Noble violence and civic justice: rural lords under trial in the Italian city communes 1276–1322

ABSTRACT This article analyses three criminal suits brought against nobles from rural districts of two Italian city-communes who were accused of homicide, robbery, and assault – and focuses on their courtroom defences. By the late 1200s, chivalric values and lifestyle were at odds with the political culture promoted by civic governments, while rural lords had lost most of their ancient privileges and independence to the cities. Nonetheless, in courtrooms, nobles often presented themselves as proud members of the chivalric warrior elite. The defendants may have sought to exploit the publicity of criminal trials to negotiate power and prerogatives with civic governments. Their chivalric ‘self-portraits' were adapted to the expectations of civic audiences, and were combined with legalistic arguments and appeals to municipal laws. More generally, this article investigates the reception of judicial institutions and examines the effects of the encounter between different value-systems and ‘languages’ in pre-modern polities.


Introduction
The nobles who lived in the rural districts (contado) of central and northern Italian city communes constituted a socio-economically variegated group that ranged from powerful marquises and counts with rights of lordship, castles and vassals, to minor lords who exercised some sort of formal or informal power over smaller lands and communities. 1onetheless, like the milites (knights) who lived in cities, 2 contado nobles formed a more or less cohesive cultural unit that cherished and identified with chivalric values such as courtliness, loyalty, honour, lineage and, most importantly, military prowess. 3Violence and physical coercion in particular were instruments of noble power, and were employed to fight enemies, avenge offences, and exert control over lands and subjects. 4While vendetta and conflict were employed by all social classes, 5 the scope and magnitude of noble feuds were on a different scale: as we shall also see in the course of this article, seigneurial wars could involve hundreds of participants and last for many decades, while among the targets of the honour violence of knights were often innocent women, children and other defenceless victims. 6rom the 1250s onwards, following the rise to power of broad-based popolo regimes after decades of struggle with the milites, the majority of central and northern Italian cities outlawed most forms of interpersonal violence, among which were feuding and the vendetta. 7The popolo was a political party made up of wealthy artisans, merchants, bankers and other professionals that carried out extensive legal and institutional reforms, and promoted a new political culture based on the pacification of society, the pursuit of the common good, and the exclusion of political enemies, among whom were powerful individuals identified as magnates. 8These developments also affected the nobles who resided in the contado, as by the late thirteenth century the majority of them were formally subject to the authority and jurisdiction of civic governments. 9Even if city-countryside relations continued to be based on mutual dialogue and negotiation, the so-called 'conquest of the contado' greatly reduced the freedom of action of rural nobles.Many civic governments imposed the manumission of serfs, regulated the construction and fortification of castles, appointed castellans and magistrates in the contado, and built new fortified boroughs and strong-points to control communication routes and keep unruly subjects in check. 10With few exceptions, therefore, when lords feuded against each other or employed physical violence to assert control they were committing crimes, and were tried in civic tribunals. 11The majority of lords summoned to court decided to flee with the hope that they would be pardoned at a later stage, a risky strategy that transformed them into bandits and left them without legal protection. 12Others, instead, faced trial, either because they thought they had a chance of winning, or because they had been captured and were left with no other choice.
When rural lords appeared in court, they found themselves in a potentially hostile environment, as the values and lifestyle that they cherishedand in particular the use of violencewere at odds with the legal and political culture promoted by civic popolo regimes.The latter did not completely banish chivalry, which remained a source of endless fascination among contemporary artists and intellectuals: the communal palace of San Gimignano, for example, was decorated with courtly scenes of jousting and hunting. 13Rather, the populares sought to reform the knightly classes, turning the typical traits of their lifestyle into virtues that could be useful for the political community. 14The magnates who did not abide by the rules of popolo governments, however, were 'demonised' and portrayed as enemies of the common good. 15The law and judicial institutions in particular became tools for the gradual subjection of the chivalric elites.From the 1270s onwards, Bologna, Florence, Padua, Perugia, Siena and other cities issued special laws that restricted the political and judicial rights of the magnates, who were forced to post sureties as guarantees of good behaviour. 16In Bologna, for example, special political charges were brought against suspected knights who had illegally infiltrated the popolo, which led the accused often to deny belonging to the magnate class in order to avoid punishing restrictions. 17Similarly, Christiane Klapisch-Zuber demonstrated that between the fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries, Florentine magnates who sought to be reintegrated into society were ready to turn their backs on their lineages, change lifestyle, and even adopt new names and coats of arms to leave their aristocratic pasts behind. 18In the long term, most rural lineages would either disappear, move to the cities, or lose muchif not allof their ancient power and prerogatives, and would be largely replaced by a new nobility that became established from the mid 1300s into the fifteenth century. 19o, what happened when lords were called to answer for actions which were, at the same time, central to their lifestyle and identity, and incompatible with the norms and values of popolo regimes?How did they interact with the political culture that was now dominant in the cities? Were they passive recipients of new laws aimed at controlling their class, or did they seek to employ criminal justice to their own advantage?The present article seeks to answer these questions through the analysis of three, previously unstudied, criminal trials that took place in Bologna and Perugia between 1276 and 1322 against lords accused of homicide, robbery and assault.Both cities had a near identical system of criminal justice, 20 were governed by strong popolo regimes that sought to subject and control the magnate classes 21 and ruled over vast contadi inhabited by bellicose noble houses. 22Most importantly, their archives have preserved what is, arguably, Italy's (if not Europe's) richest collection of thirteenth-and fourteenth-century judicial records, thereby making it possible to analyse the strategies and details of different social groups before the law.In particular, the focus will be on the courtroom defences presented by a minor nobleman involved in a bloody feud between rival comital houses, a marquis accused of assault and robbery, and a castellan who was tried for the brutal beating of a peasant.
