Lucca’s Ancient Heritage. The Early Structures of City and Territory

7/30/2019 Luccas Ancient Heritage. The Early Structures of City and Territory

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Luccas Ancient Heritage: The EarlyStructures of City and Territory

Throughout the Middle Ages, as later during the Renaissance, the origins

and antique history of Lucca failed to excite sustained interest among localchroniclers. It is possible that our vision has been clouded, to a degree, by a firein 1822, which destroyed the manuscript collection of the seventeenth-centuryLucchese bibliophile Francesco Maria Fiorentini. The loss of manuscripts wasclearly substantial. The chronicle usually attributed to Sebastiano Puccini, moreprobably the work of Gherardo Sergiusti, hints at a local historiographicaltradition regarding Luccas origins that is now lost to us. Nevertheless, enoughmaterial survives in transcript to suggest that patriotic Lucchese writers weregenerally disinclined to trace the history of their city back beyond the eleventhcentury. By the sixteenth century, Giuseppe Civitale, most important of all laterLucchese chroniclers, was forced to concede that firm records regarding Luccasmost distant past had been irretrievably lost.

Before the Cinquecento, one extant local chronicle alone ventured to describeLuccas foundation: a chronicle in ottava rima written by Alessandro Streghi.Streghis poem was probably composed mainly in the 1430s; though it wassupplemented with additional verses in later decades, when it circulated widelyin forms of both verse and prose. Streghi traced Luccas origins to the familiarcompany of wandering Trojan exiles. Lucca, originally called Urilia, becomes

Antica cronichetta volgare lucchese gi della biblioteca di F.-M. Fiorentini, ed. S. Bongi, Attidella R. Accademia lucchese, 26 (1893), pp. 21920.

BSL MS 18, Delle Cronache di Lucca di Sebastiano Puccini, fo. 12r. The issue of authorshipneeds to be revisited: compare BSL MS 18, fo. 23r; MS 98, p. 76; MS 927, fo. 111v. But seemarginal note, MS 927, fo. 163r.

Giuseppe Civitale, Historie di Lucca, ed. M.F. Leonardi, Rerum ItalicarumScriptores Recentiores,nos. 1 and 4, 2 vols. (Rome, 1983 8), i, p. 116: Ma se da qualche discreto o amorevole cittadino di

Lucca fu raccolto de ricordi di quei tempi che di pi avanti fossero stati scritti, cos della fondationecome del nome di lei, si pu tener per certo che le guerre, et le pesti, i rubbamenti, i sacchi,glincendij grandi et le revolutioni dello stato et simili rovine glhanno fatti disperdere et mandarea male.

For the manuscript copies of Streghis verse chronicle,and of the prose translation attributed Ibelieve wronglyto Alessandro Boccella: M. E. Bratchel, Chronicles of Fifteenth-Century Lucca:Contributions to an Understanding of the Restored Republic, Bibliothque dHumanisme etRenaissance, 60 (1998), pp. 813.


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2 Medieval Lucca and the Renaissance State

the creation of the Trojan Artomone. It was built on territory granted to theloyal Artomone by a grateful Aeneas, and was subsequently populated by manynobles who had followed Artomone from Troy. This first city was destroyedfrom neighbouring Pisa by the descendants of Peleus. But two noble infantsof Artomones line escaped the ruins of Urilia and fled to Rome, where theirmilitary prowess and faithful service quickly attracted the attention of the RomanSenate. These brothers, Vessilano and Catulo, together with a third and youngerbrother, Mauro, were rewarded by the rebuilding of their native city on evenmore lavish scale at the public expense of Rome. The city, now called Cittde Tre Castelli, was destroyed once more: this time by the forces of Scipioin punishment for the rebellion of its ruler, Garsipione, against Rome. Yetagain two young brothers of Luccas ruling house, imprisoned in Rome in

consequence of their fathers treason, emerged as the military heroes of Rome.The military valour of the brothers Enea and Polidamus was rewarded by therefounding of their city; and the new city was finally called Luca after two of thenoble Romans, Lucio Celio and Lucio Bibolo, who had been entrusted with itsrestoration.

Streghis narrative of Luccas foundation was recounted in full by GiuseppeCivitale. But the later writer then proceeded to demolish this local tradition asincompatible both with established chronology and with historical plausibility.The more critical approach to myths of origin is hardly surprising in a sixteenth-century chronicler; though Civitale still tried to retain some space for theTrojans in a historical reconstruction now influenced by the fantasies of Annioof Viterbo. More noteworthy than the uneasy combination of credulity with

critical thought that characterized Lucchese writers of the sixteenth centuryis the general lack of interest displayed by all their predecessors, excludingStreghi, in Luccas earliest history. In Italian medieval historiography, there wasa very widespread presupposition that a peoples future historical function andsubsequent development were laid down and predetermined at the momentof foundation. The assumption that the founders of cities impressed indeliblecharacteristics on all future inhabitants pervades the early Italian Renaissance.In Lucca itself, the point was explicitly acknowledged by Sergiusti, probably

BSL MS 942, Cronache di Lucca scritte in ottava rima da Allessandro di ser Giovanni di serMasseo da Barga, c. i, ott. 29 38.

Ibid., c. i, ott. 40 55. The story through to the refounding of Lucca by Lucio Celio, Lucio Bibolo, Marco Quinto,

and Catulo and Leo Emilio is recounted in the first four canti of Streghis poem: BSL MS 942,fos. 1r 21v.

Civitale, Historie, i, pp. 130 5. For the influence of Annio of Viterbo on contemporary Florentine historiography:

A. DAlessandro, Il mito dellorigine aramea di Firenze in un trattatello di GiambattistaGelli, ASI 138 (1980), pp. 33989. Following Annio, mia guida et vero lume certo delle coseantiche, Civitale attributed Luccas foundation to Lucio Lucumone, forty-fifth ruler after Noah,king of Tuscany from 702 : Civitale, Historie, i, pp. 13666.


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Luccas Ancient Heritage 3

writing in the 1540s. Yet, even in the hands of Streghi, the Trojan pedigree ofLuccas nobility had been little more than the periodically invoked explanationand guarantee of Lucchese fidelity and valour. When, by the end of the sixteenthcentury, foundation myths finally became a major preoccupation of Lucchesechronicles, the objective had already shifted to the detached and meticulouslisting of rival opinions.

In part, the explanation lies withLuccas relatively weak historiographicaltradi-tion. Further, and perhaps not unconnected, many imperatives that promptedthe antiquarian enthusiasms of other Italian societies were less pressingly relevantin the Lucchese context. Lucchese writers did not have to confront any challengefrom within their own dominions comparable with that posed by Fiesole toneighbouring Florence. Fiesole was older than its ruling city of Florence, in a

world where antiquity was closely intertwined with prestige. Fiesole could alsoadvance claims to an independent and privileged relationship with Rome itself.Insecurity aroused by Fiesole was a major factor in inspiring the Florentine searchfor a legitimizing past. Moreover, Luccas political and constitutional situation

was far too ambiguous to promote the impassioned, if radically fluctuating, questfor an appropriate foundation myth that so bedevilled Florences developinghistoriography. And looking beyond Florence, Luccas rulers were entirelyuntroubled by the need to explain the settlement of their own noble ancestorsamong such barren and unprepossessing wastes as the Venetian lagoons; norcould even the most creative rewriting of Lucchese history reasonably duplicate

BSL MS 18, fo. 10v: Quanto lantichit sia delli homini appregiata nessuno che non lo

conoschi, e li dotti humanisti sanno che questo vocabulo antiquo alle volte significa caro perch lecose antiche sono care. An anonymous Lucchese chronicle now preserved in Cambridge, apparently written at the

very end of the sixteenth century and almost certainly the lost chronicle of Salvatore Guinigi,offers a particularly extensive survey of the current interpretations: CUL MS Add. 4700, Historiedella Citt di Lucca, pp. 36 58. Tuttavia doppo dhaver intorno a ci fedelmente riferitoquanto ho potuto ravogliere, concludo che di tutte queste opinioni io non voglio, n rifiutarnealcuna per esser antiche, n affermarne alcuna per essere incerte, e si come i gusti delle per-sone sono diversi, cos rimetto volentieri a i lettori, che ciascuno si elegga quella che pi sitrover di suo gusto: ibid., p. 58. This, and the preceding reference to the rozza simplicit ofglantichi nostri, provides a further warning that the extant chronicle material may be less thanrepresentative.

An underdevelopment greatly exaggerated by E. Cochrane, in Historians and Historiography inthe Italian Renaissance(Chicago, 1981), pp. 119 21, 224. Certainly Lucca was not backward in theproduction of urban laudes: H. Schwarzmaier, Lucca und das Reich bis zum Ende des 11. Jahrhunderts:Studien zur Sozialstruktur einer Herzogstadt in der Toskana (Tbingen, 1972), pp. 338 47.

T. Maissen, Attila, Totila e Carlo Magno fra Dante, Villani, Boccaccio e Malispini: Per la

genesi di due leggende erudite, ASI 152 (1994), pp. 561639. More specifically: C. Klapisch-Zuber, San Romolo: Un vescovo, un lupo, un nome alle origini dello Stato moderno, ASI 155(1997), pp. 348.

Thus Civitale comfortably accommodates his belief that Lucca became a Roman colony underthe Republic in 320 at the time of the consuls Gneo Domitio Calvino and Lucio CornelioScipione II, with his later conviction that Lucca fusse allhora et sia sempre poi stata affessionata,devota et fedele allImperio, che il principio si attribuito meritamente al detto [Giulio] Cesare:Historie, i, p. 232.


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Venetian claims to a distant past characterized by a true political independencefree from all imperial control.

The early history of the urban settlement in Lucca is very obscure indeed,though obscurity presents no barrier to myth-making and is probably among theleast significant reasons for the relative neglect by Lucchese chroniclers of theearliest ages of their citys history. Within Lucchese territory there is sufficientevidence of human presence from Palaeolithic times. The site of Lucca itself, onislets then formed by the river Serchio, may have been settled by the Etruscans.

Archaeological evidence has pointed increasingly to Etruscan roots; though apowerful local historiographical tradition has continued to attribute the firsthabitations to the Ligurians of the northern Apennines, a people culturally andtechnologically influenced in this border region by their Etruscan neighbours to

the south. The story that the consul Ti. Sempronius Longus took refuge withinthe walls of Lucca following Hannibals victory at the Trebbia in December 218 may be ill founded. Little can be said with confidence before the foundationof the Latin colony in 180 , from which date the history of the walled cityclearly begins.

