Vendettas, Passions and Men Behaving Badly in Late Medieval Italian City-States (c.1300-1500)

After last week’s more academic post, I return with something that should at least make some of you smile… So, stick around as we travel back to medieval Italy this week.

Men and maturity – a tale as old as time. No, quite literally it is! This week, amid the chaos of Oxford, our reading list veered into the violent — and vividly ridiculous — world of late medieval Italian city-states. As part of this, we got to engage in some rather entertaining readings, which, quite frankly, were too good not to share here. From men’s passions impeding their ability to sire sons, to not getting over their passions till later in life, it seems that really it was a man’s world.

 

The Situation: Violence in the City States

Violence was a significant issue in medieval Italy, as is evident from the legal measures taken to curb it. In city-states such as Florence and Siena, vendetta — a blood feud in which the family of a murder victim sought vengeance against the killer or their relatives — was, to some extent, enshrined in law. In Siena, individuals involved in serious enmities were even permitted to wear armour (Waley, p. 47). A distinction made only here, suggesting there was some desire to protect the accused from further unnecessary harm. Perhaps even to limit the attacks being carried out in public. In Florence, vendetta was not outlawed but was regulated: acts of revenge were required to be appropriate, or condencens (Waley, p. 48). These examples demonstrate that although violence was acknowledged as a threat, it was not banned outright. Instead, both states sought to contain it within legal and cultural constraints.

In addition, in Siena, violence was further limited through mechanisms such as the so-called “instrument of peace,” a notarised document by which an offender could obtain peace from the injured party or their heirs (Browsky, pp. 12–13). Measures like this, which restricted who could retaliate and how, reveal a broader attempt to manage the scale and social impact of violence rather than eliminate it entirely.

Besides law codes, the consistent contemporary attention to matters such as violence highlights its prevalence in society. For example, Florentine Dominican, Giovanni Dominici, declared that the fifteenth century had seen “public order all but vanish,” and that there was “no other justice… but deceit, force, money and factional and family ties.” (Herlihy, p.129) The cries from the ecclesiastical circuit may be an exaggeration as to the Church, any form of violence would be frowned upon – after all, the ten commandments give the order that ‘thou shalt not kill’. The tying of violence to families further shows the factions within the medieval Italian environment. Familial ties and honour were significant and as such it would have been expected that you would fight for this honour should it be required. However, those typically in the position to do so would have been the upper classes who had the financial means, and the manpower, and enduring legacies to contend with.

Furthermore, in the later medieval states, republican rule was seen to be flawed. The prolific violence led to the commune’s desire for change. These 'communes' were the city-states which had significant power due to their independence and self-governance. It would, therefore, be crucial for them to maintain this control and avoid descending into mass violence. Contemporaries saw the upper classes’ obsession with status and honour — played out through vendettas — as the cause of ineffective rule (Waley, p.47). This led to a slow dissipation of the power of unfriendly magnates to a more impersonal and impartial regime.

So, we have established that there were significant levels of violence, often within a preserve of social class, but why was this?

 

Emotions Running High: Contemporaries and the Battle Against Masculinity

In the Florentine Castro of 1427, there are approximately 250,000 people residing in some 60,000 households (Herlihy, p.131). This almost census-style document is invaluable for historians when assessing the population dynamics of the fifteenth century in the Tuscan cities. At this time, the population was substantially weighted by the number of younger people, suggesting a growing population. The average age of the Florentine man was 26 years old, and half of the entire population was 22 years or younger (Herlihy, p.143). These ages are essential for assessing the extent to which we can attribute blame, as the contemporaries did, to the youth of Florence.

