I reati urbanistico-edilizi. Terza edizione (La biblioteca del penalista) (Italian Edition)

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Amazon Rapids Fun stories for kids on the go. Amazon Restaurants Food delivery from local restaurants. ComiXology Thousands of Digital Comics. East Dane Designer Men's Fashion. Onewaywastoworkaroundaccusationsofrebellionbyappropri-ating and reinterpreting judicial categories. The late Middle Ages saw the development of legal theories which prosecuted conflicts as political crimes against governments, but rebels also developed ways of working around such a government-centred vision of the politi-cal order by recurring to the protection of rival governments or by disputing the applicability of criminal categories to their cases.

Legitimating Political Conflict 23 Another strategywas the appeal to, anddemands for the exten-sion of, the liberties of communes, guilds, and other jurisdictional units which were involved in the citys governance. This strategy rested on an understanding of the political order as made up of multiple jurisdictional bodies in whose name city dwellers could act legitimately. Perhapsthemostpotentstrategywastheclaimthatrebelswereact-ing in the name of justice. When doing so, an understanding of the political order was invoked according to which the overriding aim of all political life was the promotion of justice in ways that ultimately transcended specific jurisdictions.

Even legal scholars developed, and rebels sometimes eagerly followed, doctrines according to which governmental authority could be resisted if the pursuit of justice was in danger. These various discourses of legitimation reveal two interesting socio-political characteristics of late medieval urban societies. First, high legal theory and the actions of rebels did not necessarily contradict each other.

Legal scholars and other thinkers frequently served the interests of governments, but even then rebels often responded in the terms originally employed by theorists to de-legitimate their actions. Rebels and their opponents did not, of course, share a similar outlook on specific social, economic, and political issues. However, as far as their approach to politi-cal and legal theory is concerned, they also co-existed and communicated within a shared political system which happened to offer several avenues for the legitimation of a large panoply of political actions.

Their ideologies were, therefore, not monolithic and separate mental systems, but shift-ing combinations of often similar political concepts, discourses, and argu-ments organized and prioritized in different ways. This meant that political conflict could at least potentially be legitimate, and was an intrinsic part of urban public debate and action. Governments and their chief ideologues, many of whom were lawyers, were often behind this vision of the political order.

Yet however much judicial categories sought to evoke precision, their development and application was often characterized by opportunism and expediency. Henry offered a comprehensive, indeed all-encompassing, definition of rebellion, aimed at recalcitrant Italian cities which had refused to respond to the emperors summons. Each and all of those are rebels and in breach of loyalty to us and the empire who, in whatever way, publicly or concealed, commit acts of infidelity or rebellion against our honour and who, in opposition to our or to the empires prosperity, undertake anything against us or our officials by rebelling in mat-ters that touch on their commissioned office.

Every form of disobedience amounted to rebellion, and con-temporaries did not miss this point. Bartolo da Sassoferrato d. Rebellion, therefore, denominated any act of dissent vis--vis political authority, and the fame of this definition and Henry VIIs edict was ensured through the inclusion of Bartolos gloss in all standard 10 For this point, Ryan, Bartolus of Sassoferrato and Free Cities, In Italy, many jurists expanded the concept of crimen laesae maiestatis from its original application in the Lex Iulia de vi publica Dig.

According to Boutilliers typology, the notion of lse-majest only applied to general acts of disloyalty vis--vis the king, but a whole array of other categories of political crime were also available: This is scarcely surprising, since jurists wrote for different masters and were prepared to mould their categories accordingly. When assessing a Florentine rebellion in , Baldo degli Ubaldi d. However, in arguing this, Baldo stood in apparent contradiction to several other opinions in which he had implied that such a crime could indeed also be committed against cities.

However, for Bartolo, resistance was not always illicit: This may not be altogether surprising because he expressed this opinion when he was writing in to justify the murder of the duke of Orlans on behalf of the duke of Burgundy. Petit argued that the duke of Orlans had committed a crimen laesae maiestatis, and thereby extended the definition of this crime to include any action against the common weal la chose publique , including the resistance to taxation or the illicit employment of men-at-arms. Like their frequent use as a means of strengthen-ing the aims of governments, the application of these categories remained part of political polemic.

A striking case is that of Tournai, the exceptional jurisdictional divisions of which demonstrate particularly clearly how the protagonists of conflicts could manipulate judicial categories for their own purposes. In the s Tournai was embroiled in the war between the French dauphin Charles VII and the regime of Lancastrian France, led by an alliance of England and Burgundy, which effectively ruled the whole northern part of France.

In June , Tournai saw a guild-led revolt in the name of the dauphin Charles VII and the expulsion of the citys Burgundian supporters, and thus confirmed the citys status as Charless only enclave in Anglo-Burgundian lands. The Anglo-Burgundian regime in Paris quickly understood that the revolt had been aimed at a Burgundian faction within the town which controlled the urban govern-ment and favoured a rapprochement with the duke of Burgundy.

It was recognized that the said city is not presently obedient to us and, conse-quently, Philip the Good, duke of Burgundy, was assigned Tournai if he was able to secure the towns obedience. In he confirmed in perpetuity the significantly strengthened powers of the guilds after the revolt, and also asserted that the events of June had involved no inconvenience or rumour inconvnient ou rumeur.