Rome came into conflict with the Ligurian tribes in the period after theHannibalic War: both with the Ingauni around Genoa, and with the Apuaniof the mountains above Pisa. Raids on Pisan lands by the latter resulted inthe transportation and resettlement of perhaps 40,000 Apuani by the consulsCornelius and Baebius in 181/0 . The Latin colony of Lucca was thenestablished, probably with less than three thousand settlers, on the Pisan territoryvacatedat least in partby these forced removals. The topography of the

Roman city has long since been clarified, with some lingering disputes overthe course of the Roman walls to the north-west. Less revealing are thewritten sources for the citys history throughout the entire Roman period.Lucca apparently became a municipium after 90 , and was allocated upon

E. Muir, Civic Ritual in Renaissance Venice(Princeton, 1981), particularly pp. 6774. The debate is briefly summarized by I. Belli Barsali, Lucca: Guida alla citt (Lucca, 1988),

pp. 56. The case for the extensive and continued colonization by the Etruscans of the Luccheseplainand indeed for the origins of Lucca itself as an Etruscan trading outpostis developedfrom archaeological evidence in P. Mencacci and M. Zecchini, Lucca Romana (Lucca, 1982),pp. 33 58; and more recently by M. Zecchini, Lucca Etrusca: Abitati, necropoli, luoghi diculto (Lucca, 1999). For Etruscan settlement in the Garfagnana: G. Ciampoltrini (ed.), GliEtruschi della Garfagnana: Ricerche sullinsediamento della Murella a Castelnuovo di Garfagnana(Florence, 2005).

The retreat of Ti. Sempronius Longus to Lucca is recounted at length by Civitale, Historie, i,

pp.218 20. Thetradition hasbeen accepted by more recentLucchesehistorians from A. Mazzarosa,Storia di Lucca dalla sua origine fino al 1814(Lucca, 1833), p. 10, to G. Lera, Lucca: Citt da Scoprire(Lucca, 1980), p. 36. The difficulties raised by Livys Sempronius Lucam contendit are discussedby F. W. Walbank, A Historical Commentary on Polybius, 3 vols. (Oxford, 1957 79), i, p. 411.

A. De Conno, Linsediamento longobardo a Lucca, in Pisa e la Toscana occidentale nelMedioevo: A Cinzio Violante nei suoi 70 anni, 2 vols. (Pisa, 1991), i, pp. 67 77.

E. T. Salmon, The Making of Roman Italy(London, 1982), p. 199, n. 331; Cicero: Epistulaead Familiares, ed. D. R. Shackleton Bailey, 2 vols. (Cambridge, 1977), ii, 280 (xiii. 13).


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enfranchisement to the Fabia tribe. Thereafter we know only of that greatgathering of senators and lictors drawn to Lucca in April 55 for the conferenceof the triumvirs Caesar, Pompey, and Crassus. Recent archaeological evidencesuggests that the city faced a time of crisis under the Late Republic and EarlyEmpire, but recovered both economically and demographically during the courseof the fourth and fifth centuries. This recovery, which may have begun as early asthe second half of the third century, was accompaniedperhaps explainedbythe restoration of the city walls and by the establishment of a state arms factory(fabrica) for the manufacture of swords.

No less obscure are the decades following the fall of the Roman Empire inthe west. At the time of the Ostrogothic kingdom, Lucca may have been theseat of a Gothic military commander or count (comes): the evidence is far from

compelling. A more convincing indicator of Gothic interest in, and settlementaround, Lucca is provided by the strength and persistence of Luccas resistance

when besieged by Narses in 553 during Justinians wars for the reconquest ofItaly. Agathias account of the siege perhaps points to the occupation of Luccaby a Frankish garrison, and clearly presupposes the settlement within Luccas

walls of a large and diversified Gothic population. After finally conqueringthe city, Narses left behind a strong military force under the command of amagister militum. Thereafter all is speculation until the beginning of Lombardpenetration at the end of the sixth century.

The city that appears so fleetingly in the literary sources of classical antiquity,and that had clearly been much less important than the neighbouring maritimecentres of Pisa and Luna, becomes one of the best-studied societies of the Lombard

age. Luccas high profile after 568 (and more specifically after 685) owes as muchto the comparative wealth of documentary evidence as to the citys undoubted

For tribal allocations in general, and for Lucca in particular: W. V. Harris, Rome in Etruriaand Umbria (Oxford, 1971), pp. 23050, 333. See also L. R. Taylor, The Voting Districts of theRoman Republic: The Thirty-Five Urban and Rural Tribes(Rome, 1960), pp. 110, 272. Lucca seemsto have reverted to the status of a colonia at the time of the triumvirs Ottaviano, Antonio, andLepido: F. Castagnoli, La centuriazione di Lucca, Studi Etruschi, 20 (19489), p. 285.

G. Ciampoltrini and P. Notini, Lucca tardoantica e altomedievale: Nuovi contributi arche-ologici, AM 17 (1990), p. 590. The literature is summarized by S. Cosentino, Dinamiche socialied istituzionali nella valle del Serchio tra v e vii secolo, in Garf. 1995, pp. 414. But see alsoMencacci and Zecchini, Lucca Romana, pp. 86, 125.

L. A. Muratori, Rerum Italicarum Scriptores, i, Excerpta ex Agathiae historia a fine Procopii adGothos pertinentia Hugone Grotio interprete. Ex libro primo (Milan, 1723), pp. 386 7. Cosentino,Dinamiche sociale ed istituzionali, pp. 4661: particularly for the identification of Funso as aGothic comes civitatis of the reign of Theodoric. My use of the word Gothic does not necessarily

presume the existence of a single Gothic ethnic identitywhether original or acquired: P. Amory,People and Identity in Ostrogothic Italy, 489554(Cambridge, 1997), pp. 33 9, 151 2 and passim.See now C. Wickham, Framing the Early Middle Ages: Europe and the Mediterranean, 400800(Oxford, 2005), pp. 823. By the sixteenth century the story of Narses siege had entered Lucchesehistorical consciousness: BSL MS 18, fos. 22r 23v. The learning here displayed in defence ofquestionable Lucchese action during the course of the siege provides an additional pointer toSergiustis authorship of a textnow preserved in a number of very different versionsnormallytraced to Sebastiano Puccini.


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prominence within the Lombard kingdom. While there are no narrative historiesof Lucca before the eleventh century, Lucchese archivespredominantly thoseof bishop and chapteroffer approximately 3,494 documents that record legaltransactions pre-dating the year 1100, of which almost three hundred are pre-800. The record is supplemented from the time of Pope Gregory the Greatby miracle accounts and travellers tales, as pilgrimage routes to Rome broughtsaintly royal and aristocratic visitors to Lucchese hostels.

By the seventeenth century Lucchese writers had developed a positivelyArthurian myth of Lombard Lucca, featuring the institution in 700 of an orderof chivalry called della ragione. These legendary knights came to number 2,500,and, though given a general mandate for the administration of justice throughoutall Tuscany, were entrusted with specific responsibilities for the protection of

widows and orphans. Such good and holy intentions were marred only by theperversity and barbarism of the Lombard laws that the knights administered.More recent analysis of the extant texts has shown the construction of newbuildings by noble Lombard families from 685, particularly in areas immediatelyoutside the walls. The region to the east and west of the gate of S. Pietro on theroad from Pisa was settled by the highest ranks of Lombard society, though theearliest settlement seems to have been to the north around porta S. Frediano.

Whether as believed by Schwarzmaier initial Lombard settlement in thesuburbs is to be explained by the density of population already within the walls,or rather by the importance of gates and lines of road communications as fociof population, there is growing evidence from the early eighth century for thebuilding of substantial houses by wealthy Lombards within the city itself.

Luccas Lombard aristocracy retained its social and institutional importanceduring, and beyond, the early decades of Frankish penetration into Tuscany. Butthere was an increasing Frankish presence and control in the years after 815.The centuries thereafter were characterized by economic and demographicgrowthexplained in part by Luccas political significance, but also by the citysposition as the principal centre between the Apennines and the Arno on the viaFrancigena.

Schwarzmaier, Lucca und das Reich, pp. 811, 17; D. J. Osheim, The Episcopal Archiveof Lucca in the Middle Ages, Manuscripta, 17 (1973), pp. 1323; C. Wickham, Communityand Clientele in Twelfth-Century Tuscany: The Origins of the Rural Commune in the Plain of Lucca(Oxford, 1998), pp. 2436; G. Ghilarducci, Ledizione dei documenti del sec. xi dellArchivio

Arcivescovile di Lucca, in SantAnselmo, pp. 423 6. Schwarzmaier, Lucca und das Reich, pp. 16 17, 32 4.

CUL MS Add. 4700, pp. 177 8. I. Belli Barsali, La topografia di Lucca nei secoli viiixi, in Centro Italiano di Studi sullAlto

Medioevo: Atti del 50 Congresso Internazionale di Studi sullAlto Medioevo, Lucca 37 ottobre 1971(Spoleto, 1973), pp. 4823; De Conno, Linsediamento longobardo, pp. 59127; Schwarzmaier,Lucca und das Reich, p. 18.

B. Andreolli, Uomini nel medioevo: Studi sulla societ lucchese dei secoli viiixi (Bologna,1983), pp. 67 77; De Conno, Linsediamento longobardo, pp. 64 6; Schwarzmaier, Lucca unddas Reich, p. 95.


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The relative wealth of documentary evidence has attracted scholars to thehistory of early medieval Lucca; it has also stimulated scholarly debate. Oneenduring controversy centres on the issue of continuity from the classical Romanpast. There is no doubt regarding the continued occupation of the area within thecity walls; that the local nobility, in Lucca as elsewhere, remained urban based;that Lucca maintained and extended its function as an administrative centre.The debate revolves rather around definitions of urbanism, and the extent to

which the town with its territory (civitas) survived the barbarian invasions as anautonomous unit. Comparisons with Roman antiquity are complicated by theradical changes that were already occurring in the centuries before the collapseof the western Empire. Lucca of the early third century has been portrayed as acity in ruins. And, if the Roman Empire had been a commonwealth of city-

states, under the late Empire this mosaic of fairly independent town territorieswas subordinated to provincial governors and supra-municipal magistrates. Nodoubt cities came to fulfil new functions in a changing world; appearances weretransformed by changes both economic and cultural. But, at least in the case ofLucca, Wickhams insistence on the survival of clear urban characteristics appearsirresistible.

