Rural Lordship

Rural lordship is one of the classic medieval themes of recent decades, but its specific developments of the late Middle Ages have long been neglected by research, especially engaged in considering other processes in these centuries, such as the construction of regional states, the economic dynamics, the urban riots. This volume, as part of a large research project coordinated by Sandro Carocci, intends to help fill this gap by offering a wide sample of cases, relating to very different areas of the Italian peninsula. Local realities are investigated here from a very specific perspective, that is, in their strictly political dimension: while taking into account the broad contexts (economic, settlement and social) in which the rural lordships are located, the main questions of this volume focus on forms of the lordly domain and its relations with the subjects, with the regional states and with the other lordly powers.

Il tema dell'aristocrazia territoriale e del suo ruolo nella costituzione del ducato visconteo-sforzesco è stato marginalizzato dalla storiografia politico-istituzionale in favore di un paradigma interpretativo centrato su un modello di stato territoriale a base urbana. Diverse ricerche recenti, tuttavia, hanno mostrato la necessità di complicare tale modello e di sottoporlo verifiche puntuali nelle sue articolazioni locali, rimarcando la pluralità di attori e di linguaggi politici che anima una dialettica non costringibile nell'alveo del rapporto preferenziale principe-città. Questo contributo si propone di sottolineare alcuni aspetti della complessa interazione fra i grandi casati signorili e un potere ducale non sempre in grado di preseguire un coerente sforzo di disciplinamento dell'aristocrazia, che mantiene almeno fino alla metà del XVI secolo un forte ascendente sulla società lombarda.

In February 2009, in anticipation of the construction of a detached house, the Inrap undertook an excavation on the outskirts of a Higher Middle-Ages settlement. The findings, of variable states of preservation, consist of incurved ditches, cabin bases and a few pits, fireplaces and postholes, the organization of which was not immediately apparent. Through a regressive cartography operation, it is evident that the neighbouring parcel corresponds to the curtis Sancti Vulmari site, a.k.a. Saumer ‘cense’, first mentioned in 1148, abandoned around 1475, but the location of which is recalled down to the 18th century. The records of the said court in the 12th century are further associated with an altare (altar and inherent benefits), a Saint-Wulmer’s church that did not survive for long (perhaps of early 13th century date). The reference on the ancient tithe cadastral survey, associated with the Lower Middle-Ages estate, shows a compact establishment centered on the ‘cense’, corresponding probably to the extent of the former (12th-13th centuries or earlier ?) estate.
If a continuous occupation from the late 7th century to the 12th century cannot be established on the basis of such a limited excavation, it cannot, nonetheless, be discarded a priori. A few clues lead us to think that the occupation of this part of the Gohelle might have been structured along a dense network of estates of varying sizes. In the case of Méricourt, the village aggregation may have followed in the vicinity of the castle, within the limits of a territory bearing no relation to the ancient parishes and ruled according to seigniorial customs. The compactness of the tithe mapping of Saumer would then stand out against the parcelling out of the estate in the 15th-18th centuries, a consequence of this supposed territorial (re-) organization, the occurrence of which remains undetermined.

The focus of this essay are the scutiferi and the masnadieri, a category which included armed men on horseback who were of humble origins but became clearly separated from the simple rustici through military practice, closeness to the local lord  as well as through their lifestyle, which bore various similarities to that of the knights. Infact, carrying out armed activities on horseback, whether or not within a feudo-vassalic relationship, was the primary, and therefore the busiest, way for upward social mobility within the rural lordships. Besides, the growing complexity of the economy during the 12th century also began to offer new possibilities for economic accumulation and investment and ever faster social mobility in the countryside. From the 13th century onwards the consolidation of the city communes’ power over ever wider areas of the countryside, opened up to the members of the rural elites a further and more direct channel to access military status. The analysis of this group in therefore very useful to observe the many channels through which mobility between social levels could take place, both within the context of service to the lords and outside the bounds of relationships with the rural lordships.

La gran expansión territorial sobre el Islam protagonizada
por Alfonso I el Batallador quedó completada, en
lo que a la definitiva configuración territorial de Aragón
se refiere, durante los reinados de Alfonso II
(1162-1196) y Pedro II (1189-1213) con la ofensiva
aragonesa en las cuencas de los ríos Martín, Guadalope
y Matarraña, en la desembocadura del Ebro, en las tierras
de Teruel y en buena parte de las poblaciones de la
actual comarca de Gúdar-Javalambre. La instalación del
nuevo poder cristiano aragonés conllevó un profundo
cambio en la organización jurídica, administrativa,
social, económica y militar de los espacios incorporados.
La concesión de fueros, la organización municipal
y la formación de grandes señoríos (concejiles, laicos y
eclesiásticos) constituyeron los instrumentos jurídicos
que posibilitaron la nueva organización, así como la regulación de la vida interna de estas tierras de frontera en la extremadura aragonesa.

