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THE ‘FEUDAL REVOLUTION’ AND THE ORIGINS OF ITALIAN CITY COMMUNES*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 October 2014

Chris Wickham
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Abstract

This article takes two major moments of social change in central medieval Europe, the ‘feudal revolution’ in France and the origins of Italian city communes, in order to see what they have in common. They are superficially very different, one rural one urban, and also one whose analysts focus on the breakdown of political power and the other on its construction or reconstruction; but there are close parallels between the changes which took place in France around 1000 or 1050 and those which took place in Italy around 1100. The contrast in dates does not matter; what matters is that in each case larger-scale political breakdown (whether at the level of the kingdom or the county) was matched by local recomposition, the intensification or crystallisation of local power structures which had been much more ad hoc before, and which would be the basic template for local power henceforth. In Italy, the main focus of the article, the different experiences of Pisa and Genoa are compared, and the development of urban assemblies first, consular collectives second, communal institutions third, are all analysed from this perspective, as guides to how the city communes of the peninsula developed, however haltingly and insecurely. The article finishes with a brief comment on the sociology of Pierre Bourdieu.

Type
The Prothero Lecture
Information
Transactions of the Royal Historical Society , Volume 24 , December 2014 , pp. 29 - 55
Copyright
Copyright © Royal Historical Society 2014 

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Footnotes

*

I am grateful to Simone Collavini, Maria Elena Cortese, Alessio Fiore and Charles West for critiquing this text.

References

1 Useful historiographical guides (none of them, of course, neutral) include Lauranson-Rosaz, C., ‘Le débat sur la mutation féodale’, in Europe around the Year 1000, ed. Urbanczyk, P. (Warsaw, 2001), 11–40Google Scholar; MacLean, S., ‘Apocalypse and Revolution: Europe around the Year 1000’, Early Medieval Europe, 15 (2007), 86–106CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Barthélemy, D., The Serf, the Knight and the Historian, trans. Edwards, G. R. (Ithaca, NY, 2009), 1–11, 302–13Google Scholar; West, C., Reframing the Feudal Revolution (Cambridge, 2013), 1–9CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

2 Bisson, T. N., The Crisis of the Twelfth Century (Princeton, 2009)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, is not really about the ‘feudal revolution’ but about its aftermath in the late eleventh and twelfth centuries; Barthélemy has become more interested in the Peace of God and knighthood (see, among others, Chevaliers et miracles (Paris, 2004)).

3 West, Reframing the Feudal Revolution; Mark Whittow is also preparing a book on this subject.

4 Duby, G., La société aux XIe et XIIe siècles dans la région mâconnaise, 2nd edn (Paris, 1971), esp. 137–90Google Scholar; Poly, J.-P. and Bournazel, É., La mutation féodale, Xe–XIIe siècles (Paris, 1980)Google Scholar.

5 See esp., beyond the citations in n. 2, Barthélemy, D., La mutation de l’an mil a-t-elle eu lieu? (Paris, 1997), 13–28Google Scholar, and Barton, R. E., Lordship in the County of Maine c. 890–1160 (Woodbridge, 2004)Google Scholar (both against); the debate between Bisson, T. N. and several commentators in Past and Present, 142 (1994), 6–42CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 152 (1996), 196–223, 155 (1997), 177–225; Poly, J.-P. and Bournazel, É., Les féodalités (Paris, 1998)Google Scholar – only a small number of the contributions, but perhaps the main ones which stand now to represent it.

6 My own contributions included ‘Debate: The “Feudal Revolution”’, Past and Present, 155 (1997), 196–208; and ‘Property Ownership and Signorial Power in Twelfth-Century Tuscany’, in Property and Power in the Early Middle Ages, ed. W. Davies and P. Fouracre (Cambridge, 1995), 221–44 (partially reprising ‘La mutación feudal en Italia’, in Los orígenes del feudalismo en el mundo mediterráneo (Granada, 1994), 31–55), as the most focused examples, but reading through my 1990s articles I find echoes of the debate in many other pieces too.