Accusations of magnate violence abound in thirteenth-and fourteenth-century judicial records.These documents, however, have mostly been used to analyse noble violence and the ways magnates were portrayed by their opponents and victims. 23An aspect that has been less investigatedand which will be analysed in this articleis the ways in which the lords accused of acts of violence sought to justify their actions, how they interacted with the political culture promoted by civic governments, and how they represented themselves in their defence. 24Historians have long warned about treating judicial sources as if they give us the genuine voices of contemporaries.Nonetheless, plaintiffs, defendants, witnesses and pardon-seekers were the first authors of their stories and narratives, so that their pleas, however filtered, often reflected their ideas and values. 25It is particularly important to bear this in mind when analysing legal defences and depositions as, given their publicity and visibility, the medieval courtroom often served as a stage where actors could showcase social relations, seek emotional satisfaction and challenge established hierarchies in front of a large audience. 26s we shall see, the protagonists of the first two case studies did not deny their chivalric identity.On the contrary, they proudly showcased their membership of the warrior nobility by appealing to chivalric values and sometimes even adopting brazen and almost defiant behaviour.I will argue that these defences could be read as judicial performances aimed at negotiating identity, power and prerogatives with the civic elites, rather than the result of incomprehension caused by the encounter between different value-systems, political short-sightedness or complete disregard for civic institutions.The knightly 'self-portraits' presented by the defendants did not simply reflect the values typical of their class, but were carefully crafted and adapted to meet the expectations of the mixed civic audiences that attended their trials.When needs be, as in the third case study, rural lords were also capable of switching registers and adopting more refined legal arguments that, together with excusing their actions, also aimed at obtaining recognition of ancient rights and prerogatives.Far from being weapons in the hands of growing public authorities, courtrooms and judicial institutions could work as double-edged swords, and function as arenas for political negotiationalthough with varying degrees of success for the parties.Going beyond the specifics of the case studies here, this article explores the effects of the encounter between the different cultural, legal, political and social values that constituted the pluralistic world of late medieval Italy and Europe. 23Klapisch-Zuber, Ritorno alla politica, 99-130. 24Conversely, for the ways in which rural dwellers responded to elite violence and prevarications in fourteenthcentury Tuscany, see Honour, lineage and brutal violence: Ugolino da Scopeto (1288) In the decades around 1300, the Apennine mountains south of Bologna were the theatre of a long and bloody war fought between two factions captained, respectively, by the counts of Panico and the lords of Monzuno.27Among the many nobles that took part in this feud were the Da Tignano, vassals of the Panico, and the Da Scopeto, who were instead loyal to the Monzuno.In the 1280s, the members of these two minor houses engaged in a series of raids and acts of violence, some of which, while chillingly brutal in the eyes of civic authorities, were in line with Western European knightly practices of honour violence.As Peter Sposato has recently shown, the romances of the matters of Britain and France, which also circulated in Italian aristocratic circles, seemed to celebrate unrestrained violence in the name of revenge, as among the fictional victims of knightly vengeance were often women, children and the populations of entire towns. 28The mountain nobles involved in this feud would have been familiar with similar stories, as in 1227, for example, the lord Gerardino da Tignano was known to have owned at least a libro de romano, that is, a chivalric romance. 29But unfortunately for many contemporaries, taking revenge on innocents was not confined to the world of chivalric literature.
In March 1287, a group of knights led by Rustighino da Scopeto and his son Minello assaulted the village of their enemies and brutally killed the seven-year-old son of Comazzo, lord of Tignano, in front of the child's horrified mother Tommasina.The notary who recorded the acts of the trial did not spare the gory details of this atrocious crime, describing how the killers 'wickedly and cruelly took Faciolo, son of Comazzo, a child of less than seven years of age, from the hands of his mother, lady Tommasina, and extracted the intestines from his body, killing him' ('nequiter et crudeliter acepisse Faciolum filium Comaççi infantem minorem septem annis de manibus domine Thomasine matris eius et eidem infanti extraxisse vixera de corpore occidendo eundem').The day after the killing, lady Tommasina gave a harrowing deposition of the assault, which she could not finish because she was 'so troubled that she could not remember' ('quare est sic tribulata quod non [est] memorata de hoc'). 30owever horrific, this cold-blooded homicide had its own logic, as it was part of a clear pattern of revenge. 31Two years earlier, in May 1285, the Da Tignano had raided the village of Scopeto and killed Minello's own son together with two other men of his house. 32In turn, those killings were part of a vendetta, following an assault led by the Da Scopeto and their allies in March 1285, during which they killed various men of the Da Tignano. 33The feud probably went back much further, as the Da Tignano and Da Scopeto had already been reconciled through an arbitration celebrated in April 1280 by the civic authorities of Bologna. 34The violence was to continue.In mid June 1288, a year after the murder of his child, Comazzo da Tignano was killed in another raid in which his mother, lady Giacomina, was also wounded.The two main suspects for this final act of violence were the lord Ugolino da Scopeto and his companion Rolando da Tizzano, who were formally accused on 21 June 1288 by lady Giacomina.The victim claimed not only that Ugolino and Rolando had committed the assault, but also that they had acted as paid assassins on behalf of Ugolino's uncle Rustighino da Scopeto and his allies, the Da Cuzzano. 35he fact that lady Giacomina sought the help of Bolognese civic authorities reveals that rural ladies and lords were accustomed to the world of civic law courts, and knew how to navigate and manipulate them to express enmities or, in this case, denounce injustices.This should not surprise us.Many contado aristocrats had in the past administered justice in their own territories, and continued to settle disputes between locals both informally and through arbitration. 36In addition, rural nobles began to use civic tribunals in the twelfth century, a process which, in turn, also benefited emerging communal governments, which were thus able to legitimise their rule and authority beyond the city walls. 37The use of ecclesiastical, civil and criminal courts continued to grow in the course of the thirteenth century, so that by the late 1200s, legal culture was widespread across urban and rural society. 38Nonetheless, while lords certainly knew how municipal laws worked, the evidence suggests that for the participants of the Panico-Monzuno war recourse to the courts was effectively reserved to noblewomen and peasants, as male lords virtually never denounced acts of violence to civic authorities.