The real rebels were not the beneficiaries of the revolt, but the Burgundians and their party, who by trickery, sedition, and otherwise. Legitimating Political Conflict 27the dauphin had set up at Poitiers, also largely refrained from prosecuting any of Tournais alleged rebels, although we know from the notifications which the town authorities received that several exiles had filed suits with the Parlement. Ironically, the son of one of the insurgents in Tournai in , Tassart Savary, even owned a copy of Boutilliers custumal.

In Tournai, for instance, the dauphins supporters had already made their presence felt in October , when the urban government and parish assemblies refused to swear allegiance to the Treaty of Troyes, which, in May of that year, had sealed the perpetual union of England and France under the auspices of the Anglo-Burgundian alliance. This oath had been designed so that its tak-ers would recognize the union between England and France, and swear allegiance to the English king, Henry V, who, according to the treatys terms, would become king of both England and France after the death of the French king, Charles VI.

Those who took the oath made themselves formal subjects of the Lancastrian regime and could, thus, be punishable for treasona different legal status from that of enemies who, accord-ing to contemporary legal theory, were not obliged to obedience to the regime and could, therefore, not be charged with treason. The Dauphinist supporters in Tournai, therefore, had every reason to be suspicious of the Treaty of Troyes and to be wary of committing themselves to a new over-lord.

Invited to negotiations in Paris, the Tournai authorities only sent informal envoys, so that no office-holders could be forced to commit themselves by an official oath. In spite of several further embassies, the intervention of neighbouring towns, and even the change of mind of some Tournai citizens, a majority in favour of the oath could not be found.

Tournai never submitted to the new Lancastrian regime and, when the Dauphinist groups eventually took over the urban government in June and exiled their pro-Burgundian foes, they did not, formally at any rate, commit rebellion against any allegiance sworn under the terms of the Treaty of Troyes. The treaty is in Monstrelet, III, the provisions on the oath are at For the legal theory concerning the status of subjects, see Cuttler, Law of Treason and Treason Trials, ; Sbriccoli, Crimen laesae maiestatis, This is also true for Italyeven for a city like Verona, which, from , found itself under the tight control of the Venetian state.

An aborted rebellion by a few Veronese families on 12 May generated different understandings by a variety of different political players. The officials had excused them-selves by arguing that due to the plot they had been otherwise engaged, but the Avogadori did not accept this argument and threatened them with a fine of lire. One day after the upris-ing, on 13 May , the citys principal governmental body, the Dodici, promptly despatched an embassy to Venice to apologize for what they played down as merely a wicked and disreputable act, perpetrated by a few Veronese citizens of evil disposition.

In what may have been understood as a reference to the earlier uprising, the ambassadors were to tell the Venetian authorities that its subjects and servants were unhappy. Rather, legal theories of political crimes added a new discourse to the complex political debate in late medieval cities. Political actors from widely contrasting backgrounds showed themselves highly adaptive, and 23 For this rebellion, see Chapter 7, pp.

The Venetian officials in Verona, clearly using the plot as an excuse ini-tially, continued to refuse to hand over the information and were eventually fined: Legitimating Political Conflict 29appropriated and reinterpreted the judicial vocabulary for their own purposes. Although a term with several possible meanings, liberty was often closely associated with a particular understanding of the political order which acknowledged the existence of multiple jurisdic-tions, each of which possessed different degrees of legitimate authoritywhether they were communes or other legally recognized institutions.

Innumerable medieval charters referred to such jurisdictions as possess-ing liberties, franchises, and privileges. The liberties of jurisdictional institutions were not necessarily distinct from those of individuals: It is no surprise that insurgents invoked jurisdictions in their cries of battle, such as Long live the people and the guilds29 or Long live the king, down with the commis [of the guilds], up with the deans [of the guilds], and free the prisoners On a heuristic basis, rebels could be seen as invoking two distinct meanings of liberty. On the one hand, liberty could refer to a jurisdic-tions powers to pass statutes, elect officials, and fulfil particular judicial rolesall those competences which came with the institutions liber-ties, franchises, and privileges.

On the other hand, the term could also be invoked to mean independence from other jurisdictions and free-dom from the encroachment of external agencies. These two meanings of liberty could, of course, be linkedas indeed they were, according to Skinner, in the republican or neo-Romanist tradition of political thought. Of the cities studied in this book, Florentine ideologues most persistently invoked such a broad concept of liberty. In his Laudatio florentinae urbis c. In the most radical revolts they did indeed invoke both conceptions of liberty.

Most of the time, however, rebels were quite willing to compromise especially on the latter type of liberty: At any rate, city dwellers were bound to disagree about these matters and, like the discourse of rebellion, strife over the pre-cise understanding of liberty was itself an expression of urban political conflict. In March of that year, an insurgent coalition, which included the citys main parties, guilds, and a body attached to the university, occupied the city square, effectively threw the papal legate Nollet out of Bologna, and recreated the commune of Bologna largely independent of the Papal State.