7 Althoff, G., Spielregeln der Politik im Mittelalter (Darmstadt, 1997)Google Scholar, discusses the tenth and eleventh centuries; idem, Die Macht der Rituale (Darmstadt, 2003), 38–67, discusses the ninth, and 68–135 the tenth–eleventh again, in less detail. The analyses are developed in, among others, C. Pössel, ‘Symbolic Communication and the Negotiation of Power at Carolingian Regnal Assemblies, 814–840’ (Ph.D. thesis, University of Cambridge, 2003), and West, Reframing the Feudal Revolution, 87–95.

8 Italian historiography, even the strong contribution made to it by French scholarship, has in general been much less interested in the debate: François Menant, for example, who is of course fully aware of it, as his thèse shows (Campagnes lombardes au moyen âge (Rome, 1993), e.g. 563), does not even mention it in his important synthesis ‘La féodalité italienne entre XIe et XIIe siècles’, Settimane di studio, 47 (2000), 347–87. Barbero, A., ‘La polemica sulla mutazione feudale’, Storica, 3 (1995), 73–86Google Scholar (a sharp-eyed review of Barthélemy's own thèse), and Carocci, S., ‘Signoria rurale e mutazione feudale’, Storica, 8 (1997), 49–91Google Scholar (one of the best analytical surveys of seigneurial power) treated it as an essentially French, not an Italian, debate. A. Fiore, ‘Dal diploma al patto’, in press, is certainly what the French would call ‘mutationiste’ but does not refer to the French problematic (I am very grateful to the author for a copy of the text). The historiography of the signoria is in fact at least as developed as that on the seigneurie, but its focus has been different, as a glance at Strutture e trasformazioni della signoria rurale nei secoli X–XIII, ed. G. Dilcher and C. Violante (Bologna, 1996) (notwithstanding Barthélemy's contribution to it), or the two volumes of La signoria rurale nel medioevo italiano, ed. A. Spicciani and C. Violante (Pisa, 1997–8), shows. My own views are summarised in ‘La signoria rurale in Toscana’, in Strutture e trasformazioni, ed. Dilcher and Vi, 343–409.

9 Fossier, R., Enfance de l’Europe (Paris, 1982), 288Google Scholar.

10 West, Reframing the Feudal Revolution.

11 A good regional-based model for northern Italy is Menant, Campagnes lombardes; the other key monographic works are Keller, H., Signori e vassalli nell’Italia delle città (secoli IX–XII) (Ital. trans., Turin, 1995)Google Scholar; Settia, A. A., Castelli e villaggi nell’Italia padana (Naples, 1984)Google Scholar; and the collective La vassalità maggiore del Regno Italico, ed. A. Castagnetti (Rome, 2001). For the frequency of castles, see for Tuscany Castelli, i, ed. R. Francovich and M. Ginatempo (Florence, 2000). Tuscany, however, faced a sharper rural crisis because political breakdown all happened very late in the eleventh century, as we shall see later; a good local study of that is Cortese, M. E., Signori, castelli, città (Florence, 2007)Google Scholar.

12 See Manaresi, C., I placiti del ‘Regnum Italiae’ (3 vols., Rome, 1955–60)Google Scholar, for almost all the texts; Bougard, F., La justice dans le royaume d’Italie de la fin du VIIIe siècle au début du XIe siècle (Rome, 1995)Google Scholar for the basic analysis.

13 Good introductions (out of several in the last decade or so) include Menant, F., L’Italie des communes (1100–1350) (Paris, 2005)Google Scholar; Milani, G., I comuni italiani (Bari, 2005)Google Scholar.

14 I discuss this in greater detail in Sleepwalking into a New World (Princeton, in press); see ch. 1 for the historiography (but a good recent survey is already Grillo, P., ‘La frattura inesistente’, Archivio storico italiano, 167 (2009), 673–700)Google Scholar and the ideal type. Keller, H., ‘Gli inizi del comune in Lombardia’, in L’evoluzione delle città italiane nell’XI secolo, ed. Bordone, R. and Jarnut, J. (Bologna, 1988), 45–70Google Scholar, is basic for the invisibility of communal origins. The document for Pisa in 1080–1, actually issued by a Sardinian ruler and in the Sard language, is most recently edited in I brevi dei consoli del comune di Pisa degli anni 1162 e 1164, ed. O. Banti (Rome, 1997), 107–8; for its dating to 1080–1 (rather than to the wider limits of 1080–5) and a good analysis, see Ronzani, M., Chiesa e ‘Civitas’ di Pisa nella seconda metà del secolo XI (Pisa, 1996), 190–9Google Scholar.