Further controversy surrounds the establishment and extent of the Lombardduchy of Lucca. The regions of Lombard Italy were ruled from the towns,and Lucca became the seat of a Lombard duke. Tradition has preserved thenames of fourteen Lombard dukes of Lucca, beginning with Gummarith in 576.The list has always been treated with suspicion; in 1813 Cianelli pruned theducal candidates for whom there is firm evidence to four. The vast landed

possessions of Luccas Lombard aristocracy in the distant Maremma, and theapparent inclusion of Populonia within the territory of Lucca in documents ofthe late eighth century, offer some support to those who would trace the duchy

See, e.g., Ciampoltrini and Notini, Lucca tardoantica e altomedievale, pp. 56192. Moregenerally, C. Wickham, Considerazioni conclusive, in R. Francovich and G. Noy (eds.), La storiadellalto medioevo italiano (vix secolo) alla luce dellarcheologia(Florence, 1994), pp. 741 59.

The literature is summarized in O. Capitani, Citt e comuni, in G. Galasso (ed.), UTETStoria dItalia, iv (Turin, 1981), pp. 510; D. Harrison, The Early State and the Towns: Forms of Integration in Lombard Italy568774(Lund, 1993), pp. 88 93.

Ciampoltrini and Notini, Lucca tardoantica e altomedievale, p. 590. P. J. Jones, The Italian City-State: From Commune to Signoria(Oxford, 1997), p. 22. R. Thomsen, The Italic Regions: From Augustus to the Lombard Invasion (Copenhagen, 1947);

M. Pasquinucci, LEtruria in et romana, in M. Luzzati (ed.), Etruria, Tuscia, Toscana: Lidentitdi una regione attraverso i secoli(Pisa, 1992), pp. 63 73.

C. Wickham, LItalia e lalto medioevo, AM 15 (1988), pp. 105 24; id., La cittaltomedievale: Una nota sul dibattito in corso, AM 15 (1988), pp. 64951.

A. N. Cianelli, Dissertazioni sopra la storia lucchese, in Memorie e documenti per servire allistoriadel principato lucchese, i (Lucca, 1813), pp. 25 41. The fourteen are: Gummarito (576); Valfredi(585); Arnolfo (590); Ariulfo (602); Tasone (630); Allovisino (685); Walperto (714); Ramingo(728); Berprando (730); Vanefredi; Valprando Duca e Vescovo (741); Alperto (744); Desiderio;Tachiperto. Cianellis revised list: Allovisino (686); Walperto (713); Alperto (754); Tachiperto(773). For doubts regarding Tachiperto: De Conno, Linsediamento longobardo, pp. 623.


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back to the conquests of Gummarith. But Walperto (713736) remains thefirst of three pre-Frankish dukes who are securely attested by the sources.

No less debated is the territory over which Luccas dukes held sway. There isthe possibility, frequently contested, that the Lombard duke resident in Lucca

was the only holder of the ducal title in Tuscany. Consequently Lucca has beenportrayed as the capital of a consolidated Lombard duchy that embraced eitherthe whole of Tuscany or, alternatively, the more restricted region of north-

west Tuscany. In all probability centres like Pistoia (and more especially Siena)enjoyed an effective administrative autonomy under localgastaldi(royal officials),though this was not necessarily incompatible with the hegemony throughoutTuscany of Lucca and its ducal court. Later under the Carolingians, theBavarian Bonifacio, variously described as count and duke of Lucca, founded a

dynasty that was to control the counties of Lucca, Pisa, Volterra, Luni, Pistoia,Florence, and Fiesole. His son, Bonifacio II, was entrusted with the defence ofCorsica against the Saracens, while his grandson, Adalberto I, was named bothmarquis of Tuscany and guardian (tutor) of Corsica. Adalberto II (886915),known as il Ricco, with his palace outside Lucca near porta S. Donato, and withpowers and lands extending far beyond Tuscany, was lauded as king in all butname. After the Adalberti, the March of Tuscany, though significantly modifiedin character and functions, was to survive until the death of Matilda of Canossain 1115.

Debates over the survival of the Roman city-territory, and over the nature andextent of the Lombard duchy and its successor formations, transport us fromthe obscure early history of the city into the countryside over which that city

exercised control. In early sixteenth-century Lucca, the new, or renewed, interestin Luccas origins was intimately connected with live contemporary political

L. Bertini, Peredeo Vescovo di Lucca, in Studi storici in onore di Ottorino Bertolini, 2 vols.(Pisa, 1972), i, pp. 2145. But see B. Andreolli, Walprando: Un vescovo guerriero del regno di

Astolfo, in Uomini nel medioevo, p. 24. For the inclusion of Populonia (Cornino) in territorioLucense: F. Schneider, Die Reichsverwaltung in Toscana von der Grndung des Longobardenreichesbis zum Ausgang der Staufer (5681268) (Rome, 1914), p. 116. For the fragility of the evidenceidentifying Gummarith (Grimarit) as first duke of Lucca: S. Gasparri, I duchi longobardi (Rome,1978), p. 57.

There is a convenient survey of the historiography in E. Lenzi, Lucca: Capitale del regnolongobardo della Tuscia (Lucca, 1997), pp. 647. See, particularly, C. G. Mor, I gastaldi conpotere ducale nellordinamento pubblico longobardo, in Atti del 10 Congresso Internazionale diStudi Longobardi: Spoleto, 2730 settembre 1951 (Spoleto, 1952), pp. 409 15.

Bertini, Peredeo, pp. 2930. See the articles by G. Fasoli and C. G. Mor on the Adalberti and Bonifacii sub voce in

Dizionario biografico degli italiani, i (Rome, 1960); xii (Rome, 1970); M. Nobili, Levoluzione delledominazioni marchionali in relazione alla dissoluzione delle circoscrizioni marchionali e comitali eallo sviluppo della politica territoriale dei comuni cittadini nellItalia centro-settentrionale (secolixi e xii), in La cristianit dei secoli xi e xii in occidente: Coscienza e strutture di una societ: Attidella ottava settimana internazionale di studio Mendola, 30 giugno5 luglio 1980) (Milan, 1983),pp. 23558; H. Schwarzmaier, Societ e istituzioni nel x secolo: Lucca, in Centro Italiano di StudisullAlto Medioevo: Atti del 50 Congresso Internazionale di Studi sullAlto Medioevo, Lucca 37 ottobre1971 (Spoleto, 1973), pp. 143 61.


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claims to territorial dominion. Luccas borders had contracted markedly duringthe wars of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries as neighbouring powers seizedareas of traditional Lucchese control. In February 1536 the General Council(Consiglio Generale) appointed a commission of three citizens to collect togetherall writings relating to Luccas ancient territories. Their efforts, preserved inthe Libri delle Sentenze, failed to penetrate back beyond 1308, which did notdeter Giuseppe Civitale from embarking on his own search for more distantevidence. Belief in the political utility of these antiquarian exercises does notseem to have endured very long. By the end of the sixteenth century Luccasancient territories were coming to be explored mainly for the location of paganshrines.

Civitale sought to identify Luccas legitimate borders from three points of

reference. First, he drew from Alessandro Streghi the notion that Lucca, at itsfirst foundation by the Trojan Artomone, was assigned twenty miles of territoryon both sides of the Serchio over the full course of that river. Secondly, thereare the references, never specific, to Luccas ancient jurisdiction and territoriesas defined and confirmed in privileges issuing from the Emperors of Rome.Finally, there is the detailed description of the territories historically ruled byLucca, clearly based on the Lucchese statute of 1308. We need not lingerover the links between the Roman civitasand its mythical Trojan prototype; theidentification of the Latin colony founded in 180 with the medieval city-stateraises problems that cannot be dismissed so lightly.

With the foundation of the Latin colony, centuriation (the marking-out ofland for settlement) took place in the plain around Luccathough it is unclear

whether the centuriation now visible relates to the first or second period ofcolonization. Archaeological and toponymic evidence suggest the garrisoningof military outposts in the valley of the Serchio immediately after 180, followedby the gradual colonization of the Garfagnana, eastern Versilia, Lunigiana, andVal di Lima. But the evidence of settlement provides only an imperfect guide tothe borders of the city-territory, which itself was not immutable. The confines ofLucchese and Pisan territory remain uncertain even for the densely settled plainto the east of the city around Bientina. The disputed reading of classical textshas resulted in continuing debate whether Lucca reached the sea to the south of

S. Bongi (ed.), Inventario del Regio Archivio di Stato in Lucca, 4 vols. (Lucca, 187288), i,p. 50; Civitale, Historie, i, pp. 54, 11920.

CUL MSAdd. 4700, pp. 612. Civitale, Historie, i, p.126. Ibid., p. 212.

Ibid., pp. 178212; Statuto del 1308: Statutum Lucani Communis an. MCCCVIII, repr. of1867 edn. with foreword by V. Tirelli (Lucca, 1991), pp. 3546.

Castagnoli, La centuriazione di Lucca, pp. 28590. Mencacci and Zecchini, Lucca Romana, pp. 2445, and R. Ambrosinis chapter on the

Romanization of the Lucchesia, appended to the same volume, pp. 283314. For the Garfagnana:G. Ciampoltrini, P. Notini, and C. Spataro, Vie e traffici nella Garfagnana det augustea:Linsediamento della Murella di Castelnuovo di Garfagnana, in Garf. 2005, particularly pp. 2323.

Mencacci and Zecchini, Lucca Romana, pp. 2001, 242.


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the Magra, thus dividing the territories of Pisa and Luni. At least by the sixthcentury, at the time of the brief Byzantine domination, the boundary betweenLucca and Pistoia seems to have followed the valley of the Pescia maggiore, wellto the west of the borders of the medieval ecclesiastical borders of Lucca. Morecontroversial has been the evidence of an early second-century alimentary tablefrom Veleia near Parma, which appears to show Lucchese jurisdiction extendingas far north as Veleia, thereby restricting the territory of Luna to the south and

west of its medieval diocese.Thecity-territories survived thecollapseof Rome as units of administration and

justice, though the cities themselves had already lost some of their administrativeautonomy. At the time of the Roman Republic, Lucca belonged to the provinceof Cisalpine Gaul; under Augustus, Lucca became part of the seventh region,

colloquially called Etruria or Tuscia. But the classical city-territories were onlytruly subsumed into broader provincial administrative regions with the reforms ofDiocletian (284305), when Lucca became a north-western portion of the newprovince of Tuscia et Umbria (itself later subdivided between Italia annonariaand Italia suburbicaria). Both the larger and smaller divisions were perpetuatedunder the Lombards; the Italian provincial system may have disintegrated

withor before the coming of the Lombards, but the ducal court centredon Lucca appears to have exercised some authority far beyond Luccas own

L. Banti, Luni(Florence, 1937), pp. 59, 112; P. M. Conti, Il presunto ducato longobardo diPisa, BSP 31 2 (19623), p. 163; E. Pais, Dalle guerre puniche a Cesare Augusto, 2 vols. (Rome,1918), ii, pp. 699716. For Pais, the coastal area around Viareggio was not part of the original

territory ceded by Pisa, but had become the object of dispute between Lucca and Pisa by 168

. R. Pescaglini Monti, Nobilit e istituzioni ecclesiastiche in Valdinievole tra xi e xii secolo,in Allucio da Pescia, pp. 225, 22930; A. M. Onori, Pescia dalle origini allet comunale (Pistoia,1998), pp. 203.

