunità nelle campagne dell’ancien régime (Venezia, 1995). Torre, A., Luoghi. La produzione di località in età moderna e contemporanea (Rome, 2011). Turchi, O., Camerinum Sacrum. De Ecclesiae Camerinensium Pontificibus (Camerino, 1762). Valenti, M., and Savadori, F., ‘Animal Bones: Synchronous and diachronic distribution as patterns of socially determined meat consumption in the early and high Middle Ages in Central and Northern Italy’, in A. Pluskowski (ed.), Breaking and Shaping Beastly Bodies: Animals as Material Culture in the Middle Ages (Oxford, 2007), pp. 171–88. Valetti Bonini, I., Le comunità di valle in epoca signorile. L’evoluzione della comunità di Valcamonica durante la dominazione viscontea (secc. XIV–XV) (Milan, 1976). Vallerani, M., ‘La riscrittura dei diritti nel secolo XII: Astrazione e finzione nelle sentenze consolari’, Storica, XXXIX (2007), pp. 53–90. Vallerani, M., Medieval Public Justice, Eng. Trans. (Washington, D.C., 2012). Vallerani, M., ‘Scritture e schemi rituali nella giustizia altomedievale’, in Scrivere e leggere nell’alto medioevo (Settimane del Centro italiano di studi sull’alto medioevo, 59) (Spoleto, 2012), pp. 97–149. Van Caenegem, R.C., ‘Coutumes et legislation en Flandre aux XIe et XIIe siécles’, in Le Libertés urbaines et Rurales du XIe au XIVe siècle (Brussels, 1968), pp. 245–79. Vansina, J., Oral tradition as history (London, 1965). Varanini, G.M., ‘Società e istituzioni a Cerea tra XII e XIII secolo’, in B.  Chiappa and A. Sandrini (eds.), Cerea. Una comunità attraverso i secoli (Cerea, 1991), pp. 73–90. Vasina, A., ‘Possessi ecclesiastici ravennati nella Pentapoli durante il Medio Evo’, Studi Romagnoli, XVIII (1967), pp. 333–67. Vasina, A., ‘Le pievi dell’area ravennate prima e dopo il Mille’, in Le istituzioni ecclesiastiche della “Societas Christiana” dei secoli IX–X.  Diocesi, pievi e parrocchie (Milan, 1977), pp. 607–27. Venturini, A. (ed.), Le Comté de Vintimille et la famille comtale (Menton, 1998). Viglino Davico, M. et al. (eds.), Atlante castellano. Strutture fortificate della provincia di Cuneo (Turin, 2009). Vignodelli, G. Il Filo a piombo. Il Liber perpendiculum di Attone di Vercelli e la politica del secolo X (Spoleto, 2012). Villani, V., Signori e comuni nel medioevo marchigiano. I conti di Buscareto (Ancona, 1992). Violante, C., ‘Alcune caratteristiche delle strutture familiari in Lombardia, Emilia e Toscana durante i secoli IX–XII’, in G.  Duby, J.  Le Goff (eds.), Famiglia e parentela nell’Italia medievale (Bologna, 1984), pp. 19–82. Virgili, M.G., ‘I possessi dei Biandrate nei secoli XI–XIV’, BSBS, LXXII (1974), pp. 633–85. Vollrath, H., ‘Das Mittelalter in der Typik oraler Gesellschaften’, Historische Zeitschrift, CCXXIII (1981), pp. 571–94. Volpe, G., ‘Vescovi e comune di Volterra’, in idem, Toscana Medievale. Massa Marittima, Volterra, Sarzana (Florence, 1964), pp. 141–311. Weinfurter, S., ‘Reformidee und Königtum im spätsalischen Reich. Überlegungen zu einer Neubewertung Kaiser Heinrichs  V.’, in idem (ed.) Reformidee und Reformpolitik im spätsalisch-frühstaufischen Reich (Mainz, 1992), pp. 1–45. Weinfurter, S., The Salian Century (1024–1125), Eng. Trans., (Philadelphia, PA, 2004).

