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Citizenship and community in southern Italy c. 1100–c. 12201

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 August 2013

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Copyright © British School at Rome 2006

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Footnotes

1

I would like to thank Graham Loud for his general encouragement and advice on an earlier draft, and Ian Moxon for assisting with translations and numerous discussions on the topic of this paper.

References

2 For works in English alone see: Jones, P., The Italian City-State: From Commune to Signoria (Oxford, 1997)Google Scholar; Waley, D., The Italian City-Republics (London, 1969)Google Scholar; Nicholas, D., The Growth of the Medieval City (Harlow, 1997)Google Scholar; Hyde, J.K., Society and Politics in Medieval Italy. The Evolution of the Civil Life 1000–1350 (London, 1973)Google Scholar.

3 See above, n. 2, and below, nn. 81, 82, 85.

4 Calasso, F., ‘La città nell'Italia meridionale durante l'età normanna’, Archivio Storico Pugliese 12 (1959), 268–9Google Scholar.

5 For continuity and transition from the late Roman to early medieval periods, see Gelichi, S., ‘The cities’, in La Rocca, C. (ed.), Italy in the Early Middle Ages (Oxford, 2002), 168–88Google Scholar. The city of Troia, for instance, in northern Apulia was founded in 1019; but it was located near to the abandoned classical settlement of Aecae, and evidence from Troia indicates some interest in its classical ‘predecessor’: Oldfield, P., ‘Rural settlement and economic development in southern Italy: Troia and its contado, C.1020–C.1230’, Journal of Medieval History 31 (2005), 332CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

6 Jones, The Italian City-State (above, n. 2), 74–85.

7 The classic work remains Sherwin-White, A.N., The Roman Citizenship (Oxford, 1973)Google Scholar; see also Gardner, J.F., Being a Roman Citizen (London, 1993)Google Scholar; The Oxford Classical Dictionary (third edition, ed. Hornblower, S. and Spawforth, A.) (Oxford, 1996), 334–5Google Scholar.

8 Lynch, K.A., Individuals, Families, and Communities in Europe, 1200–1800. The Urban Foundations of Western Society (Cambridge, 2003), 1516Google Scholar.

9 For a general discussion, see Vitolo, G., Città e coscienza cittadina nel Mezzogiorno medievale (sec. IX–XIII) (Salerno, 1990)Google Scholar.

10 P. Oldfield, ‘Urban government in Southern Italy (c.1085–c.1127)’, English Historical Review (forthcoming).

11 For more on the role of urban communities in self-government and the development of civic identity see the current author's doctoral thesis, entitled Urban Society and Communal Independence in Twelfth-century Mainland Southern Italy (University of Leeds, due for completion in 2006)Google Scholar.

12 For sources on the ‘invention’ of Saint Matthew and the translation of Saint Nicholas, see below, nn. 13 and 14. For Troia, see Poncelet, A. (ed.), ‘La translation des SS. Éleuthère, Pontien et Anastase’, Analecta Bollandiana 29 (1910), 409–26CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Falcone di Benevento, Chronicon Beneventanum, ed. D'Angelo, E. (Florence, 1998), 4850Google Scholar.

13 Romualdi Salernitani Chronicon, Rerum Italicarum Scriptores, 7 part 1, ed. Garufi, C.A (Città di Castello, 1935), 251Google Scholar; Galdi, A., ‘La diffusione del culto del santo patrono: l'esempio di S. Matteo di Salerno’, in Vitolo, G. (ed.), Pellegrinaggi e itinerari dei santi nel Mezzogiorno medievale (Naples, 1999), 181–91Google Scholar; Vitolo, G., ‘Città e Chiesa nel Mezzogiorno medievale; la processione del santo patrono a Salerno (sec. xii)’, in Delogu, P. and Peduto, P. (eds), Salerno nel XII secolo. Istituzioni, società, cultura. Atti del convegno internazionale (Salerno, 2004), 134–48Google Scholar; Travaini, L., La monetazione nell'Italia normanna (Rome, 1995), 44, 86, 262, 274Google Scholar.

14 See the account of Nicephorus, cleric of Bari, Vat. Lat. 5074, fols 5v–10v in Jones, C.W., Saint Nicholas of Myra, Bari and Manhattan. Biography of a Legend (Chicago, 1978), 176–93Google Scholar; di Vito, F. Nitti, La ripresa gregoriana di Bari (1087–1105); e i suoi riflessi nel mondo contemperaneopolitico e religioso (Trani, 1942)Google Scholar. For the Customs of Bari, see below, n. 33.