N. Criniti, La Tabula Alimentaria di Veleia(Parma, 1991), pp. 238, 244; F. Baroni, Rapportie collegamenti viarii medievali attraverso il passo di Tea fra la Garfagnana, la Lunigiana e il mare,in Garf. 1997, pp. 179 83; G. Mennella, Agri placentinorum et lucensium in Veleiate sumpti ,in Il capitolo delle entrate nelle finanze municipali in occidente ed in oriente: Actes de la x e rencontre

franco-italienne sur lpigraphie du monde romain (Rome, 1999), pp. 8594; G. Petracco andG. Petracco Sicardi, La dichiarazione dei Coloni Lucenses nella tavola di Velleia, Archivio storico

per le province parmensi, 4th ser., 56 (2004), pp. 28397. An updated literature is listed on thewebsite http://veleia.unipr.it. Among older studies: Banti, Luni, pp. 579; U. Formentini, Per lastoria preromana del pago, Studi Etruschi, iii (1929), pp. 51 66; Schneider, Die Reichsverwaltungin Toscana, pp. 63, 290; H. Nissen, Italische Landeskunde, 2 vols. (Berlin, 1883 1902), ii, p. 288.

B. Cori and P. R. Federici, Etruria, Tuscia, Toscanauna regione naturale?, in M. Luzzati(ed.), Etruria, Tuscia, Toscana: Lidentit di una regione attraverso i secoli (Pisa, 1992), pp. 1533;Cosentino, Dinamiche sociale ed istituzionali, pp. 3941; Pasquinucci, LEtruria in et romana,

pp. 63 73; Schneider, Die Reichsverwaltung in Toscana, pp. 210. For Italy in general: B. Ward-Perkins, From Classical Antiquity to the Middle Ages: Urban Public Building in Northern and CentralItaly 300850 (Oxford, 1984), pp. 1617. For the sixth century: T. S. Brown, Gentlemenand Officers: Imperial Administration and Aristocratic Power in Byzantine Italy554800(Rome,1984), pp. 19, 211.

P. M. Conti, La Tuscia e i suoi ordinamenti territoriali nellalto medioevo, in Centro Italianodi Studi sullAlto Medioevo: Atti del 50 Congresso Internazionale di Studi sullAlto Medioevo, Lucca

3 7 ottobre 1971 (Spoleto, 1973), pp. 7792; Brown, Gentlemen and Officers, pp. 1214.


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administrative and judicial area (iudiciaria, finis, territorium). The integrityof the Carolingian and post-Carolingian county was unprejudiced by the factthat Lucca seldom possessed its own count, but rather was combined withneighbouring counties or city-territoriesin varying and evolving waystoconstitute the March of Tuscany.

The concept of city with its territory persisted, but clearly neither the Lombardiudiciarianor the Carolingian comitatuspreserved the precise boundaries of theRoman civitas. The Lombard conquests had resulted in significant modificationsto politico-administrative units throughout north-central Italy. The course ofthese conquests explains the eighth-century references to localities in Populo-niafar to the southin iudicaria or in discursu Lucense. Territory tothe north-east of Pisa was held by the Byzantines for more than fifty years after

the Lombard invasion. When the Versilia (fines versilienses) eventually fell to theLombards, territory that appears to have been Pisan and Lunese in classical times

was acquired by Lucca. In the high and middle valley of the Serchio, Byzantineresistance was centred on castrum Carfagnanae (probably Piazza al Serchio) andon castrum novum (Castelnuovo di Garfagnana). When these strongholds fellto the Lombards, it seems that some lands were subtracted from the ancientterritory of Luni, and that Castelnuovo became the centre of a separate area ofcivil administration (fines Castronovo) under control from Lucca. Under the

Bertini, Peredeo, pp. 29 30; Cianelli, Dissertazioni, i, pp. 4151; Gasparri, I duchilongobardi, pp. 302; Mor, I gastaldi, p. 411. Cianelli believed in an early pre-ducal period whenevery Tuscan city ruled itself under Lombard military supervision: Dissertazioni, i, p. 31. And Conti

has argued that Luccas Lombard dukes exercised authority only over that citys iudiciaria, positingthe independence from ducal control of the gastaldatithat predominated elsewhere in Tuscany: Ilpresunto ducato longobardo di Pisa, pp. 14574.

Bertini, Peredeo, p. 30; Cianelli, Dissertazioni, i, pp. 60 3, 73 6; Nobili, Levoluzione delledominazioni marchionali, pp. 235 58; Schwarzmaier, Societ e istituzioni, pp. 151 4; V. Tirelli,Il vescovato di Lucca tra la fine del secolo xi e i primi tre decenni del xii, in Allucio da Pescia,pp. 901. Reference under Matilda to Corneto in comitatu tuscanense suggests that comitatusmight also be used to refer to the entire March: C. Manaresi, I placiti del Regnum Italiae, 3 vols.(Rome, 195560), iii, pt. i, no. 455, p. 371. See now A. Puglia, Lamministrazione della giustiziae le istituzioni pubbliche in Tuscia da Ugo di Provenza a Ottone I (anni 926967), ASI 160(2002), pp. 675 733.

Conti, Il presunto ducato longobardo di Pisa, pp. 16974; C. Violante, Le istituzioniecclesiastiche nellItalia centro-settentrionale durante il Medioevo: Province, diocesi, sedi vescovili,in G. Rossetti (ed.), Forme di potere e struttura sociale in Italia nel Medioevo (Bologna, 1977),pp. 92 5.

D. Bertini (ed.), Dissertazioni sopra la storia ecclesiastica lucchese, in Memorie e documenti perservire allistoria del Ducato di Lucca, iv, pt. i (Lucca, 1818), pp. 1949; P. M. Conti, La iudiciaria

longobarda di Maritima, BSP 401 (19712), pp. 15; Gasparri, I duchi longobardi, p. 57;Schneider, Die Reichsverwaltung in Toscana, pp. 11622.

Conti, Il presunto ducato longobardo di Pisa, p. 163; Schneider, Die Reichsverwaltung inToscana, p. 62.

The material, even the location of Byzantine resistance, is very controversial. P. M. Conti,Luni nellAlto Medioevo (Padua, 1967), pp. 56; L. Angelini, Una pieve toscana nel medioevo (Lucca,1979), pp. 812; id., Problemi di storia longobarda in Garfagnana (Lucca, 1985), pp. 1719,22, 3650; Cosentino, Dinamiche sociale ed istituzionali, pp. 556, 601; Schneider, Die


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Carolingians, the county of Lucca was shorn of its most southerly extension withthe reconstruction of Populonia on the basis of its ancient diocese. Elsewhere,the transition to Carolingian rule seems to have resulted in little restructuring ofLucchese territoryin marked contrast to what has been argued for other partsof north-central Italy.

The search for administrative boundaries has been ill served both by thetraditional identification of the ecclesiastical diocese with the Roman municipalterritory, and by an enduring belief that dioceses throughout the succeedingcenturies were to remain substantially unchanged. Neither thesis is entirelydevoid of truth. The earliest bishops established themselves in towns, and, astheir activities extended to the countryside, the bishops area of jurisdictiontended to coincide with the town territory. The principle was never insisted

upon by the ecclesiastical authorities, though its desirability was establishedat the Council of Chalcedon in 451. Later aspirations towards continuityand stability are amply attested in the border disputes that arose betweendiocesescontests that invariably revolved around the question of who held

jurisdiction a tempore Romanorum et Langobardorum (at the time of theRomans and Lombards). Proof of actual continuity is more elusive, more par-ticularly since the precise borders of the Lucchese diocese cannot be confidentlyestablished before the estimo of 1260. The core area of the Lucchese dioceseseems to have changed little between the eighth and thirteenth centuries. But

Reichsverwaltung in Toscana, pp. 389, 489, 645; A. Augenti, Dai castratardoantichi ai castellidel secolo x: Il caso della Toscana, in R. Francovich and M. Ginatempo (eds.), Castelli: Storia earcheologia del potere nella Toscana medievale, i (Florence, 2000), pp. 323. A link between the fines

of the eighth- and ninth-century documents and earlier units of Byzantine military organization ispossible but unproven.

G. Rossetti, Societ e istituzioni nei secoli ix e x: Pisa, Volterra, Populonia, in Centro Italianodi Studi sullAlto Medioevo: Atti del 50 Congresso Internazionale di Studi sullAlto Medioevo, Lucca

3 7 ottobre 1971 (Spoleto, 1973), pp. 248 50, 252, 256. Violante, Le istituzioni ecclesiastiche, p. 95. For Lucca, these assumptions pervade Bertini (ed.), Dissertazioni, iv, pt. i, pp. 3 93. For

Siena: V. Lusini, I confini storici del vescovado di Siena, Bullettino senese di storia patria, 5 (1898),pp. 33357; 7 (1900), pp. 5982, 41867; 8 (1901), pp. 195273.

Diocese, in The Catholic Encyclopedia, 15 vols. (New York, 190712), v, s.v. The worddicesis, seldom used in the early medieval West, itself has secular rootssignifying the territorysubject administratively to a city.

The phrase appears in Lucca in the context of the eighth-century dispute between the bishopsof Lucca and Pistoia over the two parishes of S. Andrea and S. Gerusalemme situated in the territoryof Pistoia: L. Schiaparelli (ed.), Codice Diplomatico Longobardo, in Fonti per la storia dItalia, 2 vols.(Rome, 192933), i, no. 21. For commentary on the dispute itself: A. Spicciani, Le istituzioni

pievane e parrocchiali della Valdinievole fino al xii secolo, in Allucio da Pescia, pp. 164 6; id., Ilpadule di Fucecchio nellalto medioevo, in A. Malvolti and G. Pinto (eds.), Incolti, fiume, paludi:Utilizzazione delle risorse naturali nella Toscana medievale e moderna (Florence, 2003), pp. 612;R. Nelli, Montecatini dalle origini allet comunale(Pistoia, 1998), pp. 5 6.