At least some of the rebels aspired to achieving independence: Immediately after the revolt, on 21 March , bells were rung to convene the citizens of Bologna. A prominent lawyer, Riccardo da Saliceto, addressed this assembly in both Latin and Italian, and explained that, in the absence of a governor, the citizens needed to make their own provisions. Expressly stating that the jurisidictional rights of other parties would not be infringed, the assembly proceeded to charge Riccardo with the defence of the city and elected sixteen officials antiani et consules to whom it delegated full legal authority merum et liberum arbitrium et omnimodam potestam et bayliam , jointly to be held with other communal institutions created by them, for the months of March and April.

In the following months, this led to thorough institutional reforms, 31 Bruni, Laudatio florentinae urbis, esp. For this revolt, see Chapter 5, pp. For the shifting of meaning of libert in Bologna, see De Benedictis, Lo stato popolare di libert. Legitimating Political Conflict 31such as an overhaul of the colleges and councils of the commune as well as the redaction of new statutes for the city. Giovanni da Legnano, himself a prominent inhabitant of Bologna and a papal supporter, wrote an entire treatise against the rebels by asserting the popes established right to rule the city, and accused the rebels of having not only committed a crimen laesae maiestatis, but also offended against divine law, natural law, the law of nations ius gentium , canon law, as well as the constitutions of the Papal State.

Bolognese citizens had already possessed liberty, since they were not subject to slavery, a reference to the distinction drawn between freedom and slavery in Roman Law Dig. True liberty of reason could only be achieved if one obeyed the laws of a good ruler. Not being subject to such laws amounted to slavery, and it is to this vile condition that the Bolognese had been reduced after their revolt against the papal legate.

As Giovanni remarked repeatedly in his treatise, the rebels true slogan, in fact, was not Long live liberty Vivat libertas , but Death to liberty and long live slavery Moriatur libertas et vivat servitus. Arguably, rebels almost always hoped to extend the powers of specific institutions, but were quite willing to negotiate the extent of their liberty from external encroachments.

This was also true for what was arguably one of late medieval Europes most radical rebel movements, the so-called Hdroits of Lige. In September , they shook off the rule of Prince-Bishop John of Bavaria and took over the government of the city.

In one sense, they clearly rejected the 34 ASB, Provvigioni in capreto, 1, fos. On the constitutional changes, see Valeria Braidis introduction in Gli statuti del comune di Bologna, lxxxixcxxiv; Bosdari, Il comune di Bologna. Tractatus de iuribus ecclesiae , fos. Parts of the manuscript are pub-lished in Giovanni da Legnano, Dagli scritti inediti giuridico-politici, Giovanni da Legnano, Tractatus de iuribus ecclesiae , fos.

At the same time, they were at pains to receive recognition from other authorities, as they sought and obtained approval for their regime from both the deposed Emperor Wenceslas and the Avignonese Pope Benedict XIII in In the charter sealing the election of a new bishop and mambour, the Hdroits were also keen on pointing out that they had made these elections not out of a disregard for superior authority, but because the pays of Lige had allegedly found itself without a head and without a defender senz tiest et sans defenseur after the prince-bishop had left the city. It was only for this reason that the rebels had been forced to turn to the citys old chronicles whence they had learnt that anciently the people [themselves] elected their prelate danchienneteit pueple dependoit la election de leur prelas.

As early as April the new urban government despatched the civil lawyer and university lecturer Giacomo Preunti to appear before a trial set up by the papal legate in the neighbouring city of Ferrara.

Naturally, Preunti denied all the charges and argued that the commune had never rebelled against the Papal State. It had always intended to obey the pope, but, since the legate had left the city, the Bolognese simply had to form their own government in order to safeguard peace in the city and prevent it from falling into the hands of tyrants in manibus tirannorum. Preunti could not refrain from using a lawyers trick by contesting the legitimacy of the trial itself, as it took place in Ferrara, outside the legates jurisdiction, and without papal authorization.

He was also at pains to point out that nobody had harmed the legate and that any abuses would be investigated by the commune.

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For this revolt and its repercussions, see Chapter 5, pp. For mambour elections, see Chapter 2, pp. Legitimating Political Conflict 33the pope by July in return for generous jurisdictional concessions to the newly-established commune. From special reform commissions, tellingly known as Riformatori dello Stato di Libert, were appointed to advance political reforms for the commune and to strengthen its political standing both internally and vis--vis the papacy. Although this institution could at timessuch as in , , or become an issue of contention with the pope, the Riformatori fundamentally co-existed with papal rule in the city.

The capitula between Pope Nicholas V and Bologna in , which resolved long-standing ten-sions between the city and the papacy, even made the Riformatori joint rulers of the city together with the papal legate. The extent of the liberties held by any one political unit was an object of major contention, but disagreement about it was an ordinary feature of the complex jurisdictional structure of late medieval cities. This strategy was expressive of a conception of the political order according to which the purposes of government reached beyond the immediate pow-ers of particular rulers.

Alongside values such as the common good, the provision of justice was seen as an ideal towards which all political activity should aspire. In a long tradition of political thought, a duplex ordo was seen as governing the world, the aspiration of which was both to ensure the earthly well-being and peaceful security of the community, and to enable the collectivity to please God and to live a life of moral virtue.