15 Vendola, D. (ed.), Documenti tratti dai registri Vaticani (da Innocenzo III a Nicola IV) (Documenti Vaticani relativi alla Puglia I) (Trani, 1940), 4955 no. 53Google Scholar.

16 The present essay focuses primarily on those areas of mainland southern Italy that were the most urbanized and essentially Latin, that is Campania and Apulia. Within these areas, for reasons of space, eight case-studies have been used. They were chosen as they offered sufficient source material to enable a detailed analysis and to provide a representative sample. Hopefully some of the findings can be used for other important cities of the region, such as Amalfi, Brindisi, Gaeta, Naples, Otranto and Taranto, which are not included here.

17 Bova, G. (ed.), Le pergamene Sveve della Mater Ecclesia Capuana (1229–1239) II (Naples, 1999), 135–42 no. 3.Google Scholar

18 Coniglio, G. (ed.), Le pergamene di Conversano I (901–1265) (Codice diplomatico pugliese XX) (Bari, 1975)Google Scholar [hereafter Conversano], no. 60.

19 To do justice to the wealth of material on Salerno, most of which remains unpublished, would require a thesis in itself. The present study has utilized all the published material available on the city, as well as a good quantity of unedited documents from the Cava archive, kindly provided by Graham Loud. These are easily extensive enough to draw detailed conclusions on the city while acknowledging that they can not be inclusive of the full body of documentation. Galante, M., Nuove pergamene del monastero femminile di S. Giorgio di Salerno I [993–1256] (Salerno, 1984), nos. 31, 40Google Scholar. In an inscription made in 1180 in the cathedral of Salerno, the famous royal vice-chancellor Matthew was described as magnus civis SalerniUghelli, F. (ed.), Italia Sacra sive de Episcopis Italiae (second edition by Colletti, N., 10 vols) (Venice, 17171721), VIII, 405Google Scholar; Salernitan cives are described in a variety of narrative sources, including the eleventh-century poetical works of Archbishop Alfanus I of Salerno and William of Apulia, as well as that of Peter of Eboli, which deals with the late twelfth century. There are also references in the chronicle attributed to Archbishop Romuald II of Salerno and the twelfth-century work of the so-called Hugo Falcandus. The city's 1127 pacta with Roger II, which only survives in a fifteenth-century copy, repeatedly refers to cives. However the pacta are transcribed more as a report by fifteenth-century Salernitani than as a verbatim document. Thus, although its content appears to reflect twelfth-century conditions, the same cannot be said as certainly for the language employed — De Renzi, S., Storia documentata della Scuola Medica di Salerno (Naples, 1857Google Scholar; reprinted Milan, 1967), lxxii–lxxvi doc. 177.

20 Codex Diplomaticus Cajetanus, Tabularium Casinense (Monte Cassino, 1891) [hereafter CDC] II, 227–8 no. 308Google Scholar.

21 Prologo, A. (ed.), Le carte che si conservano nello archivio dello capitolo metropolitano della città di Trani (dal IX secolo fino all'anno 1266) (Barletta, 1877)Google Scholar [hereafter Trani], nos. 59, 69, 70.

22 Trani no. 37.

23 Trani nos. 81, 84.

24 Huillard-Bréholles, J.-L.A., Historia Diplomatica Friderici Secundi I (I, II) (Paris, 1852), 375–7Google Scholar.

25 Tamassia, N., ‘Ius Affidandi. Origine e svolgimento nell'Italia meridionale’, Atti del Reale Istituto Veneto di Scienze Lettere ed Arti 72 (2) (19121913), 343–90Google Scholar; Martin, J.-M., La Pouille du VI au XII siècle (Rome, 1993), 313Google Scholar.

26 di Vito, F. Nitti (ed.), Le pergamene di S. Nicola di Bari. Periodo normanno (1075–1194) (Codice diplomatico barese V) (Bari, 1902Google Scholar; reprinted 1968) [hereafter CDBV], no. 51.

27 CDBV no. 59.

28 CDBV no. 74.

29 Bruhl, C.R. (ed.), Rogerii II Regis Diplomata Latina (Codex Diplomaticus Regni Siciliae, Ser. I.ii(1)) (Cologne, 1987), 54–6 no. 20Google Scholar.

30 In 1177 Pope Alexander III ratified an exchange made between the church of San Nicola of Bari and four men, who were addressed as Barenses cives: de Rossi, G.B. Nitto and di Vito, F. Nitti (eds), Le pergamene del duomo di Bari (952–1264) (Codice diplomatico barese I) (Bari, 1867Google Scholar; reprinted 1964) [hereafter CDBI], no. 53. A fragmentary private document of 1180 also mentions a ‘citizen’, CDBV no. 144. An equally fragmentary document of 1169, recorded at Trani, refers to a concivis of a person from Bari, CDBV no. 127.