P. Guidi (ed.), Rationes Decimarum Italiae nei secoli xiii e xiv, Tuscia, i, La Decima degli anni12741280(Citt del Vaticano, 1932), pp. 24373.

For a list of tenth/eleventh-century pievi: L. Nanni, La Parrocchia studiata nei documentilucchesi dei secoli viiixiii(Rome, 1948), pp. 64 75.


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the evidence of the thirteenth-century tax record remains less than compellingas a guide to either ecclesiastical or civil boundaries over the preceding mil-lennium.

Clearly neither ecclesiastical nor civil borders were immutable, and the changeswere often interconnected. To the east the borders of the Lucchese diocese wereapparently determined by the vicissitudes of the Lombard wars, and by thelines of fortifications established in the Valdinievole respectively by the Lom-bards and the Byzantines (perhaps also by topographical constraints). Thestrength and conquests of Luccas Lombard dukes enabled Luccas bishops toacquire lands and to exercise jurisdiction far to the south, and on the confinesof Pisa, though the precise nature of their spiritual authorityparticularly inthe neighbourhood of Populoniaremains unclear. This expansion of epis-

copal power is not unrelated to the fact that Luccas bishops were drawnfrom the ranks of the local Lombard aristocracy. There is even a tradition,entirely unconvincing, that Bishop Walprando followed his father Walperto inthe office of duke. Despite their political importance and their familial links

with the citys rulers, bishops, in Lucca as elsewhere, do not appear to haveexercised any institutionalized public functions under the Lombard kings. Bycontrast, Charlemagne utilized bishops as agents of royal power. They came tosit with counts in judging a wide range of transgressions; Charles the Baldin 876 granted powers as royal envoys (the missatico) to bishops of the Italiankingdom within their respective dioceses. From the ninth century, therefore,

For the sometimes contested border with the diocese of Pisa: M. L. Ceccarelli Lemut and

S. Sodi, Il sistema pievano nella diocesi di Pisa dallet carolingia allinizio del xiii secolo, Rivista distoria della Chiesa in Italia, 58 (2004), particularly pp. 421 4. A. M. Onori, Massa e Cozzile dalle origini allet comunale (Pistoia, 1989), p. 7. L. Bertini, Intorno alla probabile genesi delle contese confinarie tra i vescovi pisano e lucense,

BSP401 (19712), pp. 1415; id., Peredeo, pp. 216; Harrison, The Early State, p. 212. ForWalprando: Andreolli, Walprando, in Uomini nel medioevo, pp.20 6; De Conno,Linsediamentolongobardo, p. 117; Schwarzmaier, Lucca und das Reich, pp. 74 8, 159 61.

O. Bertolini, I vescovi del regnum Langobardorum al tempo dei Carolingi, in Italia sacra:Studi e documenti di storia ecclesiastica: Vescovi e diocesi in Italia nel medioevo (sec. ixxiii): Atti delii0 convegno di storia della chiesa in Italia: Roma 59 sett. 1961 (Padua, 1964), pp. 112. But seeGasparri, I duchi longobardi, p. 25.

Bertolini, I vescovi, pp. 1226; G. Rossetti, Formazione e caratteri delle signorie di castelloe dei poteri territoriali dei vescovi sulle citt nella Langobardia del secolo x, in G. Rossetti (ed.),Forme di potere e struttura sociale in Italia nel Medioevo (Bologna, 1977), pp. 117, 141 8.

G. Arnaldi, Papato, arcivescovi e vescovi nellet post-carolingia, in Italia sacra: Studi edocumenti di storia ecclesiastica: Vescovi e diocesi in Italia nel medioevo (sec. ixxiii): Atti del ii0

convegno di storia della chiesa in Italia: Roma 59 sett. 1961 (Padua, 1964), p. 39: episcopi singuli in

suo episcopio missatici nostri potestate et auctoritate fungantur. For the changing and ambiguousmeaning of the concept episcopium (episcopatus, munus episcopale): Tirelli, Il vescovato diLucca, pp. 86 8. The ex officio grant to bishops of the missatico may have been short lived; but notthe association of bishop and count in joint responsibility for the peace of bishopric and county:

A. Meyer, Felix et inclitus notarius: Studien zum italienischen Notariat vom 7. bis zum 13. Jahrhundert( Tbingen, 2000), p. 14; E. Dupr Theseider, Vescovi e citt nellItalia precomunale, in Italiasacra: Studi e documenti di storia ecclesiastica: Vescovi e diocesi in Italia nel medioevo (sec. ixxii): Attidel ii0 convegno di storia della chiesa in Italia: Roma 59 sett. 1961 (Padua, 1964), p. 75.


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pressures of administrative convenience combined with Carolingian policy toforgeor re-establishthe general coincidence of ecclesiastical dioceses andcomital territories.

There was probably always a tendency for civil administrative divisions toadjust to the potentially more stable diocesan territories, and the latter wereforged only in part by political events. The diocese has been defined as thesum of its baptismal churches. The identification of the pieve(local ecclesiasticalunit) with the pagus (local territorial unit) has enabled historians to arguenot only for the coincidence of Roman ecclesiastical and civil boundaries, butalternatively for the correspondence of the diocese with pre-Roman and un-Roman frontiers. The identification of pieve and pagus is problematic, anda territorial definition of the late Roman diocese in terms of its pievi is itself

rendered suspect by the late evolution of the pieveas a precise territorial entity.The picture is complicated by Cinzio Violantes insistence that, from the fifth tothe tenth centuries, neither diocese nor pieveis definable in terms of a criterion ofterritorialitythough both clearly possessed territorial dimensions. Whetheror not Roman ecclesiastical and civil units ever truly corresponded, the link

was soon shattered by missionary activity and by long vacancies of episcopalsees. On the borders with Pisa and Pistoia, some missionary foundations of theseventh and eighth centuries seem to have been annexed by the more powerfuldiocese of Lucca. The conversion of pagans or Arians by eastern missionaries mayhave created administrative problems within and between dioceses; subsequent

juridical ambiguities and the conflicts of neighbouring bishops over territorywere perhaps in part a legacy of these missions. And continuing ambiguities

might arise from the fact that bishops sometimes laid claim to institutions within

Arnaldi, Papato, arcivescovi e vescovi, p. 33; C. Violante, Le strutture organizzative dellacura danime nelle campagne dellItalia centrosettentrionale (secoli vx), in Cristianizzazione edorganizzazione ecclesiastica delle campagne nellalto medioevo: Espansione e resistenze: Settimane diStudio del Centro Italiano di Studi sullAlto Medioevo, xxviii, 2 vols. (Spoleto, 1982), ii, p. 1058; id.,Le istituzioni ecclesiastiche, p. 95. And see n. 57 above.

The tendency was not without exceptions. Continuing conflict between Arezzo and Sienarevolved around attempts to bring ecclesiastical boundaries into line with new civil administrativedivisions: Lusini, I confini storici, passim; Schneider, Die Reichsverwaltung in Toscana, pp. 3941;

J. P. Delumeau, Arezzo espace et socits, 7151230: Recherches sur Arezzo et son contado duviiie au dbut du xiiie sicle, 2 vols. (Rome, 1996), i, pp. 1969. In the Lucchesia, as late as1003, the castello of Verruca might lie within the Lucchese pieve of Massa prope Burra, butinfra comitato et territurio pistoriense: Pescaglini Monti, Nobilit e istituzioni ecclesiastiche,p. 250.

Formentini, Per la storia preromana, pp. 623; Conti, Luni, pp. 23 8, 33.

For a critical review of the evidence for the identification of pieve and pagus: Violante,Le strutture organizzative, pp. 9635. On the slow process of evolution by which local pop-ulations came to be attached to a particular baptismal church: ibid., pp. 995, 101519, 1136,11445.

Ibid., pp. 963 1162. Bertini, Intorno alla probabile genesi, pp. 715; P. M. Conti, Ricerche sulle correnti

missionarie nella Lunigiana e nella Tuscia nei secoli vii e viii, Archivio storico per le provincieparmensi, iv ser., 18 (1966), p. 107.


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other diocesesas in the case of the Cadolingi foundation of Rosaia, describedby Enrico Coturri as an oasis of the bishopric of Pistoia in the midst of thediocese of Lucca.

Throughout the early Middle Ages precise boundaries, whether of ecclesiast-ical or civil jurisdiction, are probably illusory and certainly evade reconstruction.Then as later, there are continuing indications of the adjustments of diocesanborders. In the Garfagnana, the precise boundaries of the dioceses of Luccaand Luni at the beginning of the twelfth century remain a contentious andundecided issue. Eschewing territorial precision, the diocese remains import-ant as an agency for the transmission of territorial identity and notions ofurban-based authority. Perhaps this is true of the brief Byzantine interlude,

when power threatened to pass from municipal councils into the hands of

extra-urban military commanders ruling from the castelli (fortified settlements)established in strategically important areas. Clearly it is true of the late Caroling-ian period when the diocese continued to provide a basic delimiting structurein a world of fragmenting authority. Francesca Bocchi has argued that theearly communes of the eleventh and twelfth centuries sought to control ter-ritory in response to concrete economic and political needsspecifically theneed to secure food supplies. For Bocchi, the new city-state only coincidentallycorresponded to the ecclesiastical diocese. Certainly the same topographicalconstraints and the same material interests in controlling networks of com-munication were likely to influence (though not determine) the configurationof both diocese and state. But Italian historiographical orthodoxy since DeVergottini has tended to posit a conscious programme of communal expansion

that aspired to annex the entire diocesan territory,

and the actual areas of

E. Coturri, Ospedali della Valdinievole al tempo di SantAllucio, in Allucio da Pescia,pp. 21718. For the location of Rosaia, and for the pieve of Massa Piscatoria: Pescaglini Monti,Nobilit e istituzioni ecclesiastiche, pp. 2335, 259.

Thus after 1133 the diocese of Luni seems to have been compensated for the loss of territoryelsewhere by the acquisition of the Lucchese pievede Castello (Piazza al Serchio) together with somechapels of the Lucchese pieve of S. Terenzo de Rogiana: Angelini, Una pieve toscana, pp. 536;G. Bottazzi, Viabilit e insediamento nella Garfagnana medievale, in Garf. 1995, p. 78. But see

Angelini, Problemi di storia longobarda, pp. 22 8. R. Savigni, Le relazionipolitico-ecclesiastiche tra la citt e lepiscopato lucchese e la Garfagnana

nellet comunale (xiixiii secolo), in Garf. 1997, p. 48; L. Angelini, Elezioni nelle chiese dellaGarfagnana dugentesca, in ibid., pp. 1034; M. Seghieri, Piazza e Sala dominio del vescovo diLucca: Origini e primi sviluppi della contea, Carfaniana antiqua: Miscellanea di studi, i (Lucca,1980), pp. 1318.