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 08/02/20, SPi

Abbreviation for Primary Sources and Journals   287 Welzer, H., Communicative memory, in A.  Erll, A.  Nünning (eds.), Cultural Memory Studies. An International and Interdisciplinary Handbook (Berlin-New York, 2008), pp. 285–98. West, C., Reframing Feudal Revolution. Political and social transformation between Marne and Moselle, c. 800 to c. 1100 (Cambridge, 2013). White, S., Re-thinking kinship and feudalism (Aldershot, 2005). Wickham, C., The Mountain and the City. The Tuscan Appennines in the Early Middle Ages (Oxford, 1988). Wickham, C., Community and clientele nella Toscana del XII secolo. Le origini del comune rurale nella Piana di Lucca (Roma, 1995). Wickham, C., La signoria rurale in Toscana, in Dilcher and Violante, Strutture e trasformazioni, pp. 343–409. Wickham, C., ‘Justice in the Kingdom of Italy’, in La giustizia nell’alto medioevo, pp. 179–255. Wickham, C., Courts and Conflicts in Twelfth Century Tuscany (Oxford, 2002). Wickham, C., Alto medioevo e identità nazionale, Storica, XXVII (2003), pp. 7–26. Wickham, C., Framing Early Middle Ages. Europe and the Mediterranean, 400–800 (Oxford, 2005). Wickham, C., The Inheritance of Rome: a History of Europe from 400 to 1000 (London, 2009). Wickham, C., ‘Archeologia e mondi rurali: quadri di insediamento e sviluppo economico’, Archeologia medievale, XXXVII (2010) pp. 277–84. Wickham, C., The origins of the signoria in central Lazio, 900–1100, in D. Balestracci et al. (eds.), Uomini, paesaggi, storie. Studi di storia medievale per Giovanni Cherubini, II (Siena, 2012), pp. 481–94. Wickham, C., Medieval Rome. Stability and Crisis of a City, 900–1150 (Oxford, 2014). Wickham, C., ‘The ‘feudal revolution’ and the origins of Italian city communes’, Transactions of Royal Historical society, 6th series, XXIV (2014), pp. 29–55. Wickham, C., Sleepwalking into a new world. The emergence of Italian city communes in the twelfth century (Princeton, NJ, 2015). Zagnoni, R., ‘I conti Cadolingi nella montagna bolognese (secoli X–XII)’, in idem, Il Medioevo nella montagna tosco-bolognese, uomini e strutture in una terra di confine (Porretta Terme, 2004), pp. 321–44. Zanin, L., L’evoluzione dei poteri di tipo pubblico nella marca friulana dal periodo carolingio alla nascita della signoria patriarcale, Tesi di dottorato di ricerca in Storia sociale europea, Università Ca’ Foscari di Venezia, 2010. Zerner, M., ‘Note sur la seigneurie banale. A propos de la révolte de serfs de Viry’, in Histoire et société, mélanges offerts à Georges Duby, 4 vols. (Aix en Provence, 1992), II, pp. 49–58.

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 08/02/20, SPi

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 08/02/20, SPi

Index Note: Maps are indicated by an italic “m”, and notes are indicated by “n” following the page number. Adelaide of Turin, countess/margravine  5, 8, 11–14, 11n.35, 18, 33–4, 41, 47 Afghanistan 10 Agello, castle  viiim, 24n.100, 45, 86–7, 173n.74, 189n.42, 192n.57, 216n.70 Agnese of Turin, countess/margravine  8 Aleramici, margraves  9, 16–18, 28–30, 32–5, 77, 132–3, 201 Ansani Michele  152 Antignano, castle  viiim, 81, 179, 188, 191–2, 194–5, 203–4, 211–12 Alba, bishops of  25–6, 115–18, 194–5, 242 Alba, city and proto–commune  81, 115–18 Alberti, counts  8–9, 14, 21, 70 Alberto, bishop of Novara  8 Aldobrandeschi, counts  9n.28, 14–16, 21, 28–9, 56, 66n.65, 70–1, 81–2, 85n.46, 92, 94n.85, 97–8, 221, 227–8, 244–5 Anselmo, bishop of Novara  8 Aosta Valley  16–18 Aquileia, patriarchs of  20–1, 42, 168n.60, 262–3 Arduino of Ivrea, king of Italy  4–5 Arduinici, margraves  5, 8, 11–14, 11n.35, 18, 28–9, 33–4, 41, 47, 107–8, 244n.60 Arnold of Dorstadt  237–8 Arezzo, bishops of  viim, 14, 21–2, 71–2, 107–8, 120–2, 167 Arrone, lords of  239–44 Ascoli, bishops of  viim, 21–2, 103, 107–8, 150–1 Assisi, counts of  5–6, 15, 52n.9 Baratonia, viscounts of  115–16 Bargone, castle  44–6, 48 Barthelemy, Dominique  xvi–xvii, 5n.6, 186n.28 Berardo (II), abbot of Farfa  167n.56 Berengar I, king of Italy  109n.34, 144–5 ́ Bergamo, bishops of  18–19, 39, 77, 132 Bisson, T.N.  xvii, xx, 80n.29, 85n.45, 103n.7, 199n.1, 226n.2, 227, 238n.38, 257n.11, 259n.20 Biandrate, castle  viiim, 10–11, 67–9, 71–2, 81, 84–5, 87–9, 179, 187–8, 191–2

