Imperial Power

Chapter 2 looks at imperial policies in Italy of Henry III, Henry IV, and Henry V, discussing especially their impact on the political make-up of the countryside. The focus is on how emperors attempted to keep control of their Italian resources and infrastructures (palaces and fiscal patrimony) as opposed to the vicissitudes of the ideological and propaganda struggle with the pope which has received more attention in historiography. Henry IV, in particular, adopted an aggressive policy towards his Italian opponents such as Adelaide of Torino and Matilda of Canossa, refusing to recognize the heirs of the former and deposing the latter. The result in both cases was the destruction of the coherence of two vast regional principalities. The author makes the important point that at first the emperors were not hostile to new emerging city communes and granted them rights in return for support and assistance (though later emperors, most notably Frederick I, would have a total change of mind in this regard). The author sees the moment in which cities began to take full control of the affairs seeing it as occurring during the reign of Henry V (1111–25) rather than in 1140–50, as usually believed.

Violence

This chapter deals with violence. It includes some graphic accounts of seigneurial violence. These should not be treated superficially as ‘historiographical voyeurism’ but rather considered as manifestations of the ritualistic nature of violence and assessed with regard to their impact in collective local memory. Texts reveal violence to be on the increase in the eleventh century. Also the nicknames of the lords offers a vivid testimony of their attitude toward violence. It often took on a ritual character and was designed to overawe, intimidate, and impose social superiority. Beatings, torture, torching, and rape became part of everyday experience of Italian peasantry from the late eleventh century. Other examples of seigneurial violence over small towns, such as the Frangipane in Terracina, and imperial representatives in Piacenza and Treviso follow.

Collective Powers

It focuses on the interventions of cities in the countryside in the decades either side of 1100 drawing examples primarily from Lombardy, Tuscany, and Lazio. The particular character of the area close to cities (5–10km) which urban authorities sought to control politically, economically and militarily is emphasized. Detailed examples of judicial and fiscal powers exercised by the communes over rural communities both near and far from the city follow. The author points out that although some of the stronger communes such as Milan and Genoa managed to achieve a high degree of control over their territories from the early 1100s, smaller and less powerful centres (for example, Alba and Imola) struggled to do so. Nevertheless, through local consensus, many cities achieved a hegemonic position over extensive tracts of the countryside at the expense of the dynastic families who had previously held sway there. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the role of the (far less numerous) autonomous rural communities such as Isola Comacina, Chiavenna, and Val di Scalve, proposing the novel idea of ‘collective lordships’, a point re-emphasized in the conclusion.

Inside the Lordship

Chapter 4 considers the social makeup of rural village society. It looks into the formation of a class of milites (knights), or second-rank nobility, whose status was enhanced through land and privileges conceded to them by territorial lords in return for service. It also analyses the changing content and role of individuals described as boni homines and visconti. The ability to fight on horseback became the chief distinguishing factor between this group and rustici. The latter group does not disappear or become uniformly subject to lords however. Small proprietors continued to exist, and in some areas, such as Tuscany, to flourish. However, it can be seen a tendency for the lowest level of rural tenant to become merged with servi in the sources; in other words they are declining in status to being merely chattels that can be bought and sold with land.

Territorial Lordship

It traces the emergence and development of the dominates loci as the most important form of organization of space, resources, and people in the countryside at the end of the eleventh century, signalled by the imposition of a whole new range of obligations and claims on these by individuals acting in their own right and no longer as representatives of royal authority. Three case studies are examined to illustrate the changes—Calusco in Lombardy, Casciavola in Tuscany, and Cliviano in Lazio. The new territorial and jurisdictional powers wielded by local territorial lords were invariably more oppressive than those to which the inhabitants of countryside had been subject previously and their imposition is characterized by frequent recourse to violence and extortion. These are referred to in contemporary sources as malus usus or malae consuetudines. These changes were accompanied by construction of larger and more fortified castles in which towers functioned as status symbols. The role of castles and settlements is discussed with the help of archaeological as well as documentary evidence. Fortifications were dense in countryside but absent in immediate vicinity of the cities. Signori also constructed rural borghi such as Biandrate, Tusculum, and Poggibonsi, which were true ‘central places’ for seigneurial power.