F. Bocchi, La citt e lorganizzazione del territorio in et medievale, in R. Elze and G. Fasoli

(eds.), La citt in Italia e in Germania nel Medioevo: Cultura, istituzioni, vita religiosa (Bologna,1981), pp. 634.

On the role of roads and commerce in shaping territorial boundaries: Baroni, Rapporti ecollegamenti viarii medievali, pp. 163209.

E. Sestan, La citt comunale italiana dei secoli xixiii nelle sue note caratteristiche rispetto almovimento comunale europeo, in G. Rossetti (ed.), Forme di potere e struttura sociale in Italia nel

Medioevo (Bologna, 1977), p. 186. See now: G. Milani, I comuni italiani. Secoli xiixiv(Rome andBari, 2005), pp. 6, 37. The essential text is G. De Vergottini, Origini e sviluppo della comitatinanza


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border tension between Lucca, Pisa, and Pistoia seem fully to support thisthesis.

Admittedly, in Lucca, as elsewhere, the precise shape of the early city-statewas determined by the fortunes of warand ultimately influenced (if notpredetermined) by defensible natural boundaries. The legacy of classical Romeincluded not only the historic borders of the city-territory, but also the aspirationof cities to expand at the expense of their neighbours. Luccas frontiers stabilizedagainst a background of armed conflict with neighbouring cities, particularly withPisa. Uncertainties over the parties to the border dispute of 168 render suspectthe traditional dating of LucchesePisan rivalry to the era of Republican Rome.Modern qualms over the historicity of S. Paolino undermine a Lucchese chronicletradition that attributed the martyrdom of Luccas first bishop to continuing

Pisan jealousy. More generally, our vision may be clouded by the tendency oflater writers to pre-date the institutionalized territorial rivalry of organized urbancommunities. Nevertheless, cross-border raids (however constituted) can betraced back securely to the pre-communal age: under the years 1004/1005 Pisanchronicles record Luccas brief capture of the lower Valdiserchio. In the sameperiod, less convincingly, Pisan sources allege the annexation to the bishopric ofLucca of the Valdera and Valdarnoterritories that seemingly had long formedpart of the Lucchese diocese. There was fighting around Vaccoli in 1055.Continuous conflict, punctuated by years of uneasy peace, began with the tusslefor possession of the fortress of Vaccoli in 1088. Thereafter the ambitions of

(Siena, 1929), pp. 11341. G. Santini stresses the essential novelty and revolutionary consequences

of these communal ambitions: Circoscrizioni amministrative civili nei domini matildici, StudiMatildici(Modena, 1978), p. 97. The communal aspiration does not seem to me to be affected bythe distinction drawn by Tirelli between diocesan territory and episcopatus: Tirelli, Il vescovatodi Lucca, pp. 868.

At the end of the Pisan wars, Lucchese and Pisan territory came to be separated by the logicalnatural barriers of the Monti Pisani and the marshes of Massaciuccoli and Bientinabarriers thatall coincided with established diocesan boundaries.

M. Ascheri, Citt-Stato: Una specificit, un problema culturale, Le Carte e la storia: Rivistadi storia delle istituzioni, 12 (2006), p. 11.

CUL MS Add. 4700, pp. 11416, 1369, 2489. For S. Paolino: R. Savigni, Episcopato esociet cittadina a Lucca da Anselmo II (+1086) a Roberto (+1225) (Lucca, 1996), p. 314.

Schwarzmaier, Lucca und das Reich, pp. 249, 252, 260. Schwarzmaiers vision, in turn, isblurred by an exaggerated sense of cleavage between an older, rural-based nobility and the urbanruling class emerging during the course of the eleventh century.

Bernardo Marangone, Vetus Chronicon Pisanum, ed. F. Bonaini, ASI 1st ser., 6/2 (1845),p. 4; Ranieri Sardo, Cronaca Pisana, ibid., pp. 756. These events seem to coincide with the

emerging power of Luccas leading families, and with the temporary eclipse of both episcopal andmargraval authority: Schwarzmaier, Lucca und das Reich, pp. 128 9.

For the refutation of Pisan claims: Bertini (ed.), Dissertazioni, iv, pt. i, pp. 11 68, 923. G. Tommasi, Sommario della storia di Lucca dallanno MIV allanno MDCC, ASI, 1st ser.,

10 (1847), p. 15. Eodem anno [1088], ut in Gestis Lucanorum scribitur, castrum de Vacchole destructum

fuit a popolo Lucano, [quod erat nobilium]. Tholomei Lucensis Annales, ed. B. Schmeidler, MGH:Scriptores Rerum Germanicarum, , viii (Berlin, 1955), p. 20. See also Tolomeo, Gesta Lucanorum,


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the two neighbouring cities were pursued in a number of arenas that can beseparated at least for reasons of narrative convenience.

The earliest recorded conflicts took place in the mountains to the south-west ofLucca, and in the sterile marsh and woodland that then extended northward fromPisa to the mountains. At times of Pisan weakness, Lucchese forces descendedfrom the mountains, plundering to the walls of Pisa itself. In 1168 the Lucchesiburnt and laid waste the village of Quosa below Monte Pisano. In 1172, inretaliation for subsequent Lucchese incursions, the Pisans entered and plunderedthe Lucchese plain as far as Lunata. Quosa was again taken by Lucca, together

with Avane and Ponte a Serchio, in 1285. But for the most part, militaryendeavour centred on the seizing and recovery of private fortresses in the MontePisano, whether by siege, assault, or the suborning of local lords. Ripafratta,

controlling the valley of the Serchio between Lucca and Pisa, was captured byLuccaalbeit brieflyin 1104. In the central Monti Pisani, the castello ofVorno was garrisoned by Pisans in 1144 when its lord, Enrico di Sigefredo(descendant of a family of Lucchese notables and royal judges founded in thetenth century by Giudice Leone), allied himself with Pisa against Lucca. Thefortress of Vorno was abandoned by its Pisan defenders only in 1150, whereuponit was razed as a threat to Luccas security. Similar assaults by urban militia,often occasioned by the shifting alliances of local lords, were repeated to thesouth and west at Castagnori (1100), Asciano (1168), and Agnano (1169).

A second region frequently contested between Lucca and Pisa was the Tyrrhe-nian coast from the mouth of the Serchio to the Magra. The charter of privilegesgranted to the citizens of Lucca by the Emperor Henry IV in 1081 included

rights of free navigation on the Serchio and landing rights at the mouth of theMotrone. The early history of fortifications along the coast is obscure before

ed. B. Schmeidler, ibid., p. 284. The date 1080 in one codex appears to be a corruption; butsome problems of dating remain: A. N. Cianelli, Dissertazioni sopra la storia lucchese, in Memoriee documenti per servire allistoria della citt e stato di Lucca, iiiii (Lucca, 181416), iii, pt. i,pp. 8993; Tommasi, Sommario, p. 35.

Tholomei Lucensis Annales, p. 68; Tolomeo, Gesta Lucanorum, p. 291; Marangone, VetusChronicon Pisanum, p. 52.

Revertentibus Pisanis cum exercitu, Lucensium terras decimoquinto Kal. Septembris intraver-unt, et ex utraque parte fluminis Sercli totam terram Lucensium ab Aquilata usque ad Pontem SanctiPetri devastaverunt et igne cremaverunt, et bestias multas et spolia inde abstraxerunt. Marangone,Vetus Chronicon Pisanum, p. 65.

D. Corsi, Lucca, Viareggio, Messina. Note darchivio, ASI 138 (1980), p. 460. Tholomei Lucensis Annales, p. 29; Tolomeo, Gesta Lucanorum, p. 285; Marangone, Vetus

Chronicon Pisanum, p. 7. Lucca recovered Ripafratta in 1285, perhaps through the treason of thePisan Podest, conte Ugolino della Gherardesca: Tholomei Lucensis Annales, p. 206; Tolomeo, GestaLucanorum, p. 319.

G. Massoni, La pieve e la comunit di Vorno (Lucca, 1999), pp. 39 47. Tholomei Lucensis Annales, pp. 27, 689; Tolomeo, Gesta Lucanorum, pp. 285, 2912;

Marangone, Vetus Chronicon Pisanum, pp. 525. Statuimus etiam, ut si qui homines introierint in fluvio Serculo vel in Motrone cum navi sive

cum navibus causa negotiandi cum Lucensibus, nullus hominum eos vel Lucenses in mari vel in


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the mid-twelfth century. The picture seems to be one of expanding Luccheseinfluence, and subsequent conflict between Pisa, on the one hand, and Luccaand its Genoese ally, on the other. The treaty between Lucca and Genoa showsthat, by October 1166, the Lucchesi had taken and fortified Motrone. ButLuccas control came to an end in 1169, when Motrone was destroyedandthen rebuilt by Pisa. More mixed were the fortunes of Viareggio (Castello delmare). Viareggio repeatedly changed hands. The Emperor Frederick I orderedits destruction in 1175a prelude to his policy of forbidding the constructionof any fortresses along the Versilian coast. After further vicissitudes, Viareggiofinally fell under permanent Lucchese control in 1287.

The contest for the control of the Versilian coast was inextricably linked witha wider struggle for dominance over the Versilian interior and the Garfagnana.

Control of the coastal plain clearly lay behind the protracted struggle for CastelloAghinolfi, a struggle in which the local lords the Nobili da Castello were bothactive and passive participants.Similar concerns explain Luccas sporadic actionagainst Corvaia and Vallecchia, whose lords periodically formed alliances withPisa. To the south, possession of Montramito (Montegravanto or Montravanto)

was essential for the security of the road to Viareggio. But, while these fortresseson the edge of the Versilian plain were obvious centres of contention, lordsthroughout the Versilia and the Garfagnana were able to pursue their owninterests under cover of the inter-city rivalriesand, indeed, under the protectionof the universalist claims of Empire and Papacy.

In 1169 the lords of Corvaia appear to have received widespread support fromthroughout the Versilia and the Garfagnana; Lucchese success against Corvaia

was followed by the destruction of many noble strongholds in the Garfagnana.