Biandrate, counts of  8, 16–18, 16n.60, 28–9, 64–5, 68–9, 72, 81, 84–5, 87–9, 150–1, 162–3, 188, 191–2, 246–7 Bionde, castle  183n.19, 191–2, 213n.59, 217–18 Bonifacio Del Vasto, margrave  8–9, 13–14, 16–18, 29–30, 32–6, 47, 70, 115–16, 244–5 Bonifacio of Canossa, margrave  38, 202, 221 Bonifacio of Incisa, margrave  32–6 Borgo San Donnino, castle  18–19, 44–6, 48 Bournazel, Eric xv–xvi Breme, abbey, see Novalesa Brescia, bishops ́ of  18–19 Busano, nunnery  238–9 Cadolingi, counts  8–9, 21, 28–9, 82–3, 85–6 Calusco, castle and lords of  viiim, 52–4, 114–15, 164n.46, 190n.49, 221n.87 Campomorto, battle  5–6 Canavese, counts of  16–18, 23n.98, 162–3, 238–9 Casauria, abbey of  12–13, 51 Casciavola, village  53–6, 96–7, 99–100, 222–3, 227–30, 233–4 Castelbaldo, castle  19, 98n.106, 159–60 Castelrotto, castle  184n.22, 192–3 Central places  24–5, 46, 67–73 Cerea, castle  viiim, 57–8, 189–90, 205–8, 210, 213–14, 234–5 Ceriana, village  viiim, 97–8, 173n.72, 220n.82 Cervia, village  19 Charlemagne  176, 261 Chiavenna, castle  viiim, 90–1, 130–1, 133–4 Chiusi, bishops of  227–8 Civil wars  xiii, xviii–xix, 3–36, 40–3, 48–9, 54, 104–5, 115–18, 149, 184–5, 249–53, 258–61 Civitanova, castle  viiim, 71–2, 173n.74, 181–2, 216n.70 Coltibuono, abbey  230, 233 Como, city and proto–commune  viim, 10–12, 81, 90–1, 102n.3, 104–8, 112–13, 115–16, 120, 123n.100, 127–8, 130, 130n.127, 132–4 Conegliano, castle  103–4