The killing of Comazzo da Tignano and the wounding of his mother caused an uproar in the city, as the bloody war between the counts of Panico and Monzuno and their respective vassals had generated great concern for the peace and stability of Bologna and its government.As a consequence, governmental authorities and civic elitespopolani and magnates alikehad made various efforts to reconcile the warrying parties. 39As recent research has shown, the administration of public justiceand the management of violent conflictsrequired the intervention of influential citizens who acted as mediators in criminal trials and in official reconciliations such as acts of pacification and 32 ASBo, Inquisitionum, Busta 3, I, ff.88r-111v. 33ASBo, Inquisitionum, Busta 4, XX, ff.7v-12r. 34ASBo, Ufficio dei Memoriali, 42, f. 181r. 35ASBo, Comune, Governo, Curia del Podestà, Accusationes, 7b, I, ff.75v-76r.For the jurisdictional competences of the podestà of Bologna, see Blanshei, Politics and Justice, 511-26; M. Vallerani, 'I processi accusatori a Bologna fra Due e Trecento', Società e Storia 78 (1997): 741-88. 36Fiore, Sudditi e signori. 37Wickham, Leggi, pratiche e conflitti.Tribunali e risoluzione delle dispute nella Toscana del XII secolo (Rome: Viella, 2000), 21-42; idem, Sleepwalking into a New World: The Emergence of Italian City Communes in the Twelfth Century (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2015), 181-2. 38Figliulo Rosswurm, 'Rural People and Public Justice'. 39Caravaggi, 'Keeping the Peace', 209-19.Civic authorities like capitani, podestà, consuls of the popolo, religious leaders and the members of the most prominent families intervened as mediators on multiple occasions.arbitration. 40Securing the support of powerful citizens was essential for those who were accused in criminal trials: without influential guarantors ( fideiussores), for example, the defendants were de facto forced to flee and were condemned in absentia. 41If captured they would be fined, imprisoned, or even maimed and executed.Noblemen were not immune from brutal punishments: lords involved in the Panico-Monzuno war, who were subject to bans on the grounds of contumacy and who were captured before they could be pardoned, were executed.
Ugolino da Scopeto faced a difficult situation because of his alleged crimes.He had antagonised many influential members of urban society, among whom were the Galluzzi and Torelli, who had in the past played a key mediating role in the Panico-Monzuno conflict and who now wanted the lord convicted for his actions. 42If found guilty, Ugolino would be executed, as the municipal law of Bologna did not sanction vendettas and punished homicide with death. 43Moreover, the accusation of having acted as a hired assassin (assassinus pro denariis) would cast shame over his entire lineage.Indeed, paid killings were treated as abhorrent crimes from a legal and ethical point of view, as they transposed violence from the more honourable (even if illegal) confrontation between two enemies to an act of deceit carried out by a third party. 44hile Rustighino da Scopeto and Rolando da Tizzano did not come to court and were condemned to death in absentia, Ugolino appeared there on 23 June 1288 and denied the accusations made against him, thereby accepting he would face due process. 45The parties now moved to the next phase in the process of the trial, in which they would present their respective arguments (intentiones) and defence witnesses. 46he testes presented by the prosecution claimed that Ugolino and Rolando were paid assassins and people of bad reputation (homines male fame et conditionis), a condition that brought serious judicial consequences.Many reported that the two had in the past killed several other men, always at the request of Rustighino da Scopeto and his allies. 47While none of the witnesses heard in June had actually seen the accused commit those crimesbut only reported what was known by 'common knowledge' (publica fama et vox) 48 -Ugolino was facing serious allegations, and had, therefore, to present an effective defence.
On 30 June 1288, Ugolino's lawyer Balduccio di Giovanni presented 18 intentiones to be proved by witnesses. 49The defence was structured around three main arguments: first, Ugolino was a person of good reputation and of ample means, and had never acted as a paid assassin on behalf of third parties (Intentiones I-IX, XIV); second, the accused was innocent of the homicide of Comazzo da Tignano and the wounding of Giacomina, actions which had in fact been committed by Comazzo's treacherous brother (X-XIII, XV); finally, the accusation was calumnious, and the prosecution witnesses hated Ugolino and wanted to have him convicted (XVI-XVIII).This strategydefending reputation, claiming innocence and attacking the trustworthiness of the opponentswas not at all dissimilar to the courtroom defences regularly presented in contemporary criminal trials. 50Usually, defendants sought to prove their fama by presenting themselves as ideal members of the popolo, as peaceful, not having enemies and living off their own work. 51y contrast, Ugolino's intentiones, which the lord most likely shaped with his lawyer, appealed to a series of chivalric valueshonour, lineage, strength and integritywhich, while not exactly in line with the cultural and legal values promoted by the popolo regime of Bologna, could still be considered as virtuous by a civic audience (Appendix 1).