A case in point is the conception of the public order put forward by medi-eval jurists in arguments building on the Digests Lex Iulia de vi publica 41 Vancini, La rivolta dei bolognesi, ; Codex diplomaticus dominii temporalis S. It is interesting, however, that medieval commentators appear also to have been interested in a relatively small section of the law borrowed from Ulpian which regarded the denial of justice as an offence against the public order.

One of the earliest commentators expanding on this was the judge Bonifacio Antelmi previously identified as Bonifacio Vitalini who wrote his Tractatus de maleficiis some time at the beginning of the four-teenth century. While Bonifacios list of eleven offences against the public order also contained cases of straightforward violence, the majority of his provisions involved questions of justice. For Bonifacio the prevention of just sentences, influencing judges to alter their judgements, magistrates acting against public law, judges unfairly refusing the appeal of sentences, and impeding judgements were all cases that disrupted the public order in the same way in which armed assemblies could do.

Justice, in this light, could also exist beyond what governments claimed it to beindeed, gov-ernments themselves posed a risk to the public order when they did not administer justice fairly. Building on a tradition of interpretation of the Tres libri Codicis reaching back to the twelfth century, late medieval jurists developed a long-lasting tradition of Widerstandsrecht.

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In his com-mentary on the Lex prohibitum and the Lex devotum of the Codex X. Evidently close to the practical needs of resisting subjects, Bartolo clearly explained the circumstances under which friends and neighbours could be called for support, and even specified the words Succurrite, succurrite to shout in such a situation. We shall see in Chapter 2 that the same passages of Roman Law were also used by Giovanni da Legnano to justify warfare against ones own prince. As Angela De Benedictis has shown, these two passages were upheld and extended by legal commentators throughout the early modern period and also proved important in Northern Europe during the Reformation.

Legitimating Political Conflict 35Bartolo was also a protagonist in the debate on tyranny in the context of which lawyers and theologians had formulated rationales for resistancealthough it should be stressed that they ultimately often rated obedience higher, were not very concrete about the circumstances of resistance, or contradicted themselves.

Petits views were expounded in his widely publicized defence of the murder of the duke of Orlans in , and Salutatis in Florences propaganda against tyran-nical Milan during its war with Giangaleazzo Visconti in the last decade of the fourteenth century. A comparable fate also awaited tyrants by conduct who could, or even should, be similarly disobeyed Aquinas or deposed Bartolo. By acting unfairly, the tyrant kept the city 46 For the complexity of Bartolos thought in this respect, see Ryan, Bartolus of Sassoferrato and Free Cities, ; Quaglioni, Rebellare idem est quam resistere , As is argued in Chapter 6, this played an especially important role in Florence during the ascendancy of the Albizzi party, but another instructive case is that of Verona, where it was used for varying political effects to de-legitimate, or at least to chal-lenge, the powers of the citys overlords.

At a formal ritual of submission on Saint Marks Square, the ambassadors of Verona allegedly justified their actions by telling the Venetian doge that they had shaken off the yoke of tyranny iugo tyrannidis to take flight in the residence and castle of liberty domi-cilium et arcem libertatis of Venice. The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light. After a harsh salt tax was imposed on Verona in , breaking an earlier agreement, the Veronese promptly dispatched ambassadors to point out to the Venetian Senate that the citys previous rulers had been less harsh, and to implore the Venetians not to engage in this inhumane act which only tyrants would commit.

Aquinas also argued that those who opposed tyranny were not guilty of sedition unless such resistance would cause greater disorder than the tyrant himself: II ; but for an argument stressing the far-reaching duty of subjects to obey, see Aquinas, S. For revolts against tyrants, see also Maire-Vigueur, Le rivolte cittadine contro i tiranni. Legitimating Political Conflict 37Verona, threatening that the tyranny of the taxes would leave the podest without friends.

Behind their invocation were real griev-ances about justice which lay at the heart of many revolts and affected the various political units of cities. This was most evident in rebels fre-quent complaints about the administration of civil and penal justice in their cities, whether this concerned corrupt judges, particular judicial practices, or specific jurisdictional arrangements.

Following earlier precedents, the prince-bishop abandoned Lige after the escalation of conflicts in October and September However, it is a measure of the interest of both sides in a working judicial system that, within a relatively short time, the cities and the bishop signed treatiesthe Peaces of Caster December and Tongeren August which negotiated the re-establishment of episcopal jurisdiction under certain conditions. These included specific regulations on the number of procurators employed in episcopal courts, the requirement for defend-ants to be charged with their offences, and quicker judicial procedures for cases involving offences of less than thirty livres.

In a similar dispute, which could not be resolved in this way, led to the revolt of the Hdroits, who went on to run their own judicial system until they were defeated in For the context on these peace treaties, Outremeuse, ; Stavelot, , ; Stavelot lat. For the Anneau du Palais, Vrancken, Aspects institutionnels du pouvoir souverain. Inevitably, these demands reflected not only complaints against specific judicial practices, but also concerns about the very jurisdictional apparatus through which justice was exercised. A number of different jurisdictions were under attack: The insur-gents also directed their violence towards specific targets relevant to these demands.