15 See, as one example out of many, Monumenta Germaniae Historica (henceforth MGH), Die Urkunden und Briefe der Markgrävin Mathilde von Tuszien, ed. E. and W. Goez (Hanover, 1998), nn. 52, 52, 56, 61, for Tuscany in 1099–1100. Cf. for northern Europe L. Genicot, ‘Sur la survivance de la notion d’état dans l’Europe du Nord au haut moyen âge’, in Institutionen, Kultur und Gesellschaft, ed. L. Fenske et al. (Sigmaringen, 1984), 147–64; Y. Sassier, ‘L’utilisation d’un concept romain aux temps carolingiens’, Médiévales, 15 (1988), 17–29; and, for the continuing force of ‘public’ justice well after 1000 in France, even if in a county (Anjou) with a fuller survival of public power than many, Lemesle, B., Conflits et justice au moyen âge (Paris, 2008), 41–6Google Scholar.

16 For the palace, see Garzella, G., Pisa com’era (Naples, 1990), 86–8, 109–11Google Scholar. For the political history see esp. Ronzani, Chiesa e ‘Civitas’ di Pisa, and idem, ‘L’affermazione dei Comuni cittadini fra impero e papato’, in Poteri centrali e autonomie nella Toscana medievale e moderna, ed. G. Pinto and L. Tanzini (Florence, 2012), 1–57; for the wars, most recently Salvatori, E., ‘Lo spazio economico di Pisa nel Mediterraneo: dall’XI alla metà del XII secolo’, Bullettino dell’Istituto storico italiano per il medioevo, 115 (2013), 119–52Google Scholar (I am very grateful to the author for a copy of the text before publication).

17 Rossetti, G., ‘Il lodo del vescovo Daiberto sull’altezza delle torri’, in Pisa e la Toscana occidentale nel Medioevo, ii (Pisa, 1991), 25–47Google Scholar; Matzke, cf. M., Daibert von Pisa (Sigmaringen, 1998), 61–5Google Scholar.

18 I brevi dei consoli, ed. Banti, 60, 88.

19 Carte dell’Archivio arcivescovile di Pisa, ii, ed. S. P. P. Scalfati (Pisa, 2006), nn. 10–12 (a. 1109), 14 (a. 1110), 19 (a. 1111), 20 (a. 1112); Documenti sulle relazioni delle città toscane coll’Oriente cristiano e coi Turchi, ed. G. Müller (Florence, 1879), 43–5, 52–4 (the 1111 trade treaty); Liber Maiolichinus de gestis Pisanorum illustribus, ed. C. Calisse (Rome, 1904). For 1109, see Ronzani, M., ‘Le prime testimonianze dell’attività dei consoli pisani in quattro documenti del 1109’, in Quel mar che la terra inghirlanda, ed. Cardini, F. and Lemut, M. L. Ceccarelli (Pisa 2007), 679–705Google Scholar.

20 The code is edited in I Costituti della legge e dell’uso di Pisa (sec. XII), ed. P. Vignoli (Rome, 2003), 64–5, 105 for 1140s laws, and Storti Storchi, cf. C., Intorno ai Costituti pisani della legge e dell’uso (secolo XII) (Naples, 1998), 72–4Google Scholar. For communal development, see in general Ronzani, ‘L’affermazione dei Comuni cittadini’.

21 See the lists in M. L. Ceccarelli Lemut, ‘I consoli e i magistrati del comune di Pisa dalla comparsa del consolato (1080/1085) al 1189’, Bollettino storico pisano, in preparation (I am very grateful to the author for a copy of the text); for the elite continuities in Pisa, see Wickham, Sleepwalking, ch. 3.