What exactly made one noble in the thriving world of late medieval Italywhere families and individuals of recent socio-economic ascent could quickly assume elite statuswas a matter of social and legal uncertainty, and generated a lively intellectual debate in which the Florentine exile and poet Dante Alighieri (1265-1321) also participated. 52As Blanshei has shown, in contemporary political trials against suspected milites from Bologna and its contado, one of the most common proofs of status presented by prosecutors was that the accused lived an honourable life (vita honorabilis).This involved spending lavishly on clothes, horses and weapons, having great retinues of men and servants, and hunting.The defendants always denied these charges, as the acquisition of magnate status would imply a series of financial, judicial and political inconveniences.As suspected milites argued, living honourably did not prove that one was a magnate, as wealthy members of the popolo were also known to live in the manner of knights (ad modum militum). 53The intentiones in Ugolino's defence (Appendix 1) indirectly contributed to the debate, as these made a strong and explicit connection between the pursuit of individual and family honour, and the defendant's identity as a proud contado noble descended from an ancient and illustrious bloodline of knights.As the accused lord explained, he, his father and the men of the da Scopeto 'lived their lives among horses, weapons and other honourable things', and had done so like 'the other men of that lineage for the last three hundred years' (Intentio II).Together with honour, lineage was another key aspect of noble identity, as social elites secured and 49 ASBo, Inquisitionum, 14, I, ff.61r-62v. 50Vallerani, Medieval Public Justice, 151-3, 292-6. 51Vallerani, 'La cittadinanza pragmatica.Attribuzione e limitazione della civilitas nei comuni italiani fra XIII e XV secolo', in Cittadinanze medievali.Dinamiche di appartenenza a un corpo unitario, ed. S. Menzinger (Rome: Viella, 2017), 113-45 (121-2). 52Lansing, Florentine Magnates, 212-28; Guido Castelnuovo, Être noble dans la cité: les noblesses italiennes en quête d'identité (XIIIe-XVe siècle) (Paris: Garnier, 2014); Sposato, 'Chivalry in Late Medieval Tuscany', 4-5; Alessandro Barbero, Dante (Rome: Laterza, 2020), 19-30. 53Blanshei, Politics and Justice, 239-43.
consolidated their power through inheritance and horizontal ties of solidarity with their kin. 54here was not much point in Ugolino denying his aristocratic identity, as members of his lineage had been included in the list of urban and rural magnates drawn up by the civic government of Bologna in 1282. 55Instead, Ugolino turned his magnate status from a potential weakness into a strength, to demonstrate that he, a rich nobleman who could count on the help and support of faithful vassals willing to do anything he asked, would never kill or wound on behalf of someone else, let alone for money (Intentio VI).The defendant certainly displayed that haughtiness and arrogance (grandigia) that many contemporaries believed to be typical of his class, 56 but his argument that noble identity was a guarantee of honourable behaviour was accepted as valid, as it was repeated by some of the witnesses heard on the days following.One, for example, did not believe that Ugolino had committed the crimes of which he had been accused, 'because he is a nobleman and it is not likely that he did those things' ('quia est nobilis homo et non est verisimile quod predicta fecisse'). 57he courtroom in Bologna had therefore served as a stage on which Ugolinoby intercession of his lawyerhad been able to assert proudly his membership of the warrior elite and defend his and his family's honour, trustworthiness and integrity from the accusations made against him.The consequences of such allegations stretched far beyond the matters at stake in the trial and Ugolino's life itself, as they risked casting aspersions over his entire lineagea fate which, for a thirteenth-century knight, might be thought worse than death.In fact, it may have been the need to defend his lineage in public that convinced the lord to face trial rather than fleeing: in the second point of his intentiones, Ugolino claimed that the members of his house had lived 'in the manner of honourable and noble men' for the last three centuries (Intentio II).The defendant was most likely aware that such an attack on the image of his family was not simply a matter of shame, but could also have tangible political consequences.
and prerogatives (as we will see below), and general tolerance of their unruly behaviour.Civic authorities were often content to organise reconciliations between warrying nobles and to cancel death sentences, de facto allowing contado lords to get away with their illegal violence and feuding: the infamous Rustighino da Scopeto, condemned to death multiple times for his crimes, indeed managed to keep away from the executioner's axe thanks to various official reconciliations, and was still alive in 1296 when he fulfilled his civic duties by paying taxes to the commune of Bologna. 62All this, however, was tied to the ability of rural lords to bow their heads when necessary and to present themselves as useful assets for civic governments.This latter point depended, first and foremost, on their martial roles and credibility as bellicosealbeit trustworthy and reliablemembers of the warrior nobility.If governmental authorities decided that a noble family was too threatening and volatile, or more of a nuisance than anything else, consequences could be dire: in 1290, for example, the podestà of Bologna led a force of 600 men to the castle of the Aigoni and destroyed it, as the members of that family had committed one too many crimes. 63rom its high profile, Ugolino's trial most likely drew a large crowd.In addition to the magistrates, lawyers, notaries and other court officers were many powerful urban magnates and popolani who intervened as mediators, and probably also innumerable passers-by.In Bologna and other cities, court cases were heard in the main hall of the communal palace, a quintessentially public and visible space which could function as a stage.That civic halls were over-crowded emerges from visual representations of courtroom scenes, from literature, 64 and, sometimes, even from judicial documents: in January 1286, for example, two men accused of having exchanged injurious words in front of the judge of the podestà of Bolognaa prosecutable offenceclaimed in their defence that it was too noisy for anyone to have actually heard what they said ('propter rumorem et clamorem gentium qui ibi erant coram stangam'). 65Therefore, the self-portrait that Ugolino presented had, in order to be accepted by the mixed civic audience that most likely attended his trial, to adhere to an idea of chivalry that would be seen as virtuous by this heterogeneous social group ranging from members of the chivalric elite to bankers, merchants, artisans, notaries and commoners.