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 08/02/20, SPi

290 Index Conrad, son of Henry IV  41 Conrad II, emperor  155–6 Conrad III, king of Germany  133, 150–1 Coriano, castle  203–4, 207–8 Crema, castle  viiim, 18–19, 67–9, 72, 81, 104–7 Crescenzio, count  9–10 Diano (d’Alba), castle  viiim, 116, 194–5 Duby, Georges  xv–xvii, 196n.71, 197n.73, 255n.8 Emilia, region  16, 48, 86–7, 203 England  154–5, 176–7, 186, 248, 257–8 Este, margraves of  8–9, 16n.60, 20, 78–9 Farfa, abbey  5–6, 9–10, 13, 24–7, 45, 51, 55, 61–2, 71, 76–9, 86–7, 92–3, 96–7, 130–1, 150–1, 163–5, 167, 173–4, 182, 185–6, 192n.56, 216, 228n.7, 239–41, 243–4 Ferentillo, abbey  25–6, 239–44 Fermo, city and proto–commune  viim, 24, 27, 61–2, 103, 107–8 Fermo, bishops of  6, 13, 21–4, 27, 62–3, 71–2, 78–9, 86–7, 103, 107–8, 173–4, 181–2, 185, 192n.56, 194, 216–17, 242n.55, 244nn.59–57 Feud  21–2, 31–6, 238–42 Ficarolo, castle  46, 48n.48 Fidelity  xix–xx, 23–4, 154–77, 183–4, 196, 206–7, 225, 237, 251–4 Fief  23–4, 82–3, 116n.72, 118–20, 156–7, 163–70, 210, 222 Firidolfi, seigneurial family  230, 242 Flaiperto, missus regius 44 Florence, city and proto–commune  viim, 10–11, 14, 21, 24–5, 68, 70–1, 85–6, 105–6, 121n.92, 123–4, 254 Fonte Avellana, abbey  243–4 France  xv–xvii, 5, 16, 187, 193–4, 196–200, 203–4, 226–7, 257–61 Frangipane, seigneurial family  236–8 Frederick I Barbarossa, emperor  27, 48–9, 133, 237–8 Friuli, counts of  40–2, 262–3 Friuli, region  42–3, 253, 262–4 Fruttuaria, abbey  23n.98, 25–6, 115, 183n.19, 238–9 Gamondio, castle  70n.82, 77, 89n.62, 125–7, 130–7 Genoa, bishops (since 1133 archbishop) of  94–5, 97–8, 114–15, 173n.72, 220n.82 Genoa, city and proto–commune  viim, 5–6, 18, 23–4, 27, 105–6, 110–11, 113–15, 118–20, 122–4, 133–5, 166–7, 175, 200–2, 254

Giovanni, abbot of Subiaco  26–7, 60, 243 Gorizia, counts of  20–1 Gregorio of Catino, monk  86–7, 167 Gregory VII, pope  32, 168–9, 172–3, 194–5 Gualtiero, archbishop of Ravenna  159–60 Gualcherii, seigneurial family  9–10, 163–4, 185n.24, 228n.7, 239–41 Guarene, castle  116, 194–5 Guarnerii, margraves  21–2, 24n.100, 48, 228n.7 Guastalla, castle  viiim, 67–8, 81, 87–9, 183–4, 187, 191–2, 194 Guiberto, archbishop of Ravenna  162–3, 168–9, 172–3 Guidi, counts  8–9, 14, 16, 21–5, 28–9, 68–9, 81n.33, 92, 106, 108n.30, 244–5 Henry II, emperor  26n.107, 115n.67 Henry III, emperor  3, 26n.107, 38–41, 148 Henry IV, emperor  7–9, 32, 37, 40–3, 46–7, 104–5, 108–9, 123, 182–3, 189–90, 202, 210, 212, 221–2, 227–8 Henry V, emperor  10, 15–19, 37, 42–9, 106–7, 120, 122–3, 150, 176–7 Henry VI, emperor  125n.104 Imola, bishops of  71–2, 117–18, 117n.77 Imola, city and proto–commune  71–2, 117–18, 117n.77, 172–3, 176–7 Imola, counts of  19, 162–3 Innocent III, pope  236, 241–2 Investiture struggle  xiii, 10, 147, 150–1 Inzago, castle  viiim, 51, 170–1, 190, 190n.44 Isola Comacina, rural community  viiim, 10–12, 63, 90–1, 127–30, 136–7 Lake Como  106–7, 128–30 Lake of Garda  115 Lake Maggiore  94–5, 97–8 Latium, region  7, 9, 13, 22, 26n.106, 30–1, 45, 52–3, 59–60, 69–70, 92–3, 103, 107–8, 124, 131–2, 135, 157–8, 161n.36, 163, 173–4, 178–9, 183, 193–4, 236–8, 239n.40, 254 Lavagna, counts of  18 Lenno, rural community  128–30 Libya 10 Liguria, region  8, 16, 18, 32–3, 35, 70, 97–8, 108n.30, 113–14, 173n.72, 201–3, 239n.40, 244–5 Lombardy, region  xvi–xvii, 9n.24, 10–13, 16, 18–19, 27, 39–40, 51–4, 63, 90–1, 96–7, 105–6, 112–13, 120, 122–4, 127–37, 170n.62, 183–4, 192n.56, 203, 218–19, 239–40, 239n.40