22 The 1091–2 text is edited in I brevi dei consoli, ed. Banti, 108–10; a good study (among several) remains Rossetti, G., ‘Società e istituzioni nei secoli IX e X’, in Atti del 5o congresso internazionale di studi sull’alto medioevo (Spoleto, 1973), 209–337Google Scholar, at 320–9. For the general history of the Pisan expansion into its contado, see Volpe, G., Studi sulle istituzioni comunali a Pisa, 2nd edn (Florence, 1970), 1–123Google Scholar; for the restricted role of signorial territories, M. L. Ceccarelli Lemut, ‘Terre pubbliche e giurisdizione signorile nel comitatus di Pisa (secoli XI–XIII)’, in La signoria rurale, ed. Spicciani and Violante, ii, 87–137.

23 Carte dell’Archivio arcivescovile di Pisa, ii, ed. Scalfati, n. 48 (a. 1116). Ibid., n. 67 (a. 1125) is also a canon-law case, decided by the archbishop.

24 Ibid., ii, nn. 105, 124; A. D’Amia, Diritto e sentenze di Pisa (Milan, 1962), n. 2, for the three cited cases. See in general Wickham, C., Courts and Conflict in Twelfth-Century Tuscany (Oxford, 2003), 108–14Google Scholar.

25 See Wickham, Sleepwalking.

26 Two recent unpublished theses, L. Filangieri, ‘Famiglie e gruppi dirigenti a Genova (secoli XII–metà XIII)’ (dottorato di ricerca, Università degli studi di Firenze, 2010), and A. Inguscio, ‘Reassessing Civil Conflicts in Genoa, 1160–1220’ (D.Phil. thesis, University of Oxford, 2012), are the best discussions of the Genoese elite. Citations of Caffaro: Annali genovesi di Caffaro e de’ suoi continuatori, i, ed. L. T. Belgrano (Rome, 1890), 5, 17, 111. For him as chronicler, see G. Petti Balbi, Caffaro e la cronachistica genovese (Genoa, 1982); eadem, ‘Caffaro’, Dizionario biografico degli italiani, xvi (1973), 256–60. For his uniqueness among communal chroniclers (including Bernardo Maragone in Pisa), see C. Wickham, Land and power (1994), 295–303. For the 1098 text, see Codice diplomatico del monastero di Santo Stefano di Genova, i, ed. M. Calleri (Genoa, 2009), n. 96. The best overall study of the early commune of Genoa is Bordone, R., ‘Le origini del comune di Genova’, in Comuni e memoria storica (Genoa, 2002), 237–59Google Scholar.

27 Codice diplomatico della repubblica di Genova, i, ed. C. Imperiale di Sant’Angelo (Rome, 1936) (henceforth CDGE), nn. 16 (a. 1104, cf. Annali genovesi di Caffaro, ed. Belgrano, i, 11), 20, 24, plus 22 (a. 1108), with a consul as one member of a wider populus. Cf. also Filangieri, ‘Famiglie e gruppi dirigenti a Genova’, 73–80.

28 For the first court-case, which is unpublished, see Liber instrumentorum Monasterii Sancti Fructuosi de Capite Montis, Codice ‘A’, Archivio Doria Pamphilj (in Rome), bancone 79, busta 12, fo. 8rv, concerning rights to the falcons of Capodimonte. Subsequent court cases to 1140, not in order: CDGE, nn. 45, 49, 50, 77, 93; Belgrano, L. T., ‘Il registro della curia arcivescovile di Genova’, Atti della società ligure di storia patria, 2.2 (1862), 27–8, 56–60Google Scholar; Le carte di Santa Maria delle Vigne di Genova (1103–1392), ed. G. Airaldi (Genoa, 1969), nn. 3, 6; Le carte del monastero di San Siro di Genova (952–1224), i, ed. M. Calleri (Genoa, 1997), n. 73; Le carte del monastero di Sant’Andrea della Porta di Genova (1109–1370), ed. C. Soave (Genoa, 2002), n. 2; Codice diplomatico del monastero di Santo Stefano, i, ed. Calleri, nn. 104, 110, 115; I libri iurium della Repubblica di Genova, 8 vols., ed. D. Puncuh et al. (Genoa, 1992–2002), i/3, n. 524 (this partially supersedes CDGE as an edition, but CDGE is easier to use, and I cite it by preference where there is overlap). Surprisingly, there is no study of these texts as a whole. M. Vallerani, ‘La riscrittura dei diritti nel secolo XII’, in Zwischen Pragmatik und Performanz, ed. C. Dartmann et al. (Turnhout, 2011), 133–64, at 153–60, is the best brief discussion.

