Hi. I'd like to examine in depth the Italian recruitment system during the Medieval period of XII°-XIII° centuries. I know that it isn't an easy job because of the very different situation among Italian "Comuni" (maybe could be translated with "shire" or "municipality") of Northern Italy, and centre-southern part of the country, which were substantially controlled by the German emperor (and by Normans before him) and the Pope.
I'd like to focus my studies on the Northern side of Italy, because I come from there.
I'm studying some "statuti Comunali" (that were a sort of constitutional charts of the municipality) but I wish to have other points of views or info.
Thank you very much!
Hi, you've picked a topic that fluctuates considerably over both time and place. The statuti may be helpful up to a point in giving you a sense of what the norms were in a given place and time but they won't reflect the concrete realities of how recruitment happened. For that you'd need to look at more specific records like council proceedings, notarial registers, diplomatic dispatches, chronicles, etc. This could be a lot of work so, if I were you, I'd focus your studies on one or two comuni.
Here are some secondary sources that should help you get started. I've also attached a recent article by Caferro that deals with the fourteenth century but will have a more up-to-date bibliography than the books below.
William Caferro. Mercenary Companies and the Decline of Siena. Baltimore, 1998.
Stefano Gasparri. I milites cittadini. Studi sulla cavalleria in Italia. Rome 1992.
Paolo Grillo. Cavalieri e popoli in armi: Le istituzioni militari nell’Italia medievale. Bari, 2008.
A.A. Settia, Communi in guerra: Armi ed eserciti nell’Italia delle citta. Bologna, 1993.
Daniel Waley. “The Army of the Florentine Republic from the Twelfth to the Fourteenth Century.” in Florentine Studies, ed. Nicolai Rubinstein. Evanston, Illinois, 1968.
Jean-Claude Maire Vigueur, Cavalieri e cittadini. Guerra conflitti e società nell'Italia comunale. Bologna, 2004.
In bocca al lupo!
Hi - good luck. Here is something I put together a few years ago:
Article The Bolognese Societates Armatae of the Late 13th Century
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