31 Radonic, J. (ed.), Acta et Diplomata Ragusina (Fontes Rerum Slavorum Meridionalium) (Belgrade, 1934), I, no. 13Google Scholar.

32 di Vito, F. Nitti (ed.), Le pergamene di S. Nicola di Bari. Periodo svevo (1195–1266) (Codice diplomatico barese VI) (Bari, 1906), nos. 16, 30, 50Google Scholar. There are examples though of more specifically identified cives: in 1216 a Malgerius de Comestabulo asculensis [Ascoli Satriano] civis et barensis appears; it is impossible to know whether we are dealing with dual citizenship or some form of surname, CDBI no. 84. In 1205 John de Agralisto was described by the archbishop of Bari as nobilis concivis noster. In the document in question John was to be the only exception to the rule that prohibited clerics from belonging to the clergy of San Nicol a and the cathedral at the same time, CDBI no. 73.

33 Petroni, G., Della storia di Bari dagli antichi tempi sino all'anno 1856 (Naples, 18571858), vol. 2 app. rubric II, 1, 2, 7Google Scholar.

34 Petroni, Della storia di Bari (above, n. 33), rubric II, 8.

35 Petroni, Della storia di Bari (above, n. 33), rubric II, 3.

36 Petroni, Della storia di Bari (above, n. 33), rubric II, 5.

37 Petroni, Della storia di Bari (above, n. 33), rubric II, 7, 11.

38 Petroni, Della storia di Bari (above, n. 33), rubric III, 4.

39 Martin, J.-M. (ed.), Chronicon Sanctae Sophiae (Fonti per la storia dell'Italia medievale, Rerum Italicarum Scriptores 3*–3**) (Rome, 2000), 744–7 no. vi.24, 786–8 no. vi.37, 662–6 no. v.12Google Scholar.

40 Borgia, S., Memorie istoriche della pontificia città di Benevento dal secolo VIII al secolo XVIII (Rome, 17631769), III, 185–7Google Scholar.

41 Tropeano, P.M. (ed.), Codice diplomatico verginiano, 12 vols (Montevergine, 1977–)Google Scholar [hereafter Montevergine], II, 71–4 no. 117.

42 Montevergine IV, 55–8 no. 315; Ciarelli, A., de Donato, V. and Matera, V. (eds), Le più antiche carte del capitolo della cattedrale di Benevento (668–1200) (Fonti per la storia dell'Italia medievale, Regesta Chartarum LV) (Rome, 2002), 271–3 no. 97Google Scholar.

43 Borgia, Memorie istoriche (above, n. 40), III, 163–6.

44 Montevergine II, 296–9 no. 169; Hageneder, O., Maleckzek, W. and Stmad, A.A. (eds), Die Register Innocenz III — 2. Pontifikatsjahr, 1199/1200 (Vienna, 1979), 419–20 no. 216Google Scholar.

45 Borgia, Memorie istoriche (above, n. 40), II, 423.

46 Borgia, Memorie istoriche (above, n. 40), II, 413, 422.

47 Presutti, P. (ed.), Regesta Honorii Papae III, 3 vols (Rome, 18881895), I, 25 no. 133Google Scholar.

48 See above, n. 34.

49 Jones, The Italian City-State (above, n. 2), 288; Martin, Pouille (above, n. 25), 309; G. Fasoli, ‘Città e ceti urbani nell'età dei due Guglielmi’, in Potere, società epopolo nell'età dei due Guglielmi. Atti delle quarte giornate normanno-sveve. Bari, 1979 (Bari, 1981), 162, suggested little difference between burgenses and cives.

50 Article 3, The Assizes of King Roger. Text of Cod. Vat. Lat. 8782, translation courtesy of G.A. Loud.

51 Gallo, A. (ed.), Codice diplomatico normanno di Aversa (Naples, 1926) [hereafter CDNA], 99101 no. 57Google Scholar.

52 Mazzoleni, J. (ed.), Le pergamene di Capua (Naples, 1957), I, 25–6 no. 10Google Scholar.

53 CDNA 99–101 no. 57, 105–7 no. 61, 113–14 no. 65, 341–2 no. 19 (54), 135–6 no. 78, 157–60 no. 89; Montevergine X, 91–4 no. 927. Some of these burgenses had surnames of professions that may have represented their present job, like Gilbert Parmentarius (tailor), who also received the dyeing rights in 1109, or that denoted their descent from an old artisan family, like Clement Tallapetra (quarryman/sculptor), who was a leading urban official (stratigotus) of Aversa. Others were the sons of artisans, like Roger son of Pipin tanitor (tanner), while the deacon Robert de Sancto Paulo, not described as a burgensis, inherited shops from his father William, who had been one. See below, n. 56.

