XIX - PISA UNDER THE GOVERNMENT OF THE CONSULS

Summary

As we have already seen, the Commune was in its inception simply a private association; and a private association it long remained: tolerated by the Marquises of Tuscany and by the Bishops of Pisa, but, until its existence had been formally recognized by the Empire, undoubtedly illegal. The armatori and merchant adventurers who formed its constituent parts were rather an aristocracy than an oligarchy; and they were able to maintain and extend their authority because they were, in fact, not merely the best but also the only possible interpreters of the aspirations and ambitions of their fellow-citizens. There were, no doubt, craftsmen in Pisa long before the birth of the Commune; the fact that Pisa was the seat of a bishopric would alone have sufficed to produce a certain amount of trade; for in the Middle Ages churches and monasteries contributed greatly to the development of town life. If we look no further afield than our own country, we shall recall the ten traders who dwelt “in front of the door of the church” at Abingdon, and the “bakers, ale-brewers, tailors, washerwomen, shoemakers, robe-makers, cooks, porters and agents”, who “waited daily upon the Saint and the Abbot and the Friars” at Bury St Edmunds. In the document which contains the first undisputed record of Consuls in Pisa we have also record of Fabri, who seem to have been employed in work upon the cathedral, and appealed “humillimis supplicationibus” to Archbishop Daibert for protection.