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 08/02/20, SPi

Index  291 Lothar III, emperor  44nn.30, 32, 45–6, 48–9, 108n.30, 150 Lucca, bishops of  174–5, 202, 204n.24, 212–13, 235n.30 Lucca, city and proto–commune  viim, 14, 41n.16, 44, 65, 75, 86, 104–6, 108–11, 120, 123–4, 171–2, 221 Malaspina, margraves  18, 22, 29, 44–5, 48, 63–4, 239–40, 244–6 Mantua, city and proto–commune  viim, 18–19, 39–40, 41n.16, 44, 104–5, 109n.38, 147–8 Marano, castle  215–16 March  xiii–xvi, 3–6, 8, 13–15, 18, 21, 23–4, 40–2, 44–9, 53n.11, 104–5, 115, 181–2, 201, 227–8, 250, 253 Marche, region  6, 19, 21–2, 24n.100, 26n.106, 41–2, 45, 48, 61–2, 71–2, 79–80, 85n.45, 92–3, 98–9, 125–6, 133n.136, 156n.11, 157–61, 170n.62, 176n.81, 181–2, 182n.13, 184n.21, 189, 192n.57, 215–16, 239–40, 246n.67, 253–4 Marchiones, seigneurial family  21–2, 30–2, 52, 76–7 Matilda of Canossa, countess  41–5, 104–6, 117–18, 122–3, 149, 182–3, 192n.56, 203–4, 208, 221, 223–4 Marzana, castle  viiim, 55–7, 98–9, 179, 187, 194 Mazel, Florian  xvi–xvii, 198n.76, 257–8 Modigliana, castle  viiim, 21, 24–5, 69, 81n.33, 244 Molassana, village  viiim, 97–8 Monarchy  7, 37–51, 126–7, 143–51, 186, 189–90, 250–3, 258–63 Monferrato, margraves  16–18, 16n.59, 28–9, 29n.120, 35, 70, 106, 150–1 Monte Amiata, abbey  9n.28, 15–16, 21, 56, 66n.65, 81–2, 85n.46, 94n.85, 97–8, 221, 227–8 Montecascioli, castle  9, 48, 85–6, 105–6 Montecerro, castle  viiim, 19, 98n.106, 159–60 Milan, archbishops of  90–1, 102–3, 120 Milan, city and proto–commune  viim, 5–6, 10–12, 27, 44n.32, 81, 102–7, 110n.39, 111–12, 114–16, 118–20, 123, 127–30, 133n.138, 134n.140, 150 Milites  9, 63–4, 68–9, 75–89, 100, 105–6, 109–10, 113n.54, 115–18, 134–5, 155, 157–8, 161–7, 175, 183n.19, 188, 191–2, 205–6, 210–11, 213–14, 238–45, 249 Monaldi, counts  81, 84, 182, 188–9, 203, 211–12 Montebelluna, castle  viiim, 209–10 Montolmo, castle  173n.74, 192n.56, 194n.62, 216n.70 Mosezzo, castle  110–11, 192–5