54 CDNA 341–2 no. 19 (54), 132–4 no. 76, 180–2 no. 100, 187–92 nos. 103–4, 339–40 no. 18 (54); Salvati, C. (ed.), Codice diplomatico svevo di Aversa [parte prima] (Naples, 1980)Google Scholar [hereafter CDSA], 28–30 no. 14, 219–21 no. 109.

55 Conversano no. 94.

56 ‘Robbertus de Sancto Paulo, filius olim Willelmi de Sancto Paulo, qui fuit unus ex burgiensibus Averse’, CDNA 157–60 no. 89; ‘Laurentius filius quondam Raonis Monsororii, qui fuit unus ex burgiensibus civitatis Averse’, Montevergine X, 91–4 no. 927. The ambiguity of the Latin makes it difficult to know for certain whether the qui clause refers to the father or the son, though the latter appears more likely in both cases.

57 Clementi, D.R., ‘Calendar of the diplomas of the Hohenstaufen emperor Henry VI concerning the kingdom of Sicily’, Quellen und Forschungen aus Italienischen Archiven und Bibliotheken 35 (1955), 166–7 no. 79Google Scholar.

58 For example Montevergine XI, 133–7 no. 1037; Bova, G.(ed.), Le pergamene sveve della Mater Ecclesia Capuana (1201–1229) I (Naples, 1998), 147–51 no. 17Google Scholar; CDSA 10–13 no. 5, 24–6 no. 12, 43–5 no. 21, 152–5 no. 76, 201–2 no. 99; Houben, H., ‘Urkunden zur italienischen Rechtsgeschichte. Abschriften aus dem Staats-archiv Neapel im Nachlass Julius Ficker’, Quellen und Forschungen aus Italienischen Archiven und Bibliotheken 79 (1999), 76 no. 18Google Scholar.

59 CDSA 63–6 no. 31, 142–3 no. 70, 155–6 no. 77, 175–7 no. 86, 193–5 no. 95.

60 CDSA 108–9 no. 53, 142–3 no. 70, 146–8 no. 72, 155–6 no. 77, 161–3 no. 80, 168–70 no. 83, 193–5 no. 95, 197–9 no. 97, 272–4 no. 136. Document no. 136 sees a woman carrying the civis title. The possible connection between tax-paying/property ownership and citizenship is perhaps seen in the already discussed document of 1215 for Trani (see above, n. 24).

61 Huillard-Bréholles, J.-L.A., Historia Diplomatica Friderici Secundi (IV, I) (Paris, 1854), title vi (58) p. 123, title xliii (22) pp. 148–9Google Scholar; Powell's English translation here reads ‘townsman’ for burgensis — The Liber Augustalis or Consitutions of Melfi Promulgated by the Emperor Frederick II for the Kingdom of Sicily in 1231, trans. Powell, James M. (New York, 1971), 109, 129–30Google Scholar.

62 Martin, J.M. (ed.), Les chartes de Troia. Edition et étude critique des plus anciens documents conservés à l'Archivio Capitolare I (1024–1266) (Codice diplomatico pugliese XXI ) (Bari, 1976) [hereafter Troia], no. 50Google Scholar.

63 Troia no. 50 clauses 7, 8, 22.

64 Troia nos. 86, 92, 93, 100, 103, 121, 128, 129, 133, 139, 141–3, 158; Leccisotti, T. (ed.), Le colonie cassinesi in Capitanata IV Troia (Miscellanea cassinese XXIX) (Montecassino, 1957), 108–9 no. 38, 111–12 no. 40Google Scholar; Montevergine VI, 255–8 no. 568; VII, 23–6 no. 606, 296–8 no. 684; X, 81–4 no. 924, 116–19 no. 935.

65 Martin, J.-M., Foggia nel medioevo (Rome, 1998), especially pp. 2953Google Scholar; Oldfield, ‘Rural settlement and economic development’ (above, n. 5), 327–45.

66 CDNA 270–2 no. 143; Houben, H., ‘Urkunden zur italienischen Rechtsgeschichte’, Quellen und Forschungen aus Italienischen Archiven und Bibliotheken 79 (1999), 57–9Google Scholar; Leccisotti (ed.), Le colonie (above, n. 64), 106–7 no. 36, 110–11 no. 39.