A determined minority then sought refuge in Pisa, though most took oathsof loyalty to the ascendant power of Lucca. New opportunities arose with thecoming of the Emperor Frederick I: a diploma of 5 March 1185 freed thelords and communes of the Garfagnana and Versilia from the control of anycity, placing them under direct imperial protection. Similar decrees emanated in1209 from Otto IV, and in 1242 from Frederick II. Alternatively, protectionmight come from the Papacy: in 1227 Gregory IX took the whole province ofthe Garfagnana under papal protection. Yet both Pope and Emperor were

suprascriptis fluminibus eundo vel redeundo vel stando molestare aut aliquam injuriam eis inferre,vel depredationem facere aut aliquo modo hoc eis interdicere presumat. Tommasi, Sommario,Documenti, serie prima, i.

Though see now J. A. Quirs Castillo, El incastellamento en el territorio de la ciudad de Luca(Toscana) (Oxford, 1999), pp. 223 4.

Tommasi, Sommario, pp. 3742; Corsi, Lucca, Viareggio, Messina, pp. 4435. Corsi, Lucca, Viareggio, Messina, pp. 44171. G. Sforza, Memorie storiche di Montignoso (Lucca, 1867), pp. 9 26. Eodem etiam anno [1170] intraverunt Garfagnanam et ibidem multa castra destruxerunt,

multa ceperunt et multa etiam combusserunt. Tholomei Lucensis Annales, p. 70. D. Pacchi, Ricerche istoriche sulla provincia della Garfagnana(Modena, 1785), pp. 116 26.


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distant and illusive allies. Ultimately the war in the Garfagnana was foughtbetween unstable alliances that looked to Lucca and Pisa. The Garfagnanapassed finally under Lucchese control, not because of Frederick IIs diplomaof December 1248, but because of Luccas military successes and the finalcoincidence of the interests of many Garfagnini with those of Lucca.

The last regions of significant contestation lay to the south and east: fromBientina to San Miniato, and including the southward thrust of the Lucchesediocese far beyond the Arno. There are suggestions of a border dispute betweenBishop Peredeo and Pisa in the area of Collesalvetti as early as 764. In1128 the Pisans encouraged the castello of Buggiano, and perhaps Limano, torebel against Lucca: both were subsequently destroyed. The Fucecchiani atthis time were apparently allied to Pisa; local skirmishes (if not the renewal of

full-scale war) led to the destruction of that castello in 1136. In 1149 the Pisansattempted to defend Vorno by means of diversory attacks on Montecastello andS. Gervasio in Valdera. In 1169 Lucca captured Marti and recovered Palaiaon the southern borders of the Lucchese diocese. And in 1172 Lucca capturedand burnt San Miniato, which was in the diocese of Lucca but allied to Luccasenemies. Throughout the twelfth and thirteenth centuries the communes ofthe Valdinievole and Valdarno inferiore were both participants in, and victimsof, a continuing struggle for control that involved Lucca, Pisa, Florence, Prato,Pistoia, and the imperial vicar based in San Miniato.

The Lucchese state that emerged from these wars never corresponded preciselywith the diocese as revealed in the rationes decimarum of 1260. The bordersof the diocese passed south of Castello Aghinolfi and Camporgiano, and never

embraced those lands in the high valley of the Serchio that passed under Lucchese

Thus theNobilesviriDD. de Versilia,& Lunisgiana, & Carfagnana, quipraestitereauxilium,& favorem Pisano Comuni were explicitly named in the peace negotiations between Lucca andPisa of 1237: Pacchi, Ricerche istoriche, p. 125.

Pacchi, Ricerche istoriche, pp. 128 9; Cianelli, Dissertazioni, i, pp. 21516. Bertini, Peredeo, p. 36. For later attempts by bishops of Lucca to build up a network of

alliances in the disputed southern parts of the diocese: R. Pescaglini Monti, Un inedito documentolucchese della marchesa Beatrice e alcune notizie sulla famiglia dei domini di Colle tra x e xisecolo, in Pisa e la Toscana occidentale nel Medioevo: A Cinzio Violante nei 70 anni, 2 vols. (Pisa,1991), i, pp. 12972.

CUL MS Add. 4700, pp. 28990; Tholomei Lucensis Annales, p. 46; Tolomeo, GestaLucanorum, p. 287; Tommasi, Sommario, p. 29; Bertini (ed.), Dissertazioni, iv, pt. ii, no. cxxi.

Tholomei Lucensis Annales, p. 50; Tolomeo, Gesta Lucanorum, p. 287. CUL MS Add. 4700, p. 304. Ibid., p. 330. Three years later, the castello and borgo of Palaia were still in the hands of the

bishop and lucanus populus: Bertini (ed.), Dissertazioni, iv, pt. ii, no. cvii. And this cooperationcontinued into the 1220s: Tirelli, Il vescovato di Lucca, p. 139. Andreolli, without reference,identifies Palaia in Valdera as already under the civil and ecclesiastical jurisdiction of Lucca in 998:Uomini nel medioevo, p. 139.

Tholomei Lucensis Annales, p. 71; Tolomeo, Gesta Lucanorum, p. 295. P. O. Baldasseroni, Istoria della citt di Pescia e della Valdinievole, 2nd edn. (Pescia, 1784),

pp. 12036. In the wars with Pistoia after 1177, Nelli suggests that the Montecatinesi appear ratheras allies than as subjects of Lucca: Montecatini dalle origini, pp. 1719.


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influence during the early communal period. To the north, Piazza e Sala (Piazza alSerchio) in the diocese of Luni was under the temporal jurisdiction of the bishopof Lucca. Further south, Bozzano, though outside the diocese, seems to havebeen under Lucchese control at the end of the twelfth century and periodicallythereafter. Despite the claims of later Lucchese chroniclers, there is nocompelling evidence that San Miniato, though part of Luccas diocese, was everunder Luccas firm political control in any meaningful sense. Certainly Luccheseforces periodically burnt the lands of San Miniato. But plundering is not ruling.

And local histories of San Miniato have been written largely without referenceto Lucca, other than as an externalized threat. Yet, just as the territorialdimensions of Luccas bishopric seem to have played some role in preserving theconcept of a city-based territory in the centuries after the fall of Rome, so in the

High Middle Ages the area of Luccas true and natural jurisdiction continued tobe vaguely identified with the borders of the diocese. As in the earlier period,the mechanics of the link are less than clear.

A traditional Italian historiography has tended to portray the mediating role ofbishop and diocese in juridical terms. Certainly, in some parts of Italy, bishops,by royal concessionssometimes without formal approvalfortified cities andclaimed concomitant juridical rights over the surrounding countryside. Withthe collapse of royal power in the late Carolingian period, the bishops of manycities were granted powers of jurisdictionpowers that extended initially forone mile, later for as much as seven miles from the city walls. The situationdiffered in Lucca, not least because of the power of the margraves, and in spiteof the proclivity of individual Emperors to favour the power of the bishops in

Tuscany as a counterweight to the margraves and the counts and public officialswho were linked to them.From the eighth century the bishop of Lucca gradually replaced the king as the

leading landlord in the immediate environs of the city. As private proprietor

Seghieri, Piazza e Sala, pp. 13 34. Cianelli, Dissertazioni, ii, pp. 3212, 325; iii, pt. i, pp. 44, 21222. Cianelli, Dissertazioni, i, pp. 2389. G. Rondoni, Memorie storiche di San Miniato al Tedesco con documenti inediti e le notizie

deglillustri samminiatesi(San Miniato, 1876). Rondonis work is largely drawn from the documentspublished in the various collections of G. Lami, includingSanctae Ecclesiae Florentinae Monumenta,4 vols. (Florence, 1758), i, pp. 33465, 3735, 4928.

Even if the city was never able to govern directly the entire diocesan territory: Nobili,Levoluzione delle dominazioni marchionali, p. 250.

Rossetti, Formazione e caratteri, pp. 11348.

Bocchi, La citt e lorganizzazione del territorio, pp. 589; Dupr Theseider, Vescovie citt, pp. 7990. For Piacenza: S. Rossi, Piacenza dal governo vescovile a quello consolare:Lepiscopato di Arduino (11211147), Aevum: Rassegna di scienze storiche linguistiche e filologiche,68 (1994), pp. 3245.

M. L. Ceccarelli Lemut, Cronotassi dei vescovi di Volterra dalle origini allinizio del xiiisecolo, in Pisa e la Toscana occidentale nel Medioevo: A Cinzio Violante nei suoi 70 anni, 2 vols. (Pisa,1991), i, p. 40.

Schwarzmaier, Lucca und das Reich, p. 38.


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and public functionary, Luccas bishop was a powerful presence within theSei Migliathe area of plain and low hills that circumscribed the city. Butthe bishop never received a formal grant of lordship over the Sei Miglia, asbecame characteristic of city-territories further to the north. In this respectit is impossible to see the future commune of Lucca as the direct juridical heirof an episcopal signoria. When, in 1081, the Emperor Henry IV granted to thefaithful citizens of Lucca that no castle was to be built within six miles of theircity, he was merely confirming Luccas traditional zone of influence. And theimperial diploma was clearly directed against the house of Canossa rather than,in the first instance, against Bishop Anselmo II as one of the Countess Matildasleading supporters.

The power of bishops over the wider diocese has been bedevilled by debates

over the concept of the bishop-count. Certainly from Frankish times bishopswere given powers within their dioceses to examine cases involving religionand morality. An older local historiography sometimes went beyond this toclaim that Luccas bishops, from an early period, claimed the title of bishopand count (episcopus et comes). While bishops in some parts of Italy clearly

were made counts, bishops in Lucca (as elsewhere in Tuscany) appear neverto have been granted the title of count, nor yet to have exercised full comitalpowers. As in the case of other landholders, if on a grander scale, the temporal

jurisdiction of Luccas bishop was associated with proprietary rights. Bishopsexercised jurisdiction over church property, whether acquired through purchaseor through the alienation of fiscal land. Later, episcopal jurisdiction over theresidents on the lands of the church was confirmed and validated by imperial

grant, as by Otto II in 980,

or Frederick I in 1164.

The identification of

C. Wickham, Economia e societ rurale nel territorio lucchese durante la seconda met delsecolo xi: Inquadramenti aristocratici e strutture signorili, in SantAnselmo, p. 413.

Tommasi, Sommario, Documenti, serie prima, i;MGH: Diplomatum Regum et ImperatorumGermaniae, vi, pt. i, Heinrici IV: Diplomata(Weimar, 1953), no. 334, pp. 4379. For reservationsabout this document, and more particularly about the diploma granted in the same year to Pisa,both preserved in late copies: G. Rossetti, Pisa e limpero tra xi e xii secolo: Per una nuova edizionedel diploma di Enrico IV ai pisani, in C. Violante (ed.), Nobilit e chiesa nel medioevo e altri saggi:Scritti in onore di Gerd G. Tellenbach (Rome, 1993), pp. 15982. Henry VIs diploma of 1186confirmed to Lucca omnia Regalia et omnem iurisdictionem et districtum intra et extra Civitatemusque ad sex milliaria: Cianelli, Dissertazioni, i, pp. 198200.