Nicknames 244–6 Nogara, castle  43–4, 46 Nonantola, abbey  viiim, 77–9, 87–9, 106–7, 144–5, 150–1, 171–2, 190 Novalesa, abbey  25–6, 94–5, 115–16, 168 Novara, bishop of  8–9, 16–18, 64–5, 68–9, 162–3 Novara, city and proto–commune  viim, 8, 10–11, 16–18, 69, 97–8, 106, 110–11 Novi, castle  77, 87–9, 127, 130–1, 133–5 Nuremberg, city  150–1 Oath  86, 111–13, 132–3, 143, 152–3, 156–77, 195, 199–207, 214–15, 217–18, 225–6, 228, 237 Oberto dell’Orto, judge  156–7 Oddone, abbot of Novalesa  168 Osimo, city and territory  viim, 159–61 Ostiglia, castle  44, 48n.48, 85n.46, 102n.3, 104n.13, 106–7, 120–3, 173n.72 Pacts  174–5, 177–200, 204–5, 209, 211–12, 215–18, 221n.87, 225–7, 247, 249–52, 259–61 Padua, bishops of  39–40, 52n.9, 78–9, 91–2, 126–7, 148, 165, 191–2 Padua, city  viim, 20–1, 91–2 Parma, bishop of  35n.143, 44–5, 48, 108–9, 223–4 Parma, city and proto–commune  viim, 18–19, 46, 81, 103, 106–9 Peasants  xvii, 7, 20–1, 50–8, 62, 65–6, 68–9, 72–4, 76–81, 84, 87–100, 114–15, 118, 142, 164–5, 188, 191–2, 196, 199–200, 203, 210–14, 219–23, 231–9, 243–7, 254–61 Pelavicino, margraves  18–19, 23–4, 29n.120, 35–6, 118–20, 244–5 Perugia, city and proto–commune  viim, 21–2, 112–13 Picardy, French region  197–8, 257n.12, 259–61 Piedmont, region  4n.2, 5, 8, 11–14, 16–18, 23–6, 32–5, 47–8, 60–1, 64–7, 71–2, 77, 87–9, 105–9, 115, 125–7, 132–3, 142, 170n.62, 192–3, 192n.56, 208, 218–19, 235n.28, 244–7, 253–4 Pier Damiani, monk  6, 30–1, 32n.132, 52, 244n.59 Pisa, bishop (since 1092 archbishop) of  151, 168–9, 174, 191–2, 202–3 Pisa, city and proto–commune  viim, xiii, 5–6, 14, 27, 54, 102–6, 111, 118, 120, 123–4, 189–90, 202, 212–13, 222–3, 228n.10, 228n.7, 242, 256 Pistoia, bishop of  77–8, 86–7, 170–1

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 08/02/20, SPi

292 Index Po Valley  7, 15, 29n.120, 41–3, 56n.25, 59–60, 65–6, 85n.46, 106, 111, 117–18, 124, 126, 156–7, 174–5, 183–4, 237–8, 248–9 Poggibonsi, castle  viiim, 25n.105, 38, 68n.73, 69n.75, 76n.5 Poggio San Giuliano, castle  78–80, 173n.74, 192n.56, 194n.62, 216n.70 Poly, Jean Pierre  xv–xvi, 154n.1 Porcile, castle  213n.59, 235n.28 Portovenere, castle  105–6, 111, 113–14, 123–4 Priocca, castle  viiim, 13, 183n.19 Proto–commune  16, 44, 63, 101–25, 127–8, 130–1, 136–7, 166–7, 186, 237–8, 249–50, 252–3, 261–2 Rabodo, imperial margrave of Tuscany  9, 12–13, 48, 105–6 Rainerio (II), member of the Marchiones family 30–2 Rapizoni, counts  21–2, 29, 97n.101, 182 Ravenna, archbishops of  8–9, 15–16, 19–20, 71–2, 107–8, 117–18, 159–63, 168–70, 172–5 Roddi, castle  26n.107, 115–16 Rodilando, count  185–6 Romagna, region  8–9, 15, 24–5, 107–8, 117–18, 156–8, 254 Romagnano, margraves of  28–9, 64–5 Romano, da, seigneurial family  82–3 Rome, city  109n.36, 236–7 Rosignano, castle  202–4, 210 Saccisica, rural area, see Sacco Sacco, castle  viiim, 39–40, 52n.9, 91–2, 126–7, 148, 190–2 Sambuca, castle  viiim, 63, 86–7, 170–1 San Bonifacio, counts of  20–1, 57–8, 107–8, 205–6, 235–6 San Casciano, lords of  53–6, 96–7, 99–100, 222–3, 228n.7, 229–30, 233–4 San Dalmazzo, abbey  viiim, 25–6 San Giorgio (d’Alba), castle  25–6, 115–16 San Giorgio (in Valpolicella), castle  211n.49, 217–18 San Michele della Chiusa, abbey  viiim, 5, 244 San Michele di Marturi, abbey  38 San Sisto of Piacenza, abbey  87–9, 183–4, 191–2, 194 Sant’Ambrogio of Milan, abbey  44n.32, 51, 90–1, 146–7, 170–1, 182n.12, 183–4, 190n.44, 215n.63, 219n.81 Santa Maria di Castello, castle  208 Savona, city and proto–commune  viim, 13–14, 16–18, 107–8, 201–2