Ugolino and his lawyer wisely left out those realities of knighthoodsuch as the brutal nature of vengeance violence that targeted women and children indiscriminatelywhich, as well as being illegal, would also have been abhorrent in the eyes of a mixed civic audience.The defendant did not deny that he was used to a violent lifestylehe and his kinsmen had always lived in equibus et armisbut claimed that he had always abstained from crimes that could be considered as vile and unbecoming for a nobleman (Intentio V).Nonetheless, after so much talk about honour, Ugolino declared not only that he had not acted as a paid assassin, but also that he was completely innocent of the death of Comazzo and the wounding of his mother.The defendant therefore refused to acknowledge publicly that he had carried out an honourable vendetta (honourable from a 62 ASBo, Comune, Governo, Ufficio dei Procuratori degli Estimi III, Busta 48, Porta Procola, Parchment 31. 63Blanshei, Politics and Justice, 385. 64i.e., Giovanni Boccaccio, Decameron, Day VIII, Novella 5, in which two Florentine citizens execute pranks against the judge of the podestà and ridicule him in front of a large audience.For this novella, see William Robins and Leah Faibisoff, 'The Jokesters and the Judge (VIII.5)', in The Decameron Eighth Day in Perspective, ed.W. Robins (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2020), 108-28. 65ASBo, Inquisitionum, 7, X, f. 12r.The two were eventually acquitted.knightly point of view).Instead, he stated that the person actually responsible for the attack was Comazzo's treacherous brother, also confusingly called Ugolino, and that lady Giacomina had been wounded by accident. 66While Ugolino da Scopeto's innocence was probably hard to believe, this last point was not completely far-fetched, as Ugolino da Tignano had indeed switched sides, so that he might indeed have played a role in the assault. 67onetheless, Ugolino da Scopeto's elaborate courtroom defence and the support of influential urban magnates and popolani were not enough.A new series of prosecution witnesses heard a few weeks later, among whom were two respectable noblewomen, confirmed that they had seen the accused commit the assault. 68The deposition of at least two unimpeachable eyewitnesses was enough to secure a guilty sentence. 69In addition, and most importantly, Ugolino had antagonised a large part of urban society, among whom were people like the Galluzzi, who had until that point played a key mediating role in the Panico-Monzuno war.Securing the support of influential members of society who could act as guarantors and mediators was key, as without them, defendants could and often did face dire judicial consequences.On 31 August 1288, the magistrate established that Ugolino da Scopeto had broken the law against assassins of the statutes of Bologna, and gave the defendant's lawyer until the following day to present further evidence that could exonerate his client. 70Since this was not done, Ugolino was condemned to death and most likely executed in September 1288. 71Nonetheless, the defence of his family's name and reputation may not have been in vain.Less than a year later, in March 1289, the Galluzzi brokered a new reconciliation between the Da Tignano and Da Scopeto: all criminal bans issued against the lords involved in that feud were cancelled. 72Ugolino's relatives, among whom was Rustighino (who had, perhaps more wisely, decided not to face trial), were thus reintegrated into society, and continued to be held as troublesome, but respected, members of the warrior elite for the following years.
This case study shows that even in a contextlike that of Bolognain which the popolo was in power and its members were more or less strongly opposed to the magnates and their lifestyle, chivalric culture, even if negotiated and adapted, was still considered as a meaningful rhetorical tool to be employed on occasions as public and delicate as the defence in a high-profile criminal trial.The employment of chivalric rhetoric in this setting could have multiple purposes: to prove one's innocence, worth and reputation, but also to negotiate power, prerogatives and identity.As we shall see in the following example from Perugia, such courtroom performances were sometimes enhanced by adopting a haughty and mocking behaviour, with which lords might have sought to characterise their status and present themselves as equal to civic authorities.
Valour and hospitality: Guido, marquis of Valiano (1276) Like Bologna, Perugia ruled over a vast contado inhabited by bellicose lords who often acted as if they were independent, and who were involved in a continuous process of dialogue and negotiation with the urban government.73Among them were the marquises of Valiano, a branch of the powerful lineage of the marchiones de Colle, who held rights of lordship over vast areas between the contadi of Perugia and other cities.In the second half of the thirteenth century, the Valiano were involved in a long dispute with the commune of Perugia for control of the lands of Chiugi, now formally under the jurisdiction of the city. 74Chiugi was a rich source of corn for the urban population and controlled the access to nearby Lake Trasimeno: it was therefore guarded jealously by civic authorities.In the late 1260s, Guido di Valiano and his sons were required to post securities to guarantee that they would not in any way harass the labourers of Chiugi. 75Such measures were most likely motivated by the fact that in the previous years, Guido and his sons had probably continued to claim control over Chiugi through force, whether by feuding against their enemies, resisting the commune, or attacking those who moved goods without their approvalall illegal actions that were prosecuted in the law courts of Perugia.
In September 1276, the marquis was tried in the criminal court of the capitano del popolo of that city. 76The magistrate had decided to proceed by inquisition (ex offitio) after receiving the denunciation of one Jacopo Altafesta, who claimed that in the month of August Guido and his men had seized, beaten and robbed him of a herd of 100 pigs while he was between Chiugi and Valiano. 77Guido was summoned to the palace of the capitano to defend himself from this allegation, but when he appeared before the magistrate, he provided a rather different version of what had happened (Appendix 2).
Guido completely transformed the narrative: as he explained, Jacopo (the accuser) and his men had ridden to Valiano, where they robbed a merchant from Città di Castello called Romagnante.As the latter cried for help, the marquis and his men had hurried to the scene; once there, they seized Jacopo and then reprimanded him for his actions.The accused had done nothing illegal; on the contrary, they had readily responded to the situation by running to the scene of the crime, where they were quick to restore the peace.Guido's fear, he explained, was that the rumour had been caused by the bandit Bartolomeo da Vico, a rebel lord and enemy of the commune of Perugia.The defendant had subtly and astutely sought to transform the trial against him into an occasion to argue that his family's attempts to retain control of Chiugi could, after all, serve civic interests by protecting trade and fighting dangerous rebels.Guido did not dispute the authority of the commune, as he claimed to have asked Jacopo whether he had been authorised by the commune to seize the herd: once he learned that the latter had received a 'licence to rob' (quite possibly a right of reprisal against people from Città di Castello) 78 even if this had been 'left at home'the lord did not harass Jacopo any further.In other words, Guido was acting as if his control over Chiugi were complementary to the jurisdiction of communal authorities, something towards which he and his family were striving in those same years.
