The Seigneurial Transformation Power Structures and Political Communication in the Countryside of Central and Northern Italy, 1080-1130

In The Seigneurial Transformation, Alessio Fiore discusses the transformation of the fabric of power in the kingdom of Italy in the period between the late eleventh century and the early twelfth century. The study analyses the major socio-political change of this period, the crisis of royal and public structures, and the development of seigneurial powers, using as a starting point the structures of power over men and land, and the discourses about the exercise of local power. This period was marked by a rapid reshaping of the structures of local power; while the outbreak of civil wars in the 1080s did not imply a clear-cut rupture with the past, it led to a staggering acceleration of pre-existing dynamics, with a reconfiguration of the matrix of power, in turn expressed in a transformation both of the instruments of local political communications and of the practices of power.

Alessio Fiore, Lecturer of Medieval History, University of Turin

Alessio Fiore is a lecturer in medieval history at the University of Turin. His research and main publications are focused on medieval history, the form of local power in Italian countryside between 1000 and 1400, and the economy of high medieval Italy.

Introduction
Part I: New frameworks of local power
1. Civil Wars: collapse and rebuilding of political structures
2. Imperial Power: crisis and transformation
3. Territorial Lordship: rise and spread of a model of power
4. Inside the Lordship: reshaping local societies
5. Collective Powers: political actions of urban and rural autonomous communities
Part II: A Culture of Power. The Dominatus Loci between practices and discourses
6. Royal Legitimation and its Crisis
7. Fidelity: a pervasive language
8. Pacts: the foundations of a new legitimacy
9. Custom: rituals of memory
10. Violence: a pragmatic language
Conclusions: a seigneurial revolution (and more)