Conclusions

The period 1080–1130 sees the imposition of the signoria as the dominant system of power and control in the countryside of north-central Italy. This process was accompanied by a profound militarization of society evident in the building of castles, the rise of the class of milites, the increasing importance of military service in pacts and contracts, the upsurge in violence. The notion of fidelitas, once the prerogative of the sovereign, came to be used at a local level to underpin relationships between lords and their subject, often sealed by pacts. Whilst this gave an appearance of consent, at the other end of the spectrum lay violence and coercion which were inherent in the system. The imposition of dominatus loci did not inhibit and may actually have stimulated economic growth by extracting agricultural surplus and increasing elite demand for goods and raw materials. It also had demographic effects in that the rural population tended to become more concentrated in nuclear defended settlements and/or displaced to the cities. Finally, the Italian experience of the creation of the territorial lordship is discussed in the framework of trends across western Europe, concluding that Italy is more similar to Catalonia than northern France. Italy’s ‘exceptionality’ is most clearly evidenced in the rise of urban (but also rural) collectivities and the capacity of these to exercise a measure of political control over the surrounding countryside. The author insists on the role of rural collectivities which offered a concrete alternative outcome to the ‘segneurialization’ of power.

Royal Legitimation and its Crisis

The chapter marks the beginning of the second part of the book, dedicated to the discourses, languages and cultures of power in the territorial lordship. Symbolic and actual power of royal/imperial diplomas and judicial hearings (placita) remained strong in the tenth century. However the latter almost ceased completely by c.1100 and the former had dwindled considerably in number and importance by the time of emperor Lothar III (1133–7). Local actors had found new ways to acquire legitimization for the actions and transactions. This process was characterized not only by a sharp change of social practices but also by a transformation in documentary production.

Custom

References to ‘bonus usus’ and other terms denoting ‘good custom’ are more common in a rural than an urban context from 1100 onwards. Much attention is devoted to oaths and oath swearers (sacramentales), who appear to have been mainly chosen by signori rather than by local communities, and their role in dispute settlement. Socially oath swearers appear to be members of the upper-middle stratum of village society, the same group that later supplied the consuls of the thirteenth-century rural commune. Collective memory appears to stretch back 40–70 years at which time-frame customs acquired sufficient antiquity to be considered immutable. The act of recalling customs in a public assembly (placitum) served to reinforce community identity and delineate the parameters of seigneurial intervention in local society (rights, privileges, dues). Discussion moves on to the inter-relationship between written and oral custom and the meaning of the term malus usus which together with its antonym bonus usus is seen as key to unlocking the content of political discourse in the countryside. The sense of malus usus is of novelty, lack of precedent, absence of consensus. Interestingly the author shows that what was once perceived as bonus usus could at a later date and in different circumstances be seen as malus usus.

Pacts

It deals with pacts, local bi-lateral agreements that filled the void left by the collapse of a universally-recognized central power. Like oaths of fidelity these could also be between social equals or superiors/inferiors; horizontal or vertical. They begin to be recorded in substantial numbers from c.1080, especially in the regions where the Investitures Conflict/Civil War created a situation of war and fear. In Po Plain they don’t appear until the first decade of the twelfth century. Generally speaking there is deep connection between pacts and conflict—either between the two parties involved or with a third party not included in the pact. There is interesting comment about the possible realities behind the formal ceremonies and language of pacts, for example stratagems for allowing defeated parties to ‘save face’. All of this is generally accompanied by ritual. There is an interesting section at the end of this chapter discussing the implications of pacts and the reasons for proliferation, utilizing social theory and drawing parallels with other periods and areas. In Italy it is not just that state power was ‘privatized’ as in France, but entirely new forms, structures and idioms of social relations, amongst which were pacts, emerged.

Fidelity

It explores changing notions of the concept of fidelity (fidelitas) in the wake of the collapse of central power in Italy at the end of the eleventh century. The author notes that fealty was by no means an inseparable part of the concession of benefices as is shown by the widespread documentation of feudum sine fidelitate in Lombardy. Fidelity appears in other contexts too, for example to give legitimacy to contracts of sale and rent; it is also used when investing individuals in office or authority and presenting them with a standard (vexillum). Oaths of fealty also feature in alliances and pacts. Orality and gesture play an important part in rituals of fidelity. Bonds of fidelity could exist between social equals and did not necessarily imply a relationship of superiority and subordination, but the most common interlocutors are the upper and lower ranks of the aristocracy. Ecclesiastical institutions and proto-communes also made use of fealty to bind individuals to them. The language of fidelity also spreads to the church in formalizing relations of a purely internal and ecclesiastical character, a development that the author ascribes to pope Gregory VII, even if not many examples survive before 1100. Finally it discusses the origins of the oath of fidelity, suggesting that it may go back to Charlemagne’s order that all his subjects should swear loyalty to the emperor.