Schwarzmaier, Lucca und das Reich, p. 66; H. E. J. Cowdrey, Pope Gregory VII 10731085(Oxford, 1998), pp. 296 307.

Bertolini, I vescovi, pp. 1322; Rossetti, Formazione e caratteri, pp. 1456. Baldasseroni, Istoria della citt di Pescia, p. 65.

Dupr Theseider, Vescovi e citt, pp. 92101. But see now: Milani, I comuni italiani,pp. 12, 38.

For useful definitions and distinctions: M. Nobili, Il liber de anulo et baculo del vescovodi Lucca Rangerio, Matilde e la lotta per le investiture negli anni 11101111, in SantAnselmo,pp. 176, 179.

Seghieri, Piazza e Sala, p. 20; Tirelli, Il vescovato di Lucca, pp. 92, 112. MGH: Diplomata Regum et Imperatorum Germaniae, x, pt. ii, Friderici I Diplomata inde ab

a. mclviii usque ad a. mclxvii(Hanover, 1979), no. 430, pp. 3226. By the reign of Frederick I, the


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episcopal and public power may have made it easier for the bishop to establishterritorial lordships, over and above the proprietary rights possessed by all lordsover their own tenants. But the areas of episcopal control formed scattered ruralseigniories within and beyond the borders of the county. In Lucca, at least, it isnot helpful to see the nascent commune as the direct heir to public functionspreviously delegated to bishops over the entire territory of the diocese/county.

In more practical ways, the bishop played a decisive role in territorial integra-tion. From the eighth century, bishops of Lucca had acquired extensive landedpossessions by means of donations, exchanges, and purchases. These prop-erties extended beyond the diocese, though they were concentrated within andthroughout the diocese, and there was always an understandable tendency toshed possessions in areas outside the bishops sphere of influence. Thus, in 1119

Bishop Benedetto ceded to Abbot Ugo of S. Maria di Serena possessions held bythe Lucchese church towards Roselle (a suprascripto flumine Cecina, usque adEpiscopatum Rosellense) in return for lands closer to Lucca (a Fluvio Cecineusque ad Fluvium Arni). The resources at the bishops disposal increasedduring the Carolingian period with the introduction and regularization of tithes,collected throughout the diocese with the coercive support of the civil authorit-ies. Both lands and tithes were leased to laymen. From the early ninth centurythere is increasing reference in official church records to baptismal churches withdefined territories (pivieri). And by the end of the tenth century it becamecommon for bishops to lease all or most of the possessions and revenues of pievito high-ranking laymen (saving provisions for the care of souls).

From the beginning, the cession of church land to laymenoften by perpetual

or hereditary leases (livelli)might be seen as the despoiling of the church,whether through carelessness, violence, or by episcopal gifts to relatives. At thesame time, the leasing of church lands and revenues throughout the Lucchesiaclearly created important ties between centre and periphery. And the relationship

was a reciprocal one in so far as aristocratic families, together with small andmedium proprietors, continued to donate lands to the church in anticipation

legacy of the Investiture Controversy seems to have combined with current imperial policy to defineall episcopal property as regalia: Tirelli, Il vescovato di Lucca, p. 76; G. Tabacco, The Struggle forPower in Medieval Italy: Structures of Political Rule (Cambridge, 1989), pp. 214 15.

For an alternative reading: Tirelli, Il vescovato di Lucca, pp. 55 146. Tirellis interpretationrests on his identification of the regalia with i beni pubblici, which seems to me problematic, andon his contested vision of the role of the bishop in Lucchese politics after 1081.

The essential study here is Schwarzmaier, Lucca und das Reich.

Bertini (ed.), Dissertazioni, iv, pt. i, p. 47. Violante, Le strutture organizzative, pp. 10734. Ibid., pp. 1015 16, 1019. Ibid., pp. 10991101, 1107, 11224. D. J. Osheim, An Italian Lordship: The Bishopric of Lucca in the Late Middle Ages (Berkeley,

1977), p. 13; Schwarzmaier, Lucca und das Reich, p. 100. As early as 852 the Emperor Louis IIgranted restitution of all alienated property to the newly appointed bishop Geremia: Omnis verolibellos, omnisque scriptiones inde factos irritos & vacuos esse statuimus: Bertini (ed.), Dissertazioni,iv, pt. ii, no. xxxii.


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of future benefits. The precise nature of the ties remains controversial; muchdiscussion has focused on whether grants to non-cultivators (grandi livelli)

were or became feudal. Precisely on the basis of the Lucchese evidence, it hasbeen variously argued how far grandi livelli created bonds of vassalage or ofcommendation; how far grandi livelli represented a Tuscan alternative to thefeudo-vassalic institutions of Lombardy; how far the succession of Milanesebishops of Lucca in the eleventh century transformed livellicontracts involvingentire pieviinto grants that were truly feudal. The material is to be consideredagainst the background of current Anglo-Saxon doubts regarding the phenomenaof fiefs and vassals as conventionally conceptualized.

It seems to me that, in Italy as elsewhere, historians have been overlypreoccupied with constructing sharply defined relationships on the basis of a

technical vocabulary that is both more fluid and less exact than they tend tosuppose. Eschewing the more detailed debates, certain points appear clear. Incontested areas of the diocese the bishop of Lucca built up a network of alliancesthrough the granting of lands and strongholds to allies, who, in turn, might offerlands and castellito the bishop in return for episcopal support: a familiar eleventh-century example is provided by relations in the southern part of the diocese,particularly in the territory of S. Maria a Monte, involving conte Gualfredo, sonof conte Ardengo degli Ardengheschi of Siena, and Bonfiglio de Camugliano.

Agreements with the bishop might include precise military obligations. Thus in1180 the consuls of Montopoli, on behalf of the knights and people, promisedto obey the orders of Bishop Guglielmo of Lucca. They were then invested, asa benefice, with half the territorys guida (a payment due from travellers along

the Arno for the right of safe passage); in return the knights of Montopoliwere bound to defend the lands of the church with horses and arms. Moregenerally, episcopal grants of lands, rights, and revenues created bonds of fidelity

Some of the recent literature is conveniently summarized by A. Spicciani, Concessionilivellarie e infeudazioni di pievi a laici (secoli ixxi), in C. Violante (ed.), Nobilit e chiesa nelmedioevo e altri saggi: Scritti in onore di Gerd G. Tellenbach (Rome, 1993), pp. 183 97.

E. A. R. Brown, The Tyranny of a Construct: Feudalism and Historians of MedievalEurope, American Historical Review, 79 (1974), pp. 106388; T. Dean, Land and Power in Late

Medieval Ferrara: The Rule of the Este 1350 1450(Cambridge, 1988), pp. 16; S. Reynolds, Fiefsand Vassals: The Medieval Evidence Reinterpreted(Oxford, 1994), particularly pp. 17 74, 181257.These doubts seem to me fully validated by the texts (if not always by the arguments) produced bySavigni, Episcopato e societ, pp. 183 207.

Pescaglini Monti, Un inedito documento lucchese, pp. 14457, 169. The consuls miserunt manussuas in sacris manibus ejusdem Episcopi, promittentes observare

quicquid ipse Dominus Episcopus exinde eis preciperet, et imponeret, renouncing all their rightsto the guida. The bishop then investivit nomine Beneficii the consuls with one half of the guida;sic quod milites de Montetopali semper pro arbitrio, et voluntate Lucani Episcopi habeant equos, etarmaad honorem Dei, et Lucane Ecclesiae, et Episcopatus, et Lucani Episcopi, et ad defensionemterrarum, et bonorum opere Sancti Martini. Bertini (ed.), Dissertazioni, iv, pt. ii, app., no. cxi. In1237 the podest and consiglio generale of S. Maria a Monte were ordered to provide the bishop

with two well-armed knights for the service of the Emperor Frederick II: AAL Fondo Diplomatico,++O23.


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(fidelitas) between the bishop and the great Tuscan families (to whom the bishophimself often belonged). Fidelitasmight defy definition in precise feudo-vassalicterms, and loyalty to the bishop was perfectly compatible with loyalty to otherrole-players of early medieval Tuscany. Nevertheless, the diocesan aristocracy

were tied to the city by a network of leases involving the bishop (and to alesser extent the cathedral chapter). A degree of control was exercised periodicallythrough the regular renewal of leases (livelli). And this against a pattern of highlyfragmented landholding by powerful individuals throughout the diocese, whichin itself privileged the city.

If the diocese influenced the perimeters of the future Lucchese state, theassociation probably owes more to the practical imperatives of ecclesiasticallandholdings than to the bishops legitimizing role in preserving concepts of a

territorialized public power (the potere missatico). The building of castelli andthe founding of hospitals at strategic points also served to fix boundaries that

were to endure. But the diocese also contributed in less tangible ways. ErnestoSestan has arguedI think rightlythat inhabitants of the city thought of thesaints whose relics lay within the city as protectors of the whole diocesan territory(in quanto signori celesti, signori anche, e non detronizzabili n sminuibili, delterritorio della diocesi). This world view appeared self-evident to the inhabitantsof the countryside, who were accustomed to think of themselves as appendicesof the mother church.

The thesis requires qualification. Religious loyalties were not enough toenable Lucca to retain political control of the Valdera; the whole southernpart of the diocese, particularly the region lying to the south of the Arno, was

gradually slipping from Luccas rule by the twelfth century. Everywhere theexempt monasteries formed enclaves that were separate from, and potentiallyhostile to, the Lucchese bishopric. Reformed monasteries subject to Camaldoli,S. Benedetto di Polirone, Vallombrosa, and Montecassino were, no doubt,the products of the same eleventh-century spiritual revival that moved Luccasreforming bishops. But the reformed monastic congregations were essentiallyextraneous to the diocese, while, at a more local level, the whole Cluniacmovement tended to resuscitate the control of private churches by powerfullay patrons. Indeed, episcopal control of the diocese needs to be periodized.There was a period of crisis in the late tenth century when the bishops powers tointervene in the pieviwere greatly curtailed. The focus of faith and disciplineon bishop and cathedral city was not a constant. It probably remains truethat for most inhabitants of th

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Lucca’s Ancient Heritage. The Early Structures of City and Territory

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