Observers were seemingly obsessed with the youth, particularly young men. For them, the young were ruled by their passions, and therefore, they portrayed them in a sinful light (Dunlop, p.22). Maffeo Vegio of Lodi suggested men shouldn’t sire sons before 36 — lest they pass on their turbulent passions like some emotional family heirloom (Herlihy, p.133). Young men weren’t seen as rational — they were seen as dangerously ruled by feeling well into their thirties. This supports the argument of Giovanni Dominici that society had become lawless and unable to be reasoned with (Herlihy, p.129). The blame attributed to young men is significant in this period. Our contemporaries want their readers to allay their passions and focus instead on peace and controlling their emotions. It seems very much the case that society was fearful and acted to caution young men with the threat of producing daughters instead. Women were often at a significant disadvantage politically, socially and economically in this period beneath the patriarchy. In addition, a lack of male heir could cause inheritance issues further down the line. Male youth culture, as illustrated through these passions, as such, led to an increased risk of violence.

Furthermore, our contemporaries attribute passions as stirring from parental behaviours and upbringing. The argument that our sources found most convincing was that passions were causing our period's growing violent tendencies, and these tendencies were generational. To them, passions were public enemies — capable of tearing apart civic virtue. Ansaldo Ceba, writing in Genoa, declared there ‘is no passion... than the storms of sensual love’(Herlihy, p.136). Here, the passions led by attraction resulted in the distraction of the desire for a calm republic. Thus, the necessity to control these was apparent to our contemporary writers. And yet, we see some writers of the period highlight that despite the best efforts to raise the ‘most worthy citizens’, they nevertheless grow to turn out badly (Herlihy, pp.134-135). This dismissive nature of how a child is raised further supports the attitudes explored by Dunlop in their study of The Pride of Life (c.1350), that this act of passion mirrored the natural path of man, to be sinful (Dunlop, p.25). So, we as historians are faced with a dilemma – do we subscribe to the idea of man being innately sinful and therefore accepting that their violence was a part of the expected behaviour of men in this period, or, that the violence was instead an example of how a small group could abuse the system for their advantage? Parental passions appear to have limited influence on violence in this period, and it is instead the social standing of individuals that we should consider.

Writers of the period tend to frame this as a male-only problem. However, the case appears to be that it is to be attributed to wealthy males rather than all males. (I can sense the relief of all the men reading this…) The elites used violence as a system for protection and honour. It enabled them to hide behind their families and backgrounds and incite small scale violence. For example, in Pistoia in 1427, the wealthiest 10 per cent of the population owned nearly 60 per cent of the city’s wealth (Herlihy, p.151). They could use this to pay mercenaries or the Popolo minuto (the lower middle classes, usually traders) to fight on their behalf and ensure their protection within the legal system. Becker argues that no single act impeded the medieval legal system more than judicial dispensation (Becker, p.255). This dispensation seems to have affected continuing violence, as vendettas continued to be followed up even after long periods (Waley, p.45). Whilst there were cases of vendettas amongst lower classes like the Popolo minuto these were less abundant than in the upper classes. Therefore, the lack of lower-class vendettas implies that violence can be attributed to the upper classes, who have the means to complete these and continue them for generations to come.

 

To conclude, I have highlighted a brief example of how masculinity was used to explain the phenomenon of violence within the context of Italian city-states in the late medieval period (c.1300-1500). Whilst contemporaries spoke of passions and their endurance, the main factors that we must consider were the availability of those involved in these acts. Could they suitably respond to violence against their family? If so, at what cost? There is, as such, a need to align acts of violence in this period to the males of the upper classes as opposed to all men in general, and historians must avoid tarnishing all parties with the same brush.

 

Bibliography:

Herlihy ‘Some Psychological and Social Roots of Violence in The Tuscan Cities’, in, L. Martines (ed.), Violence and Civil Disorder in the Italian Cities 1200-1500 (London, 1990) pp. 129-153

Dunlop, “Young Masculinity and Late Medieval Discourses of Youth”, in The Late Medieval Interlude: The Drama of Youth and Aristocratic Masculinity (2013), pp.22-50

Waley, ‘A blood feud with a happy ending – Siena 1285-1304’, in T. Dean and C. Wickham (eds.), City and Countryside in Late Medieval and Renaissance Italy, (University of Berkley, California, 1972) pp.45-50

Browsky, ‘The medieval commune and internal violence – police power and public safety in Siena 1287-1355,’ American Historical Review, 73, 1967, pp.1-17