Somalia 10 Soncino, castle  viiim, 106–7, 113n.54, 124, 161, 166–7 Spain 257 Stephen, king of England  186, 258 Subiaco, abbey  viiim, 5–6, 25–7, 60, 64, 71, 131–2, 165–6, 173–4, 179, 183, 184n.21, 241–4 Susa, castle  67–8, 189–90, 203n.21 Susa valley  5, 16–18, 24 Tenda, castle  viiim, 51–2, 90, 97n.101, 189–90, 192n.58, 201–4, 208, 210, 212–13, 215–16 Tivoli, bishops of  161n.36, 173–4, 179, 183, 184n.21 Trevi, castle  130–3, 135–6 Treviso, bishops of  20–1, 27, 165, 209 Turin, bishop of  115–16, 162–3, 242 Turin, city and proto–commune  viim, 16–18, 48–9, 102–3, 108n.30 Turin, march of  xiii–xiv, 5–6, 8, 11–18, 23–4, 33–4, 40–1, 47, 110–11, 115, 253 Tuscany, march of  xiii–xv, 8–9, 14–15, 30–1, 38, 40, 42, 44–5, 47–8, 105–6, 171–2, 212–13, 227–9, 253 Tuscany, region  xv, 4n.2, 8–9, 13–14, 21, 24–5, 27–31, 41–2, 47–8, 52–4, 58–60, 64–6, 70, 76n.5, 78n.13, 85–7, 92, 105–6, 123–4, 126, 156–8, 171–2, 174, 180–1, 203–4, 212–13, 221, 227–30, 245, 253–4 Tuscolani, seigneurial family  22, 69–70 Tusculum, castle  viiim, 22, 24–5, 69–70 Ubaldo, bishop of Turin  242 Ubaldo, count of Imola  162–3 Ulcandino, bishop of Fermo  6, 244n.59 Umbria, region  5–6, 21–2, 29–32, 41–2, 45, 47, 52, 57n.27, 76–7, 81, 84, 85n.45, 92–9, 125–7, 133n.136, 134n.140, 156–8, 167, 170n.62, 176n.81, 181–2, 184n.21, 188, 191–2, 203, 215–16, 239–42, 246n.66, 253–4 Val di Scalve, rural community  39, 63, 77, 130, 132–3 Valcamonica, valley  39, 132, 218–19 Valsesia, valley  16–18, 64–5, 68–9 Veneto, region  8–9, 20–1, 40–2, 45, 47, 56–7, 78–9, 82–3, 91–2, 107–8, 123–4, 126, 135, 148, 162n.39, 203–11, 213–14, 217–18, 254 Ventimiglia, counts of  8n.18, 18, 23–4, 27, 51–2, 97n.101, 107–8, 190, 201–2, 211–12, 215–16, 244–5 Verona, bishops of  191–2, 211n.49, 217

OUP CORRECTED AUTOPAGE PROOFS – FINAL, 08/02/20, SPi

Index  293 Verona, city and proto–commune  10–11, 20–1, 45–6, 55–6, 104n.13, 107–8, 123n.100, 144–5, 148, 173n.72, 179, 183n.19, 192–3, 206–7, 234–5 Violence  xvi–xvii, 3–10, 54–8, 75–83, 99–100, 103–4, 132–3, 135, 226–47, 249, 252, 257–61 Visdomini of Como, seigneurial family  182n.12, 183–4 Volterra, bishop of  14, 21–2, 27, 63–4, 71–2, 103, 107–8

West, Charles  xvii, xx, 258–62 White, Stephen  xvi–xvii Wickham, Chris  xiii–xiv, 3n.1, 22, 25–6, 30n.125, 44, 47n.45, 48–9, 51–3, 57n.26, 59–60, 65–6, 75, 87n.56, 92n.77, 101–2, 108–9, 114–15, 118–20, 136–7, 151, 171–2, 189n.39, 210n.48, 212–13, 222, 226, 235–6, 254–8 Zevio, castle  56–7