Medieval Urban Society

I decenni centrali del XIII secolo, furono cruciali per la storia del Comune bolognese: per molti versi Bologna viveva infatti negli anni Cinquanta del Duecento la propria epoca d’oro, sia dal punto di vista economico, sia da quello dell’espansione territoriale, ma si trattò del periodo di massimo splendore anche per il regime popolare che governò Bologna tra il 1250 e il 1274. Furono anche anni di sperimentazione documentaria, che portarono alla creazione di nuove forme di documentazione, conservazione e archiviazione dei documenti. All’interno di una società che stava diventando sempre più ampia e complessa si avvertiva il bisogno di mettere a punto un nuovo sistema di gestione e amministrazione della res publica, al fine di evitare appropriazioni indebite e proteggere i beni del Comune. A Bologna la politica di controllo e supervision dei beni comuni intrapresa dalle istituzioni tra gli anni Quaranta e Cinquanta del Duecento trovò espressione in una serie di operazioni di censimento, di periodiche indagini e inventariazioni che diedero vita ad altrettante scritture documentarie. Due di esse sono gli inventari pubblicati in questo contributo.

In the latter half of the 12th century, the families of the groups overseeing the comuni forged widespread, implementable and strictly regulated military alliances. These alliances were organized around the control of tower houses. However, the paucity of surviving documentation has long hindered meaningful research into these ‘intermediate bodies’ of society, too often considered relics of a ‘feudal’ past. The shared management of power and assets, the written regulation of violence, and the presence of controlling groups that would vary according to precise legislation all indicate that the ‘association of towers’ organized around the ‘pacta’ were not simply family groups, rather complex coordinating bodies not dissimilar to the city communes.

Dans P. Montaubin dir., Hôpitaux et maladreries au Moyen Age : espace et environnement, actes du colloque international d'Amiens-Beauvais (22-24 nov. 2002), Histoire Médiévale et Archéologie, vol. 17, Publication du CAHMER, Amiens, 2004, p. 145-157.

The majority of the houses of the military religious orders in the British Isles were in the countryside, but the brothers also held some property in towns and in suburbs. Most famous of these were the Hospitallers’ houses at Clerkenwell in the suburbs of London, and Kilmainham in the suburbs of Dublin. The Templars, meanwhile, had their London house just outside the city wall on the north bank of the River Thames. Lesser military orders also held property in the city and its suburbs. But the orders also held property in other towns: the Templars had a house in the northern city of York, while the Hospitallers had a hospital in Hereford, in the Welsh March. In addition, the orders had tenants in many towns around in Britain and Ireland. When the Hospitallers inherited the Templars’ properties in the second and third decades of the fourteenth century, they also inherited the Templars’ responsibilities and duties to local society, which sometimes involved them in considerable expense; but they could also bring their considerable influence in an attempt to improve the urban environment. This paper considers what role these urban houses played in their local communities as well as what they contributed to the Orders as a whole.