They violently entered and sacked the palaces of the citys three judicial agencies, although the chroniclers stress that, because the podest was willing to give up his palace voluntarily, he was spared from being attacked personally. One judicial official, ser Nuto da Citt di Castello, was not so lucky: The rebels, however, made sure not to be perceived as engaging in anarchical violence.

They imitated a well-known ritual of justice, usually reserved for traitorous military captains, when they then hanged ser Nuto upside down and brought his body parts to various districts in the city. They clearly felt that their indig-nation empowered them, or could provide the justification for empow-ering them, to act in the name of justice and, when necessary, to bring down tyranny. In the mid-fourteenth century, the Lige chronicler Jean de Hocsem had explained his peoples propensity to revolt by pointing out that they were simply not willing to accept unjust government injusta 63 Falletti-Fossati, Il tumulto dei Ciompi, Legitimating Political Conflict 39imperia.

Their strategies of legitimation were the stuff of urban politics, whether in secret negotiations or outright revolt: However distrusted and maligned conflict may have been, it could be argued for as an ordinary facet of political life. Justifiable in so many ways, it could ultimately be defended as a legitimate feature of this political system. Many ways of protest-ing, negotiating, and engaging in violence took inspiration from practices embedded in the politics of their cities.

As one of their professed aims was the restoration of justice, it may have seemed natural for rebels to display an almost legalistic concern with ideas and procedures associated with legal and jurisdictional frameworks, although these were often reinterpreted, manipulated, or even misunderstood. The legal veneer under which such sentences were imposed cannot be stressed enough. Bans followed established patterns involving a clearly-specified number of summons and judicial procedures. In a simi-larly legalistic way, sentences of confinement stipulated precisely desig-nated places of exile or the radius around the city which exiles were not supposed to enter, and often laid down in great detail the consequences for other family members, restrictions on property ownership, or limitations on entering marriages.

However, legal anthropologists and historians have shown in recent decades that a concern about the law did not necessarily reduce levels of conflict. Legal channels often merely provided a forum for the conduct of disputes, constituted a tactical device, and anyway worked 1 On legalism as an analytical category, see Dresch, Legalism, Anthropology, and History, although he uses the concept only in relation to clearly formulated rules; for these ideas in a late medieval European context, Lantschner, Justice Contested and Affirmed.

In the Southern Low Countries forced pilgrimages represented comparable legal instruments of expulsion: Modes of Conflict 41alongside other strategies, including the use of physical force. Medieval historians have emphasized that violence could itself be legitimated within existing legal frameworks. In her recent work on thirteenth-century France, Hannah Skoda has drawn attention to how violence could be justified within several different grammars of violence that stemmed from the normalizing framework of the law, alongside other discourses such as hagiography, sermons, medical thinking, and literature.

Needless to say, any such distinction can only be heuristic: Nor were all forms of conflict only or exclusively shaped by the various ways in which city dwellers understood the legal and jurisdictional context; however, because this context usually did matter, it can provide a useful framework within which to discuss the various ways in which conflict could manifest itself.

Onemodeofconflictwasprotest,whencitydwellersmadeparticu-lar claims or articulated specific demands before one or several of a citys jurisdictional agencies. This could take the form of a public assembly and petitions, often by groups organized around existing jurisdictional institutions such as communes or guilds. However, city dwellers sometimes needed to resort to less public forms of protest.

Some of these could manifest themselves in rather concealed ways, but there was also often the possibility of articulating grievances through judicial channels: Constitutionalbargaininginvolveddirectnegotiationsbetweenrivalpolitical groups through the several constitutional mechanisms that were available in urban arenas: For the anthropological scholarship which has influenced histori-ans, see Roberts, Study of Dispute. In this mode of conflict, specific groups usually found themselves in charge of particular jurisdictional agencies and used them to influence the political process, either by manipulating the functioning of existing constitutional mechanisms or by adding new ones.

Thefinalstageofconflictwasreachedwhencitydwellersengagedinopen warfare to acquire power in the city. In this respect, too, they invoked ideas of law and legitimacy: Imitating the legitimate use of force by sovereign political play-ers, insurgents appropriated and reinterpreted practices of warfare by deploying banners, engaging in targeted looting, and making use of a variety of other military techniques.

PROTESTProtest comprised the making of claims or the formulation of demands to one or several of a citys jurisdictional agencies, often those associated with governments or those enjoying a particular judicial role. Its main difference from other modes of conflict was that protesters fundamentally relied on these agencies preparedness to grant such requests. While there was ample room for manoeuvre to apply all sorts of pressures on govern-ments and courts, protesters were not usually able to control particular institutions which would have allowed them to engage in the constitu-tional bargaining described below; and, although physical force was often used, violence was not the principal means of interaction of this mode of conflict.

Protest could take two forms: In its most visible manifestation, protest involved public assem-blies. Aggrieved citizens asserted specific demands by claiming author-ity within one of the many legitimate jurisdictional institutions of the urban body politic, such as the commune, the popolo, or guilds. Jurists identified the use of bells, trumpets, drums, and standards as indicators of corporate action to signify gatherings, whether through ordinary councils or extraordinary assemblies.

