The Aristocracy in England and Tuscany, 1000 - 1250 by Peter Coss

Author:Peter Coss [Coss, Peter]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: history, Europe, Great Britain, Middle Ages (449-1066), Italy, Medieval
ISBN: 9780198846963
Google: GZSzDwAAQBAJ
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: 2019-10-17T00:28:31.115551+00:00

Knighthood and Nobility in Tuscany

The trajectory outlined above draws especially on the evidence of a particular city. However, what we know of other Tuscan cities of the late twelfth and early thirteenth centuries does not contradict it. What happened in Pisa in 1254 was paralleled across the cities of northern and central Italy, from Milan to Perugia.165 At Florence, the year 1250 saw the first Popolo regime headed by the Anziani and the captain of the people (capitano del Popolo).166 The same happened in Lucca in 1255.167 In some cities, Pisa and Lucca among them, the Popolo managed in a very short time to concentrate power in its hands, relegating the milites to a marginal role. Elsewhere the Popolo was constrained to make alliances with great noble families. Nowhere of course did the nobility disappear from the political let alone the social scene, but things could never be the same. The Pisan experience of the early 1230s was also paralleled both across the northern cities and in Tuscany. At Lucca the popolo lucchese imposed their own captains at the top of the communal structure. Needless to say, such developments were by no means confined to Tuscany. In the late 1220s or early 1230s Bologna, Milan, and many other cities saw similar phenomena. These phenomena are to be explained, in part at least, by the factionalism that led so often to the ceto dirigente splitting into two opposing groups, paralysing them when it came to dealing with opposition from beyond their ranks. The clash between imperial and papal ambitions in the peninsula greatly exacerbated these divisions. Not only did opposing factions tend to adopt a Ghibelline (pro-imperial) or Guelf (pro-papal) position but so did the cities themselves, for reasons of regional rivalry as much as natural inclination. Pisa was Ghibelline, Florence Guelf. In this situation the military prowess of the nobility made the 1240s a decade of ascendancy for them and a lean one in terms of advances by the popolo.

In some cities the clash between the nobility and members of the popolo is evidenced at the very beginning of the century. These are mainly in the north, but it happened also at Lucca. In 1203 the popolo luchese rebelled against the nobility. Led by Ingheramme da Porcari, himself a member of an illustrious noble family, they met the milites in skirmishes outside the walls of the city.168 Clearly these clashes have a bearing on when the crystallization of the nobility actually began. At Pisa, we have seen some evidence that would take it back to the 1180s. At Milan and Vercelli, the nobility is explicitly evidenced in the last decades of the twelfth century. As we have seen, ceremonial investiture to knighthood amongst the alta aristocrazia is also found in Italy by the end of the century. The move towards an exclusive knighthood seems to have begun, then, in the late twelfth century among the highest levels of the aristocracy and was diffused from there, both outside the cities and within.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.