This book is the first to investigate the practice of summary justice in a late medieval Italian commune. In delineating the political and social context of that development in late medieval Bologna, it also is the first to study the phenomenon of oligarchy not only at the level of the executive body of a commune, but also in the broader councils of commune and popolo, as well as among the ranks of the enfranchised political class. The dominant popolo party constructed itself through multiple forms of exclusion that deeply affected the administration of justice and led to the rise of new institutions of judicial appeal and equity. Exclusion also led to shifting concepts of the legal status and perceptions of social identity of insider and outsider, of popolano and magnate, as revealed in the testimony of witnesses in trial records. Bologna's rich archival sources make it possible to bring a new perspective to key issues in legal and social history.
Sarah R. Blanshei, Ph.D. (1971) in History, Bryn Mawr College, is Dean of the College and Professor of History emerita at Agnes Scott College. She has published a monograph on medieval Perugia and articles on criminal justice in late medieval Bologna and Perugia.
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More About This Textbook
Overview
This book is the first to investigate the practice of summary justice in a late medieval Italian commune. In delineating the political and social context of that development in late medieval Bologna, it also is the first to study the phenomenon of oligarchy not only at the level of the executive body of a commune, but also in the broader councils of commune and popolo, as well as among the ranks of the enfranchised political class. The dominant popolo party constructed itself through multiple forms of exclusion that deeply affected the administration of justice and led to the rise of new institutions of judicial appeal and equity. Exclusion also led to shifting concepts of the legal status and perceptions of social identity of insider and outsider, of popolano and magnate, as revealed in the testimony of witnesses in trial records. Bologna's rich archival sources make it possible to bring a new perspective to key issues in legal and social history.
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Meet the Author
Sarah R. Blanshei, Ph.D. (1971) in History, Bryn Mawr College, is Dean of the College and Professor of History emerita at Agnes Scott College. She has published a monograph on medieval Perugia and articles on criminal justice in late medieval Bologna and Perugia.
Table of Contents
List of Tables vii
A Note on Usage ix
Introduction 1
I Part I. Politics of Closure: Setting the Boundaries 15
Part II Prosecuting the Excluded 43
II Oligarchy: Councils of the Commune 69
III Oligarchy: Councils of the Popolo 113
IV Part I. Status: Legal Definitions 135
Part II Perceptions of Identity and Proofs of Status 183
1 Lambertazzi 183
2 Fumantes 202
3 Magnates: The List of 1294 208
4 Identification of Magnates: Habitus 210
5 Ancestry vs. Lifestyle 216
6 Urban Magnates and Knighthood 231
7 Lifestyle as Proof of Status 239
8 Other Proofs of Status 260
9 Politics vs. Hereditary Status 266
10 Magnate Identity Trials as a Tool of Conflict 271
11 Political Profiles 274
12 The Debate on Nobility 296
13 Status and Society 306
V The Politicization of Criminal Justice 313
1 Equality 313
2 Torture 320
3 Due Process 337
4 Captured Banniti 366
5 Protestacio 369
6 Privilege 377
7 Querele and Summary Justice 408
8 Petitions as Predecessors to the Querela 418
9 Legislation of 1313 428
10 The New Querela of 1320 441
11 Expansion of Summary Justice: Its Significance 455
12 Implementation of the Querela 462
13 Suspension of Due Process: Resistance by the Judges 484
Epilogue 499
Map of Bologna 509
Appendices
A Jurisdictions of the Courts of the Capitano del Popolo 511
B Table for Chapter One 527
C Table for Chapter Two 529
D Tables for Chapter Three 531
E Tables for Chapter Four 565
F Tables for Chapter Five 597
Bibliography 641
Index 655