Some, such as the jurists Odofredo d. On 26 December , some Bolognese guilds assembled on the citys principal square in protest against a regime established two months earlier. Carrying their pennons, they shouted Long live the popolo and the guilds Viva il popolo e le arti , a clear reference to the popolo regime which had ruled Bologna in the late thirteenth century and which various coalitions in the later fourteenth century had tried to resurrect.

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The protesters also proceeded to ring the bells of the communal bell tower arrengo , which was the official sign to convoke the citys legislative councils in the name of the popolo. They then managed to step up their protest through hastily convened council meet-ings, although only one day later, following a backlash, full-scale urban warfare broke out between the contending coalitions. These usually involved the formulation of concrete demands in ways that imitated existing procedures of legislation.

On the feast of the Assumption 15 August , the thirty-six guilds of Tournai assembled on the market square with their banners and arms. Led by the fullers, they then moved to another site of frequent protest in the city, the place du Bcquerel, where they submitted a petition in the name of the people and community peuple et communault of Tournai to the four colleges of the urban government.

The petitionswhich concerned a reform of taxes on beer and wine, the lowering of the fee for membership of the bourgeoisie, and the relationship between the guilds and their leaderswere accepted on the same day. The guilds were here imitating the citys representative assembly known as the Assemble de la Communaut, which, since , was constituted by the citys thirty-six guilds. Usually, this assembly was called upon by the urban government on contentious political issues, but on this occasion the guilds turned this procedure on its head by acting on their own initiative.

The urban government initially proclaimed the petitions acceptance from a window of the city hall, but on the follow-ing day the guildsmen themselves went to the city hall to ensure that the petition would also be announced from the tribune or balcony known as 6 Ullmann, Delictal Responsibility of Medieval Corporations, , ; on this subject see also Liddy and Haemers, Popular Politics, ; Boone, Armes, coursses, assemblees et commocions , The guilds rank-and-file had developed increasing resentments against the regime and eventually came to side with their erstwhile enemies from the citys patriciate.

Following further protests a fortnight later, the composi-tion of the urban government was partly overhauled, and in the following three months twenty-one political leaders were executed, a further ten exiled, and investigations started against another twenty-eight. At Bruges, for instance, there was a tradition of petitioning by the citys corporate bodies, known as the Nine Members, which also constituted the citys representative assembly, the Great Council. Armed assemblies of guildsmen known as wapeninghe also often constituted an important threat to the urban government, and formed part of a tradition which ultimately reached back to the demands by the meentucht the com-mons of Bruges to the count of Flanders in Where it was not possible to pressurize the government through public assemblies, there were still other chan-nels to express discontent and to stake political claims.

In Lille, which was characterized by especially low levels of conflict, the citys rulers were acutely concerned about various concealed ways in which religious and civic festivals could be disrupted by urban protesters. Ordinances issued in close proximity to major festivalssuch as the famous Procession of Lille, Corpus Christi, or Saint John the Baptists Dayspecifically banned col-lective activities such as the planting of trees for the purpose of gathering people, rhyming competitions, or combats by jousting companies, and laid down strict regulations for the behaviour of guilds.

For representative assem-blies in Tournai, see Chapter 6, pp. For these events, Houtart, Les Tournaisiens et le roi de Bourges, For practices of petitioning, see also the contributions in the three volumes edited by Nubola and Wrgler: Suppliche e gravamina ; Forme della comunicazione politica; Operare la resistenza. Modes of Conflict 45reminder that not all forms of conflict were necessarily expressive of a legal vocabulary, and that protesters could fall back on a variety of other, often clandestine, practices to express discontent.

However, the Lillois, like the inhabitants of other cities, could still articulate their demands through one particular route: Although legal cases often did not have a visible political dimension, they could be used by city dwellers to articu-late their protest about contentious issues. Lilles chief executive council, the chevinage, frequently found itself adjudicating in politically sensitive cases because it also operated as the citys principal appeals court.

What looks like a fairly narrow issue had major polit-ical implications in practice. Lille had seen an influx of immigrants and a rise in the number of those who acquired the rights of citizenship bour-geoisie in the late s and s. The butchers complained that those who had recently entered the guild effectively barred members of ancient butcher families from acquiring a stall on the meat market, brought down quality because of their lack of experience, and thereby created dishon-our deshonneur for the entire trade.

Comparable issues also provoked major divisions in many neighbouring citiesindeed, in their petition of , the guildsmen of Tournai also raised similar concerns about the regulation of the meat market. What provoked a threatening assembly on a city square in Tournai became in Lille the subject of consultations of the chevinage in its double capacity as civic government and appeals court. The butchers argued that the problems had started in with a change in the rules of admission to the guild: Evidently impressed by the butchers arguments, the chevinage in the end decided to reinstate the guilds old rules of admission, because 12 For various other forms of protest, see Dumolyn and Haemers, A Bad Chicken Was Brooding , ; Skoda, Medieval Violence, ; Lecuppre-Desjardin, La ville des cr-monies, ; Hanawalt and Reyerson, City and Spectacle, ixxviii.

