Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- List of Figures
- Acknowledgments
- A Note on Usage
- Abbreviations
- Introduction
- 1 Police Power in the Italian Communes
- 2 Police Discretion and Personal Autonomy
- 3 The Logic of Third-Party Policing
- 4 External Threats: Policing Out-Groups and Criminality
- 5 Internal Threats: Policing Violence and Enmity
- 6 The Social Impact of Third-Party Policing
- Conclusion
- About the author
- Index
1 - Police Power in the Italian Communes
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 November 2020
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- List of Figures
- Acknowledgments
- A Note on Usage
- Abbreviations
- Introduction
- 1 Police Power in the Italian Communes
- 2 Police Discretion and Personal Autonomy
- 3 The Logic of Third-Party Policing
- 4 External Threats: Policing Out-Groups and Criminality
- 5 Internal Threats: Policing Violence and Enmity
- 6 The Social Impact of Third-Party Policing
- Conclusion
- About the author
- Index
Summary
Abstract
Chapter 1 establishes the nature and extent of police power in the Italian communes, starting with the richly documented case of Bologna. It first describes the officials in the podestà's retinue (familia) who policed the city and the patrols they undertook on a regular basis. It then describes the legal processes that followed their denunciations to the criminal court. The chapter concludes with an analysis of case data from Bologna and three other communes: Perugia, Siena, and Orvieto. All told, the judicial records show that the familia was an effective arm of government coercion, compelling hundreds of people to stand trial against their will every year on curfew, arms-bearing, and gambling charges. These medieval governments were therefore not nearly so lacking in police power as is commonly assumed.
Keywords: judges, notaries, sumptuary law, arrest, inquisitorial procedure, legal penalties
In April 1287, a resident of Bologna named Franco di Rodulfino stood trial for physically and verbally abusing a berrovarius of the podestà during a weapons search. The assaulted officer, Bernardino, and his patrol partner each told the same story in court: when Bernardino tried to search him for illegal weapons, Franco grabbed him by the shoulders, pulled him forcefully toward himself, and said “horrid and injurious words” to him, namely, “Are you a bugger?” (buzironus). Considering that Bologna's statutes prescribed immolation as the punishment for sodomy, “bugger” was a horrible insult indeed. Franco did not dispute their story under oath but claimed he had not recognized Bernardino as a berrovarius since he was “almost drunk.” He also offered a slightly different version of what he had said to Bernardino, which translates roughly as: “What are you, a bugger, touching me that way?” Franco, it appears, was initially convicted and spent a few days in jail, though the judge ultimately acquitted him.
Franco's case is fascinating in its own right for his apparent use of a homophobic slur in reaction to the familia's weapons search. He seems to have viewed their attempt to pat him down as a threat to his masculinity. But his case is also emblematic of what occurred routinely in the city streets on a much larger scale.
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- Information
- Police Power in the Italian Communes, 1228–1326 , pp. 39 - 92Publisher: Amsterdam University PressPrint publication year: 2019