Au milieu du VIIe siècle, Remacle fonde l’abbaye de Stavelot-Malmedy en Ardenne. Liée aux Pippinides et développant le culte de son saint fondateur, cette institution est pourvue richement en hommes et en terres.
L’ouvrage suit l’histoire des seigneuries de l’abbaye jusqu’au XIVe siècle. Il s’inspire de divers courants historiographiques européens, articulant approches classiques et novatrices pour aborder l’histoire sociale et économique de l’espace entre Meuse et Moselle.
La première partie retrace l’histoire événementielle, politique et institutionnelle de l’abbaye en veillant à dépasser les stéréotypes de « déclin » et de « réforme ». Elle analyse les relations des moines et de leur abbé avec la royauté, la papauté et l’aristocratie dans le cadre du royaume franc, de l’empire ottonien et salien, mais aussi face au mouvement grégorien et à l’émergence des principautés territoriales en Basse-Lotharingie.
La deuxième partie du livre aborde la domination sociale, la production et la circulation de biens dans les seigneuries monastiques. Jusqu’au XIIe siècle, l’organisation domaniale et la familia, le groupe formé par l’ensemble des hommes et des femmes dépendant de saint Remacle, sont des structures seigneuriales fondamentales. Aux XIIIe et XIVe siècles, la transformation des formes de domination sociale, des liens entre paysans, des rapports internes à l’aristocratie et de l’économie entraînent une restructuration des seigneuries en profondeur. Autour de l’articulation formelle entre pouvoir hautain et foncier, les communautés rurales du Pays de Stavelot et d’autres institutions essentielles de la principauté abbatiale de Stavelot-Malmedy apparaissent pour la première fois sous les traits qu’elles conserveront jusqu’à la Révolution.

In his thesis about Catalonia, Pierre Bonnassie highlighted the widespread use of hydraulic energy from streams. During 10 th and 11 th centuries many peasants were involved in building themselves a lot of small mills that they shared in common, so that each owner could use the mill several days a week. This form of ownership survived in most parishes around the massif of Gavarres (east of Girona) during 13 th and 14 th centuries, when manorial «capbreus» record not only the name of mills and streams where they are raised, but also the rights of individual peasants and their respective lords. Only in two parishes, Cruïlles and Sant Sadurní, we have 34 mills.

Comment mesurer le degré d'adhésion des sujets de la seigneurie rurale, et surtout des serfs, au système qui organisait leur propre exploitation ? On s'intéresse ici au contexte qui voit naître des formes honorables de la dépendance rurale, durant les siècles centraux du Moyen Âge. Le territoire pris en compte est le contado florentin des XIIe et XIIIe siècles. Les seigneuries rurales y apparaissent comme des constructions collectives. Ces pouvoirs servent l'aristocratie, mais animent en même temps les ambitions des populations qui lui sont soumises. Si l'usage de la contrainte permet aux seigneurs de rétablir les hiérarchies, l'économie de prédation sur laquelle repose la seigneurie implique en réalité de s'appuyer sur une foule d'intermédiaires qui participent, de la sorte, aux formes et aux profits de la domination aristocratique. Dans ce contexte, la tentative de valorisation des dépendances rurales mise en œuvre par des seigneuries déjà très institutionnalisées, au XIIIe siècle, semble avoir connu un succès relatif auprès des populations de dépendants aisés.

En la seva tesi, Pierre Bonnassie destacava la generalitzacio de l’aprofitament de l’energia hidraulica de les rieres catalanes. Als segles x i xi molts pagesos emprengueren la tasca de construir ells mateixos, de manera associada, aquests petits molins que despres compartien, de manera que cadascun dels copropietaris en podia disposar durant uns quants dies a la setmana. Aquesta forma de possessio pervivia a la majoria de parroquies que encerclaven el massis de les Gavarres als segles XIII i XIV, quan els capbreus senyorials enregistren no tan sols el nom dels molins i de les rieres on estan aixecats, sino tambe els drets de cadascun dels pagesos i dels respectius senyors. Per a les parroquies de Cruilles i de Sant Sadurni, n’hem comptat 34, dels quals 17 es trobaven en el curs del Daro, 8 a la riera de Pastells, 4 al Rissec, 2 a la riera de la Ganga i 3 mes en torrents menors. La pervivencia d’aquest model de moli pages fins al segle XIV, a banda de factors geografics, es podria d...

The essay focuses on the origin and the content of the Mandelli’s lordship in Piovera, castrum on the Tanaro, in Pavia countryside, that in the 14th-15th centuries was provided with strategic importance because of its position between the Duchy of Milan and southern Piedmont. Based on the pre-eminence of land and in 1450 strenghtend by the promotion of Piovera in comitatus, the exercise of the seigniorial powers by the Mandelli particularly concerned the transit "per terram et per aquam", as well as the exploitation of areas near the river. The essay weighs up the amount and the incidence of some land and seigniorial revenues, thanks to documents produced during disputes opposing counts and some competitors about these powers in the 15th century.

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The paper aims to examine the dominatus of the Fogliano family, one of the most important lordships in the countryside of Reggio emilia. Articulated around the many fortresses and castles which characterized the region, the seigniory of the Fogliano family was characterized by a substantial overlap, in relation to the exploitation of land and the control over the homines of the communities, between political and economic spaces. In other words, control over the resources of a given area was activated as a result of the domini political affirmation over it. This does not mean, however, that the lordship was folded back on itself: the case study of the dispute between the Fogliano, the Dallo and the commune of Reggio emilia concerning the right to graze on the pastures of the Cusna mountain shows that the lordship was affected by commercial contacts with regions not necessarily close by. Some remarks on the control that the Fogliano family could exercise over the parish churches, the mountain markets and the roads crossing their lordship further enriches the panorama of the lords’ economic spheres of action.

In Late-Medieval Lombardy, social, economic and institutional changes weakened seigniorial control over tithes; rural lords were often replaced by new players (i.e. rural communities, urban aristocracy). In this essay, I will first analyze this transition; then, I will examine the seigniorial management of tithes.
The strategies adopted by the lords to control this right, the negotiations with the rural communities, and the ways of managing this important economic income allow us to understand relevant aspects of the seigniorial power in Lombardy at the end of the Middle Ages.

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