In this context, see also the anthropologist James Scotts work on hidden transcripts in Weapons of the Weak, and Domination and the Arts of Resistance, , For a more detailed analysis of Lille, as well as Verona, which saw similar practices of conflict, see Chapter 7. Balancing the interests of both, it was eventually decided in October to establish a separate butchery for the homines novi. A spec-tacular case is that of the Lille citizen Gilles dAuffay, a grain merchant who created noise and scandal noise et esclandre in February At this point, dAuffay decided to seek redress outside Lille, and thereby transformed his protest into a wider jurisdictional conflict.

He took his dispute before the high court of the Parlement of Paris, which, however, transferred the case to the Council of Flanders, the appeals court of the county of Flanders under the jurisdiction of the duke of Burgundy. Gilles claimed that the city had not respected the proper judicial order and pointed to evidence for corruption in the city, while Lille responded with the jurisdictional argument that it possessed several fine privileges, franchises, liberties, constitutions, and usages18, which limited Gilless right of appeal outside the city.

In the end, dAuffays protest turned out to be successful. On 13 November , the Council of Flanders struck down the city of Lilles original sentence in a way that itself crossed the boundaries of law and politics: The city of Lille, however, did not want to accept this sentence and promptly appealed before the Parlement in Paris.

At this point, on 30 December , King Charles VIs govern-ment intervened in the dispute and issued a letter enjoining the bailli of Tournai to enforce the Councils original judgement because of the need to protect grain supplies at a time of war. This case is published in Espinas, Les origines du droit dassociation, II, Modes of Conflict 47Local political protest over the shearers guild and corruption in Lille had, therefore, not only become the subject of court hearings, but was trans-formed into a political conflict sui generis, which involved the highest juris-dictional agencies.

DAuffays was not, of course, a protest like that of the guilds of Bologna or Tournai; unspectacular as it was, it was not reported by chroniclers or sources other than the legal records that it left behind. However, dAuffays protest also shared an important trait with such more visible actions: Nevertheless, it matters that city dwell-ers were so keen on using recognized constitutional mechanisms for their confrontations.

This mode of conflict also often represented an escalation from mere protest: Two strategies stand out: The first strategy was, in many ways, the bread and butter of urban politics. A well-known example was the above-mentioned imposition or cancellation of bans and banishments by political groups which were able to control the judicial apparatus of a city.

In spite of the legalism behind such sentences, there was ample room for manoeuvre for the manipulation of underlying legal procedures. A good example is the revolt of the Maltraversi party of Bologna, led by the jurist Carlo Zambeccari, on 6 May This was for a good reason: They also constrained the colleges of the urban government to revoke the bans of ninety individuals, many of whom came from familiessuch as the da Saliceto, Galluzzi, and Isolaniwho had been closely associated with the Maltraversi. A legal process was established for other exiles of whom successfully applied within the following month to have their sentences can-celled, but the Maltraversis hand was clearly visible in the rules which under-lay this process: Although this process was driven by fundamen-tally political concerns, the importance given to legal proceedings is never-theless surprising.

Exiles were required to present an act of pacification with the aggrieved party if they wanted their bans cancelled, but an ordinance of 26 May exempted Francesco da Sassuolo from this requirement because he could not obtain the necessary documentation. The plenipotentiary reform commission, the Sedici Riformatori dello Stato di Libert, even decided to reimburse those guilds which lost the lands that they had acquired from the confiscated possessions of the exiles.

However, because of budgetary pres-sures, their original investments were not to be repaid directly, but converted into obligations in the communally-funded debt Monte with an annual interest rate of six per cent. A good example are the pratiche of Florence: The 21 ASB, Provvigioni in capreto, 6, fos. See also Tamba, Il regime del popolo e delle arti, , , Modes of Conflict 49Signoria, then under the leadership of Maso degli Albizzi, called these two meetings to receive backing for its peace negotiations with King Ladislas of Naples with whom Florence had, for nearly a year, been fighting a war which had been as disastrous as it had been divisive within the city.

At the same time, they were also a risky instrument: First, less than half of the members of the unsuccessful 15 May meeting were invited. Although the discussion started with a negative statement by one of the fiercest supporters of the war, the third speaker, Masos associate Lorenzo Ridolfi, gave a rousing speech in favour of the negotiations with Ladislas. Then, Onofrio di Giovanni Bischeri also sided with Lorenzo, but expressed some scepticism over Ladislass commitment. The meeting had been transformed: As many as twenty-six shared the opinion of Ridolfi, and another six that of Bischeri.

After a further day of debate on 28 May, five leading defenders of the war had changed sides, and the diplomatic peace mission, which was eventually successful, went ahead. A second strategy was to add new mechanisms of bargaining to the political framework in ways that usually intensified conflicts.

Cities such as Florence or Bologna were noto-rious for the frequent appointment of special commissions bale in times 24 For this war, see Brucker, Civic World of Early Renaissance Florence, Furthermore, only one invited speaker Ridolfo Peruzzi had also been present at the pratica of 25 October when the controversial decision had been taken to ally with the pope against Ladislas: ASF, CP, 42, fos.

