Conclusions

Abstract

Abstract The period 1080–1130 sees the imposition of the signoria as the dominant system of power and control in the countryside of north-central Italy. This process was accompanied by a profound militarization of society evident in the building of castles, the rise of the class of milites, the increasing importance of military service in pacts and contracts, the upsurge in violence. The notion of fidelitas, once the prerogative of the sovereign, came to be used at a local level to underpin relationships between lords and their subject, often sealed by pacts. Whilst this gave an appearance of consent, at the other end of the spectrum lay violence and coercion which were inherent in the system. The imposition of dominatus loci did not inhibit and may actually have stimulated economic growth by extracting agricultural surplus and increasing elite demand for goods and raw materials. It also had demographic effects in that the rural population tended to become more concentrated in nuclear defended settlements and/or displaced to the cities. Finally, the Italian experience of the creation of the territorial lordship is discussed in the framework of trends across western Europe, concluding that Italy is more similar to Catalonia than northern France. Italy’s ‘exceptionality’ is most clearly evidenced in the rise of urban (but also rural) collectivities and the capacity of these to exercise a measure of political control over the surrounding countryside. The author insists on the role of rural collectivities which offered a concrete alternative outcome to the ‘segneurialization’ of power.