29 CDGE, nn. 53, 67–8, 96–7, 102, 128 (the breve); some of the cases listed in n. 28 are halfway to legislation too. Eleventh century: CDGE, n. 3, and in general Fiore, A., ‘Giurare la consuetudine’, Reti medievali rivista, 13.2 (2012), 47–80Google Scholar, at 50–2, for Liguria. The Pisans had local customs, at least for seafaring, too (MGH, Heinrici IV. Diplomata, ed. D. von Gladiss (Berlin, Weimar and Hanover, 1941–78), n. 336 – the diploma is interpolated, but almost certainly not in this clause); so may many other cities have had. We do not know how they were put into practice, although a Savona text of 1058 refers to local non-placitum justice (Fiore, ‘Giurare la consuetudine’, 51, for references and discussion).

30 CDGE, n. 128, at pp. 155–6, for the breve; n. 73 (a. 1135).

31 E.g. CDGE, n. 205 (a. 1150); see also n. 97 (a. 1139), an internal Genoese oath which envisages that there might be a time without consuls (si autem consules Ianue tunc non fuerint).

32 Volpe, G., Medio evo italiano (Florence, 1961), 87–118, esp. 100–4Google Scholar.

33 Milani, G., L’esclusione dal comune (Rome, 2003), 27–34Google Scholar.

34 See Cassandro, G., ‘Un bilancio storiografico’ (1959), in Forme di potere e struttura sociale in Italia nel Medioevo, ed. Rossetti, G. (Bologna, 1977), 153–73Google Scholar, often cited but even sketchier than Volpe; O. Banti, ‘“Civitas” e “Commune” nelle fonti italiane dei secoli XI e XII’ (1972), in ibid., 217–32; Tabacco, G., The Struggle for Power in Medieval Italy (1973), trans. Jensen, R. Brown (Cambridge, 1989), 182–90, 321–44Google Scholar; Tabacco is by far the most influential voice here for modern historiography. Tax: basic is Mainoni, P., ‘A proposito della “rivoluzione fiscale” nell’Italia settentrionale del XII secolo’, Studi storici, 44 (2003), 5–42Google Scholar.

35 Wickham, Courts and Conflict, 19–40. So does Banti, ‘“Civitas” e “Commune”’, 222: ‘an emergency solution’. But the social changes involved in the crystallisation of the commune were often greater than Banti and his generation took into consideration.

36 Menant, F., ‘La prima età comunale’, in Storia di Cremona, ii, ed. Andenna, G. (Cremona, 2004), 198–281Google Scholar. The most convenient edition of the documents of 1097, 1118 and 1120 is Le carte cremonesi dei secoli VIII–XII, ii, ed. E. Falconi (Cremona, 1984), nn. 242, 273, 279.

37 See Grillo, P. and Barbero, A. in Vercelli nel secolo XII (Vercelli, 2005), 163–75, 293–7Google Scholar; Faini, E., Firenze nell’età romanica (1000–1211) (Florence, 2010), 262–320Google Scholar, 361–3, and 263 for the quote. For ‘latente’, Milani, I comuni italiani, 24–6.

38 See Wickham, Sleepwalking, ch. 2; Gli atti del comune di Milano fino all’anno MCCXVI, ed. C. Manaresi (Milan, 1919), nn. 1, 3 (aa. 1117–30); Landolfo Juniore, Historia Mediolanensis, ed. C. Castiglioni (Bologna, 1934), cc. 44, 48 bis. Here, the classic point of reference is Hagen Keller: see his ‘Die Stadtkommunen als politische Organismen in den Herrschaftsordnungen des 11.-13. Jahrhunderts’, in Pensiero e sperimentazioni istituzionali nella ‘Societas Christiana’ (1046–1250), ed. G. Andenna (Milan, 2007), 673–703, which is perhaps his fullest statement of his argument about the 1120s–40s institutionalisation of the Milanese commune, and which refers to his previous work.