The defendant's self-proclaimed role as protector of civic interests in the area of Chiugi was complemented by appealing to a series of chivalric values that, not unlike those advertised by Ugolino da Scopeto, could be perceived as virtuous by his audience.Together with being a valiant warrior (Jacopo, he explained, released the stolen pigs out of fear of the lord marquis), Guido also stressed his aristocratic nature by claiming that he, ready to forgive and restore order, had even invited his opponents to lunch after scolding them for their actions.This was an unmistakable mark of hospitality and courtesyto be able to host guests was a sign of power and a value as central to chivalric lifestyle as honour and valourthe marquis indeed stressed that by doing so, he had 'honoured' Jacopo and his men. 79At the same time, eating and drinking together were also recognised gestures of harmony and conviviality, often adopted to seal newly restored peace between former enemies after a reconciliation. 80Since mercy and coercion were both integral to the administration of justice (both divine and human), 81 Guido was stressing that he was 'fit to rule' according to standards set and pursued by popolo governments, but without renouncing his chivalric identity and attitude.
While his knightly self-portrait was, like that of Ugolino da Scopeto, adapted in a way that could be accepted by his audience, Guido's words did not fully hide his hostility towards his opponent and might be read as mocking civic institutions.The claim that the lord had invited Jacopo and his men for luncha courtesy that in aristocratic circles was usually reserved for guests of the same or similar condition as the hostcould have very well been understood as a jibe at the plaintiff, whose humble condition was thus remarked publicly before the entire court of the capitano.It is impossible to tell whether Guido intended it as a joke (although one suspects it was, given the context and paradoxical contrast between the two versions of the same events): unfortunately for us, the notary who recorded the trial did not take note of the defendant's tone and body language, or of the reactions of the audience.
Irony, mockery and laughter were not foreign to the formal world of law courts, which often served as a stage where plaintiffs, witnesses or defendants enacted irreverent performances that challenged the order and power hierarchies that law and legal institutions were supposed to represent. 82As Peter Jones has recently argued for twelfth-century England, laughter had multiple purposes in aristocratic, ecclesiastical and royal courts, as it could be employed to express power through the derision of adversaries, but also as a tool of political manipulation. 83It might therefore be wondered if Guido of Valiano's ironic remark about inviting his opponent to lunch may be understood as complementary to his chivalric self-portrait: the marquis might have sought to present himself as useful to the government and citizens of Perugia thanks to his martial valour, but as powerful enough not to be scared of civic judicial institutions.Fearlessness was, after all, one of the chivalric traits praised in that kind of literature with which Guido would have certainly been familiar. 84he marquis had secured the support of powerful townsmen, which is, quite possibly, the reason why he felt confident enough to adopt such haughty behaviour in court: his guarantors ( fideiussores) were indeed the magnates Saracino Baglioni, Perono Odderisi and Elemosina Benedictoli, who pledged £4000 on his behalfthat is, the sum that Guido would have had to pay if found guilty.As has been explained above, guarantors played a key mediating role in criminal trials, and the intervention of influential citizens who organised an out-of-court reconciliation was often enough to obtain an acquittal.(That did not happen with Ugolino da Scopeto, but the Bolognese lord had antagonised many powerful citizens.)Guido was eventually acquitted, as nothing else was recorded by the notary of the capitano after the accused's formal promise that he would follow the orders of the magistrate.This suggests that the trial had most likely been halted, perhaps following a reconciliation with Jacopo Altafesta.It is possible that the Perugian magnates decided to take the troublesome lord's side in order to avoid antagonising him, as the commune of that city was attempting to acquire lands from the Valiano in those same months.Guido had previously sought to hinder the sale of lands to the communeand had, therefore, been required to give formal reassurances and pledge a large sum of moneybut the process was eventually completed in 1277. 85Negotiation was a two-way street, and both civic authorities and rural lords could sometimes use judicial settings to achieve their goals and protect their interests.
Guido managed to avoid a criminal condemnation for the violent assault that he had allegedly committed against Jacopo, but his success in defending his family's prerogatives in Chiugi was only temporary.From the 1280s onwards, the government of Perugia increased its attempts to subject that area fully, taking harsher measures against local nobles: 86 in 1282, Guido and his sons were formally prohibited from living near, 82 Stone Peters, Law as Performance, 24, 144-85. 83Peter J.A.Jones, Laughter and Power in the Twelfth Century (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019), 11.See also Edmond Reiss, 'Medieval Irony', Journal of the History of Ideas 42 (1981): 209-26. 84Barber, Knight and Chivalry, 51-60. 85Tiberini, Repertorio, Scheda 66, 48.The author includes partial transcriptions of the documents without, however, commenting on them. 86Vallerani, 'Comunanze di Perugia', 641.
working or holding any of those lands, while in 1293 the Valiano were finally forced to sell all the properties that they owned in that region to the commune of Perugia. 87olence, legal arguments and ancient rights: the lords of Codale (1322) Although in different ways and with varying degrees of success, Ugolino and Guido stressed their chivalric identity by appealing to a series of values such as military valour, honour, lineage, courtesy and hospitality which, while not exactly in line with the new political culture promoted by popolo regimes, could still be accepted as virtuous by their audiences.Even if the defendants sometimes adopted arrogant conduct and mocked their adversaries and civic institutions, they did not seek to excuse their use of violence in the name of the logic of feuding or consolidated customs of noble rulership, but remained well within the boundaries of municipal laws.At times, as we shall see in the third and final case study, the lords that were prosecuted were also capable of adopting more refined legal arguments to get away with their actions, justify their conduct, and even vindicate ancient rights and prerogatives.Familiarity with the law and its practices was commonplace in the contado, and many lords and ladies had recourse to civic courts to conduct their quarrels.Ugolino da Scopeto was tried following the private accusation lodged by his victim, lady Giacomina da Ceola, while two of the three eyewitness accounts that most likely led to his condemnation were given by noblewomen.