Note that Maso was again challenged in two further pratiche as early as 14 and 15 June When the peace treaty was eventually put before the Consiglio dei Duecento for approval, it only narrowly passed the necessary threshold: Bartolomeo del Corazza, Diario fiorentino, A good example is Tournai, where, after the above-mentioned protests of 15 August , the assembly of guildsmeninitially on its own initiative, but later with the support of the urban governmentalso elected a special commission composed of two delegates commis per guild.

Charged with reviewing communal policies and accounts, this commission effectively came to work alongside the urban government under whose official seal they also demanded to be invested. Directing their jurisdictional powers against the leading exponents of the guild regime, they arrested several office-holders and launched investigations against the bailli of the Tournaisis, but also drafted reforms of military service as well as the terms on which political exiles could return to the city. Although they were required to formally submit these items to the urban government of Tournai, the commis were increasingly recognized as a jurisdictional agency.

The challenge, however, failed and, under the aegis of the urban government and the commis, dozens were executed or exiled. In July , in the wake of a budgetary crisis, commis were once more appointed by the guilds, but this time after the Assemble de la Communaut had been convened by the urban government itself. The commis were to hold the same power and not less than that delegated [bailli] to the commis by the said communaut in the year They also drew up a charter of complaints and sent a delegation to the king so that the commis would receive royal 28 For Florence, see Chapter 6, p.

See also Houtart, Les Tournaisiens et le roi de Bourges, , See also TR, II, Modes of Conflict 51confirmation and see their powers extended for the common good and well-being of the city. In the volatile political system of Lige, rebels repeatedly established two types of jurisdictional agencies to control judicial and executive power. First, a special court known as the Vingt-Deux was created by rebels to deal with complaints against episcopal jurisdiction.

It first appeared in December , in the wake of a one-year war between the prince-bishop and Lige alongside other cities of the principality. Further confrontations neces-sitated subsequent changes to the regulations underlying the Vingt-Deux in and Legally speaking, such strategies were extremely problematic, because a mambour could usually only be elected by the cathedral chapter in periods of episcopal vacancy. As ever, rebels found ways to circumvent tricky issues.

As was stressed by the charter which sealed the mambours election, the bishop had himself broken ear-lier agreements and his departure had left the country without a gover-nor and a defender sans mambour ne defendeur , thereby requiring the cities of the prince-bishopric to take action. According to the chronicler Zantfliet, the prince-bishop had no inclination to return to the city as long as the mambour and the Vingt-Deux governed, because he did not want to rule alongside twenty-two other bishops.

On the latter occa-sion, the prince-bishopric autonomously governed itself under the rule 33 pour le bien et resourse de la ville, Chronique, For the s, see also Chapter 6, pp. However, they hardly represented a departure from a political culture dominated by legalistic concerns and multiple jurisdictions. City dwellers who fought each other through constitutional bargaining showed them-selves firmly entrenched in the complex political order of late medieval cities, whether they acted through established constitutional mechanisms or turned to creating new ones.

At such a point, city dwellers became embroiled in battles and sieges, and made use of matriel involving a variety of weapons for combat. The ready access of rival urban coalitions to military technology is remarkable. One of the main contend-ers of political conflicts in Bologna, the Gozzadini family, spent more than lire between April and June to purchase gun powder, mis-siles, and banners, as well as to pay mercenaries fighting for them.

As Richard Trexler has found, of the small number of Ciompi known by name at least twenty-six served in the citys companies of crossbowmen. Several of the rebels of Tournai in the s had also been involved in the Anglo-French war, including at Agincourt, as well as in several confrontations with the neighbouring nobility. See also Chapter 5, pp.

The cover illustration of this book shows the involvement of military gear in a plot attempt led by the Gozzadini in March , as imagined by the illustrator of a contemporary Lucchese chronicle: Modes of Conflict 53war. This was the ultimate manifestation of a polycentric order, because rebels engaged in forms of action that were characteristic of the fragmented politics outside city walls, and thereby made use of practices that were usu-ally reserved for sovereign powers.

Similarities between internal and exter-nal warfare prompted contemporaries frequently to characterize revolts as wars. In spite of the legal differences between them, judicial documents in Bologna sometimes referred to insurgents as enemies and rebels inim-ici et rebelles , especially when they were also involved in acts of warfare in the citys contado. Augustine, in a famous for-mulation with reverberations for subsequent discussions of warfare in the Middle Ages, defined just war as a means to redress injury in the interest of peacesomething that was echoed by the influential commentaries of Raymond of Peafort d.

The popular manu-als on warfare by Giovanni da Legnano d. Giangaleazzo Visconti, ruler of the Milanese state, openly played with this overlap between the aims of war and revolt, when he defied the signore of Verona, Antonio della Scala, in April In a letter to the citizens of Verona, Giangaleazzo reminded them that he was also acting in their interest, because he intended to liberate the subjects of the della Scala from the serfdom in which they were living.

Such external ideological and indeed military support was welcome to the Veronese population, which had become increasingly alienated by the tyrannical pretensions of the della Scala, whose court was monopolized by courtiers from Ravenna 41 See, for instance, the judicial proceedings in ASB, PS, 22, fos. See also Keen, Laws of War, In the end, Antonio was also brought down by a combination of external warfare and a lack of sup-port inside the city:

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