39 Coleman, E., ‘Representative Assemblies in Communal Italy’, in Political Assemblies in the Earlier Middle Ages, ed. Barnwell, P. S. and Mostert, M. (Turnhout, 2003), 193–210CrossRefGoogle Scholar (which includes previous bibliography); Grillo, ‘Una frattura inesistente’, 692–6; and cf. also Celli, R., ‘Il ruolo del parlamento nel periodo formativo dei Comuni’, in Poteri assemblee autonomie (il lungo camino verso la sovranità popolare) (Udine, 1989), 17–40Google Scholar, for a more legalistic argument along similar lines.

40 C. Wickham, ‘Consensus and Assemblies in the Romano-Germanic Kingdoms’, Vorträge und Forschungen, in press, provides a survey; Reynolds, S., ‘Assembly Government and Assembly Law’, in Gender and Historiography, ed. Nelson, J. L.et al. (2012), 191–9Google Scholar, makes some important analytical points.

41 Classic for Italy, but atypical: Landolfo Juniore, Historia Mediolanensis, c. 44 for Milan in 1117. For England, Anglo-Saxon Charters, ed. A. J. Robertson (Cambridge, 1939), nn. 66, 78; Charters of St Albans, ed. J. Crick (Oxford, 2007), n. 7.

42 Gli atti del comune di Milano, lxxiv–vi; I brevi dei consoli, ed. Banti, 48, 76. For the complexities involved, especially in decision-making, see Angelis, G. De, ‘“Omnes simul aut quot plures habere potero”’, Reti medievali rivista, 12 (2011), 151–94Google Scholar.

43 Bougard, La justice, esp. 307–46; Wickham, C., ‘Justice in the Kingdom of Italy in the Eleventh Century’, Settimane di studio, 44 (1997), 179–255Google Scholar. The criticisms of this focus on the end of judicial assemblies made by Stephen White in his ‘Tenth-Century Courts at Mâcon and the Perils of Structuralist History’, in Conflict in Medieval Europe, ed. W. C. Brown and P. Górecki (Aldershot, 2003), 37–68, are fair as regards the Mâconnais, where judicial assemblies had a different history, but do not seem to me to reflect the Italian situation. For France, the best monographic analysis of the continuity of judicial assemblies into the eleventh and twelfth centuries is now Lemesle, Conflits et justice, 33–81, for Anjou.

44 Landolfo Juniore, Historia Mediolanensis, cc. 44, 47.

45 Wickham, Courts and Conflict, 19–40, and idem, ‘Public Court Practice’, in Rechtsverständnis und Konfliktbewältigung, ed. S. Esders (Cologne, 2007), 17–30. I would now make some modifications: in Milan, large witness groups for civil judgements continue on and off until the second half of the twelfth century (Gli atti del comune di Milano, passim); in Rome, where memories of the placitum were particularly strong, collective judgements continue until c.1190 (cf. C. Wickham, ‘Getting justice in twelfth-century Rome’, in Zwischen Pragmatik und Performanz, ed. Dartmann et al., 103–31, at 118).

46 Annales Brixienses, ed. L. Bethmann, MGH, Scriptores, xviii (Hanover, 1863), 811–20, at 812, cited in Grillo, ‘La frattura inesistente’, 694.

47 For a good brief account, see Milani, I comuni italiani, 16–23. For earlier analyses, see among many W. Goetz, Le origini dei comuni italiani, trans. I. and R. Zapperi (Milan, 1965), 34–6, 81–4, 94–5 – influential in its time, but now very dated; Keller, H., ‘Mailand im 11. Jahrhundert’, in Die Frühgeschichte der europäischen Stadt im 11. Jahrhundert, ed. Jarnut, J. and Johanek, P. (Cologne, 1998), 81–104Google Scholar, at 93–8 (one of several parallel analyses by the author); and Tabacco, The Struggle for Power, 185. They indeed argue that the oath-based collectivities of mid-century Milan were definitely proto-communal, ‘the premise for the future commune’ (Tabacco). This seems to me too teleological. See Fiore, ‘Giurare la consuetudine’, 50–2, for Liguria.

48 MGH, Heinrici III. Diplomata, ed. H. Bresslau and P. Kehr (Berlin, 1931), n. 319; Seniore, Landolfo, Mediolanensis historiae libri IV, ed. Cutolo, A. (Bologna, 1942), iii, 15, 18Google Scholar.