On 17 February 1322, Ruffino di Giunta, an inhabitant of the parish of S. Severo in Perugia, went to the court of the capitano to lodge an accusation against the lord of the castle of Codale, Zucco di Riguccio Aldobrandini, and his servant Stefano.The two, the plaintiff claimed, had attacked him near Codale, leaving him with wounds in the left thigh and head, and with a permanent scar on his face. 88The domini de castro Codalis did not rule over an extensive territory, but only over the castle and land from which they derived their name. 89Zucco's ancestors came under the power of Perugia in the course of the thirteenth century: they were listed among the magnates of the contado in 1260, paid taxes in 1285, and served in the civic army at least in 1286 and 1289. 90Nonetheless, these lords remained jealous of their ancient rights and prerogatives, and continued to use physical violence to assert their rule over their territories and subjects.As would emerge in the course of the trial, the accuser had probably been a former peasant of Codale who had angered the lords (perhaps by moving to the city), so that the beating he received might have been a severe punishment administered by Zucco. 91mmediately after Ruffino lodged his accusation, an envoy of the criminal court of the capitano travelled to Codale to summon the accused.Eventually, on 12 March, Zucco's brother Putiacco appeared in court in order to defend the accused.Instead of appealing to chivalric values and denying that his brother had carried out the actions charged against him, Putiacco presented a list of legal arguments that aimed at invalidating the trial.First, the lawyer pointed out that the accuser, who claimed to be an inhabitant of 87 Blanshei, 'Perugia 1260-1340', 62. 88 ASPg, Capitano, 66, I, ff.2r-2v. 89Tiberini, Signorie rurali, 129. 90 Tiberini, Repertorio, C, 52. 91For the significance of disfiguration, see Valentin Groebner, Defaced: The Visual Culture of Violence in the Late Middle Ages (New York: Zone Books, 2004).S. Severo in Perugia, had not paid taxes to the commune of that city, so that he had no right to enjoy the legal protection of civic authorities.This strategy was employed often in a criminal defence, as for example in a trial of September 1301 of three men of the Bolognese rural house of the Aigoni della Rocca for the homicide of lord Gerardino da Cuzzano during the Panico-Monzuno war.Their lawyer argued that their victim had not paid taxes in 1296, and could therefore be attacked with impunity. 92he lords of Codale, however, did more.Putiacco, who clearly had good knowledge of municipal laws, claimed that the capitano and his judge had no right to proceed against the accused, because the crime had been committed in the territory of Codale, an area that still fell under the jurisdiction of the lords of that castle, that is, the same Zucco and Putiacco.In other words, Putiacco was making the case that Zucco had the right to act however he wished, and that if his action had constituted a crime, it would be up to the accused himself and to his relatives to say.
Item, another reason why this accusation must not be prosecuted is that you, lord [judge], speaking with respect and reverence, do not have the right to proceed ('non exstis competens') against the parties involved in the crime which is said to have been committed by the forementioned Zucco and Stefano against the aforementioned Ruffino, for [Zucco and Stefano] were and are from the aforementioned castle of Codale, which casle has and has had since time immemorial jurisdictional lordship and the power to inflict corporal punishment, and is outside of the jurisdiction and district of the commune of Perugia, while the place in which the crimes are said to have been committed by [Zucco and Stefano]  against Ruffino is outside of the jurisdiction and district of the commune of Perugia, and is in the district and jurisdiction of the aforementioned castle of Codale … 93 By the late thirteenth century very few contado nobles were still administering justice in their territories, but Putiacco's claim was well founded: a document written in 1284 indeed shows that the castle of Codale enjoyed full jurisdictional rights (merum et mixtum imperium and punitionem sanguinis) over its surrounding district and inhabitants, a privilege that was still in force at the time of Zucco and Putiacco. 94Eventually, on 18 March 1322, after the examination of the proofs and witnesses brought by the lawyer, the capitano himself declared that his judge did not have the right to proceed over the accusation, so that the accused were acquitted. 95Thanks to his knowledge of the law and skilled employment of the formal language required in civic courtrooms, Putiaccohimself one of the lords of Codalemanaged to turn the criminal trial against his brother into an occasion to demonstrate the noble status of their family without appealing to chivalric values, and to gain the formal recognition of a privilege that had been exercised by their ancestors 'per tempus quod non est ad memoriam'. 92ASBo, Inquisitionum, 53, VI, ff.32v-33r.This claim was challenged by the victin's sister, who sought to demonstrate that her brother had been exempted from paying taxes.5 ASPg, Capitano, 66, I, f. 7r.

Conclusion
Whether to feud and avenge offences, claim control over lands and goods, or re-establish hierarchies of power, physical violence remained a key aspect of late medieval lordly practices and knightly identity throughout Western Christendom.While such actions followed a logic that was often known and understood by victims and spectators, from the mid thirteenth century onwards most forms of interpersonal violence were illegal according to the statutes of many central and northern Italian city communes.Therefore, when contado nobles had recourse to violence they were committing a crime and were put on trial in civic criminal courts.
The law and judicial institutions were a tool through which popolo regimes sought to reform the lifestyle of rural lords and reduce their power.Nonetheless, as we have seen, criminal trials could still present opportunities in which rural nobles not only defended themselves, but also, thanks to the public arena of the courtrooms, sought to negotiate their identity, power, and prerogatives with the representatives of urban governments.Country lords and ladies were not at all foreign to civic courtrooms and municipal laws.Many noblewomen involved in the seigneurial war fought in the mountains of Bologna lodged accusations in the criminal court and intervened as key witnesses during trials.When lords accused of violence were called to answer for their actions, they either denied the charges brought against them, argued that they had acted within the boundaries of municipal law and to serve civic interests, or claimed jurisdictional immunity.The last example in particular has showed that sometimes, thanks to their skill and knowledge of the law, lords could not only get away with their violence, but even obtain formal recognition of ancient privileges such as, in the case of the lords of Codale, the right to administer civil and criminal justice in the districtus of their castle.