67 These discords had turned violent at least by the 1190s, for example Troia 114–15, 139; see also above, n. 15.

68 Fasoli, ‘Città e ceti urbani’ (above, n. 49), 161–3; Chalandon, F., Histoire de la domination normande en Italie et en Sicilie (Paris, 1907), II, 601–2Google Scholar. The latter set reflects the medieval literary perception that society had a tripartite ordering, which had both ancient and ecclesiological influences, of those who prayed, those who fought and those who worked: Murray, A., Reason and Society in the Middle Ages (Oxford, 1978), 96Google Scholar.

69 de Pouille, Guillaume, La geste de Robert Guiscard, ed. Mathieu, M. (Palermo, 1961), 159–73Google Scholar.

70 Pellegrino, C. (ed.), Anonymi Barensis Chronicon (855–1149) (Rerum Italicarum Scriptores V) (Milan, 1724), 154Google Scholarad annum 1117; ‘Vita de S. Joanne Matherens’, Acta Sanctorum, June vol. V, ed. Cardanet, J. (Paris, 1867), 38–9.Google Scholar

71 Falcone di Benevento, ed. E. D'Angelo (above, n. 12), 230.

72 1137: Falcone di Benevento, ed. E. D'Angelo (above, n. 12), 188; 1162: Siragusa, G.B., La Historia o Liber de Regno Sicilie e la Epistola ad Petrum ad Petrum Panormitane Ecclesie Thesaurium di Ugo Falcando (Fonti per la storia d'Italia 22), 81Google Scholar, and in the English translation by Loud and Wiedemann, 131–2, for which see below, n. 76; 1191: Siragusa, G.B., Liber ad Honorem Augusti di Pietro da Eboli (Fontiper la storia d'Italia 39), 39 line 453Google Scholar.

73 Cassandro, G., ‘La Promissio del Duc a Sergio e la Societas napoletana’, Archivio Storico Italiano 100 (1942), appendix, 145Google Scholar; CDC II, no. 301 p. 216.

74 Lynch, Individuals, Families, and Communities (above, n. 8), 14–15.

75 Fasoli, G., ‘Governanti e governati nei comuni cittadini fra l'xi ed il xiii secolo’, in Fasoli, G.,Scritti di storia medievale (Bologna, 1974), 205–6Google Scholar.

76 Murray, Reason and Society (above, n. 68), 97–101. The idea of Fortune's Wheel features in southern Italy in the work of Geoffrey Malaterra and especially in that of the so-called ‘Hugo Falcandus’ in the twelfth century; Gaufredus Malaterra, De Rebus Gestis Rogerii Calabriae et Siciliae Comitis et Roberti Ducis Fratris Eius, ed. Pontieri, E. (Rerum Italicarum Scriptores V part 1) (Bologna, 19251928)Google Scholar and Falcandus, Hugo, The History of the Tyrants of Sicily by ‘Hugo Falcandus’, 1154–1169, ed. Loud, G.A. and Wiedemann, T. (Manchester, 1998), 37–8Google Scholar.

77 A much expanded discussion on the social groupings of southern Italy's medieval urban communities can be found in the present author's doctoral thesis, for which see above, n. 11.

78 S. Reynolds, ‘Social mentalities and the case of medieval scepticism’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, series 5 no. 41 (1991), 21–41 (also reprinted in Reynolds, S., Ideas and Solidarities of the Medieval Laity (Aldershot, 1995))Google Scholar.

79 In 1180 a notary from Bari was said to be ‘in Boloniam ad legendum’, CDBV no. 144. In 1199 an archdeacon of Otranto was then ‘in scolis apud Boloniam’, CDSA no. 9.

80 Wickham, C., ‘The sense of the past in Italian communal narratives’, in Magdalino, P. (ed.), The Perception of the Past in Twelfth-Century Europe (London, 1992), 185–7Google Scholar.

81 Waley, D., Siena and the Sienese in the Thirteenth Century (Cambridge, 1991), 72CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

82 Bowsky, W.M., ‘Medieval citizenship: the individual and the state in the commune of Siena, 1287–1355’, Studies in Medieval and Renaissance History 4 (1967), 193243Google Scholar.

83 CDBI no. 57.

84 The influence of Christianity on the idea of civis and civitas, and especially Saint Augustine and his work The City of God, could also offer an interesting route to explore.

85 Kirshner, J., ‘Civitas sibi faciat civem; Bartolous of Sassoferato's doctrine on the making of a citizen’, Speculum 48 (1973), 694713CrossRefGoogle Scholar.