49 Liber Maiolichinus, ed. Calisse, lines 1, 40, 82, etc.

50 CDGE, n. 102, cf. 96–7 – though note that previous consular legislation in the 1130s, nn. 53, 67–8, does not mention the city assembly.

51 For all this, classic texts are C. Violante, ‘Pievi e parrocchie nell’Italia centrosettentrionale durante i secoli XI e XII’, in Le istituzioni ecclesiastiche della ‘societas christiana’ dei secoli XI–XII (Milan, 1977), 633–799 (who stresses, at 666–8, 717–21, that tithe fiefs did not bring signorial rights at the start); Keller, Signori e vassalli, esp. 118–36; Menant, Campagnes lombardes, 395–477, 728–35, 757–65.

52 Cf. esp. Tabacco, The Struggle for Power, 331–42.

53 I più antichi documenti del monastero di S. Maria di Rosano (secoli XI–XIII), ed. C. Strà (Rome, 1982), n. 9 (cf. S. Collavini, ‘Le basi materiali della signoria dei Guidi tra prelievo signorile e obblighi militari (1075 c.–1230 c.)’, Società e Storia, 24 (2007), 1–32); I brevi dei consoli, ed. Banti, 105–7 (c. 1100); Wickham, C., The Mountains and the City (Oxford, 1988), 313–14Google Scholar (the basket of rights); idem, ‘La signoria rurale in Toscana’; Cortese, Signori, castelli, esp. 231–48 (Florence); eadem, ‘Aristocrazia signorile e città nell’Italia centro-settentrionale (XI–XII sec.)’, in I comuni di Jean-Claude Maire Vigueur, ed. M. T. Caciorgna et al. (Rome, 2014), 69–94 (where she shows that many signorially orientated families had, after all, the necessary nuances, relatively little to do with early communes in north central Italy).

54 Wickham, C., Community and Clientele in Twelfth-Century Tuscany (Oxford, 1998)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Guglielmotti, P., Ricerche sull’organizzazione del territorio nella Liguria medievale (Florence, 2005), 28–35CrossRefGoogle Scholar; for autonomous villages, see e.g. Fiore, ‘Dal diploma al patto’.

55 Menant, ‘La féodalité italienne’; Reynolds, S., Fiefs and vassals (Oxford, 1994), 215–35Google Scholar; Fiore, ‘Dal diploma al patto’.

56 For the homology between signoria and commune, see also Racine, P., Plaisance du Xème à la fin du XIIIème siècle (Paris, 1979), 372Google Scholar, but he said so for different reasons (city government as being just like the ‘feudal’ social relations in the countryside) and I do not follow him there – see further Cortese, ‘Aristocrazia signorile e città’.

57 West, Reframing the Feudal Revolution, 184–90, 196–8, 255–63.

58 As with Marc Bloch's ‘fragmentation of authority’ (Feudal society, trans. L. A. Manyon (1962), 446 – the French original says pouvoirs for ‘authority’, however).

59 Bourdieu, P., most lucidly in In Other Words, trans. Adamson, M. (Cambridge, 1990), 76–86Google Scholar; the most theoretically elaborated characterisation of habitus, leaving more implicit its relation with formalisation however, is in his The Logic of Practice, trans. R. Nice (Cambridge, 1990), 52–65.

60 And perhaps in any society. Charles West suggests to me that the ‘big-men’ societies discussed by Marshall Sahlins and others (e.g. Sahlins, M. D., ‘Poor Man, Rich Man, Big-Man, Chief’, Comparative Studies in Society and History, 5 (1962–3), 285–303CrossRefGoogle Scholar) might sometimes be different, structurally more informal. I am not sure here; that is certainly the way Sahlins presents it; but the closest medieval Europe visibly came to that, in Iceland before 1262, the structures of goðord and thingar, judicial rights over free men held by the equivalents of ‘big men’ and the assemblies in which those rights were expressed, seem to me, whatever their weakness and their practical subversions, to have had clear formal elements – see for a survey J. Byock, Viking-Age Iceland (2001), 118–38.