What the majority of lords did not do was to justify their actions by appealing to the logic of the feud or to the customs of lordly violence.The case of Ugolino da Scopeto is telling: not only did the lord deny that he had acted as a paid assassin, thereby protecting his and his family's honour; he also claimed to be completely innocent of the assaults against Comazzo da Tignano and lady Giacomina, even if those actions were part of a clear pattern of revenge and were in line with chivalric practices of honour violence.
This does not mean that the discourses and values of chivalry were left aside altogether.On the contrary, Ugolino da Scopeto and Guido di Valiano demonstrated their knightly identity by exalting their adherence to values such as lineage, honour, hospitality, courtesy and military prowess.While these values were not a core part of the civic culture promoted by the popolo, chivalric rhetoric continued to be regarded as a powerful and convincing instrument of political communication.In judicial settings, however, chivalric discourses, in order to be convincing, had to be adapted to the expectations and cultural and political values of mixed civic audiences.The analysis of Guido da Valiano's defence has shown this well: the marquis seized the occasion of the criminal trial for his alleged assault against Jacopo Altafesta to make the case that his family's control of Chiugiwhich the communal authorities of Perugia increasingly saw as a nuisancecould in fact be beneficial to the city.Guido stressed his martial valour and fairness in the administration of justice, qualities fitting to an ideal knight who served civic interests.Even if they would have probably liked to continue living 'in the manner of honourable men', that, is, 'with horses and weapons' (to use Ugolino da Scopeto's words), rural lords were not oblivious to the cultural, legal and social changes that had occurred in the cities, and sought to come to terms with them in order to preserve whatever power they had left.
As has been argued, recourse to chivalric rhetoric in judicial settings was not the result of political misunderstanding or mere arrogance, even if the defendants could sometimes adopt a haughty and seemingly defiant behaviour.Rather, courtroom performances such as those staged by Ugolino and Guido might be read as attempts to negotiate power and identity.City-contado relations remained characterised by complex processes of dialogue and negotiation, albeit not without instances of opposition and conflict.Even if rural lords had been formally subject to civic authorities, they could still hope to maintain ancient prerogatives and to enjoy relatively ample scope of action.This depended on their ability to present themselves as trustworthy, reliable, but fearsome members of the warrior elites, better to have as allies than as enemies.When lords like Ugolino and Guido demonstrated their chivalric identity in criminal trials they were not only defending their name, but were probably also thinking about the greater matters that were at stake.In turn, the citizens who participated in political decision-making could also use judicial settings as occasions to negotiate with lords, as Guido's acquittal might have been used to secure the lord's collaboration for the acquisition of lands by the commune of Perugia.
Did chivalric rhetoric pay in judicial settings?To be able to count on the support of influential citizens who intervened as guarantors and mediators was arguably as important as presenting a convincing defence.Nonetheless, as the various actors in this article certainly knew, words spoken in a criminal court influenced matters that were beyond the actions being tried.Ugolino da Scopeto had antagonised too many powerful members of the Bolognese government, and paid with his life.His defence of the name and reputation of the Da Scopeto, however, might have left a mark, as a year later, the same people who had sought to have him condemned organised a reconciliation between the warrying lords, and pardoned many of Ugolino's relatives and companions.On the other hand, Guido di Valiano was not condemned, but the days in which he and the other members of his lineage could act as if they were independent were numbered.
worked on an interdisciplinary project investigating the literary and cultural underpinnings of criminal law in the fourteenth century.He completed his D.Phil.at the University of Oxford in February 2021 with a thesis on law, conflict, and peace-keeping in Dante's Italy.

Appendices
Appendix 1. Intentiones (defence arguments) of Balduccio di Giovanni in support of Ugolino da Scopeto, Bologna, 1288 (ASBo, Inquisitionum, 14, I, ff.61r-62v) Item that Gerardino and the men of that lineage of the Da Scopeto are at present, and were in the past held and considered as noble and rich men of the contado of Bologna, and of honourable, decent, noble, honest and great condition, and [as men] who lived their lives among horses, weapons and other honourable things, in the way and manner of the honourable and noble men of the contado of Bologna, and that Gerardino [lived in that manner] throughout his life, and the other men of that lineage [lived in that manner] for the last three hundred years.
Item that Ugolino is at present and was in the past a noble and rich man of honourable, decent, and noble life and condition, and a man who always lived his life doing honourable, decent and good things that were appropriate to him, to his house, to his nobility, and to his riches and those of his father and his lineage, and [a man] who always spent his life among horses, weapons, squires and other honourable things in his honour, that of his lineage, and of the commune of Bologna.
Item that it is public and notorious, and that it is of public knowledge in the city of Bologna and in the lands of Scopeto and Tignano and in the places where Ugolino is known, that Ugolino always abstained from committing vile and indecent crimes that are unbecoming to him and his lineage, and that he neither is nor ever was a paid assassin, that he never wounded anyone for a price, and that there never were any rumours that he committed the aforementioned crimes.predictum occasione clamoris mercatoris immo fecit eis illum honorem quem potuit invitando eos ad prandium.
Item, interrogated, he replied that neither he nor the men of Valiano assaulted or did any injury against Jacopo or against those who were with him, but only that they intervened in the commotion because of the clamour made by the merchant; in fact, he honoured them as much as he could, as he invited them for lunch.
Item he said that he carried a sword and the men of Valiano carried some weapons, as they are used to do when they intervene in a commotion.