Police Power in the Italian Communes, 1228-1326

Print version record.

Cover; Table of Contents; Acknowledgments; A Note on Usage; Abbreviations; Introduction; Police as a Mode of Governance; Police and Impersonal Rules; The Plan of the Book; 1. Police Power in the Italian Communes; The Podestà's Household; Police Patrols and Inspections; The Legal Process: From Detention to Trial; A Comparison of Selected Data; Conclusion: Policing and Hegemonic Justice; 2. Police Discretion and Personal Autonomy; Social Identity; Political Status; Factual Matters; Legal Presumptions; Police Jurisdiction; Mitigating Factors; Conclusion: The Paradox of Impersonality

3. The Logic of Third-Party Policing"To ... Pursue and Capture Outlawed Criminals"; "To ... Search for Men Bearing Prohibited Arms"; "Trustworthy Foreign Men"; "The Good State of the Commune"; Conclusion: A Preventive Police; 4. External Threats: Policing Out-Groups and Criminality; Judicial Violence; The Public Interest; Outlaws, Infames, and Men of Ill Repute; Police Patrols as Dragnet; The Role of Fama; Conclusion: A Persecuting Society?; 5. Internal Threats: Policing Violence and Enmity; Enmity and Instability; Policing Feud; Toward a Monopoly on Violence; Preventing Enmity

Conclusion: Legislating in the Shadow of Violence6. The Social Impact of Third-Party Policing; Mandatory Rules; Legal Literacy; Fear of the Familia; Violent Self-Help; Police-Community Relations; Public Corruption; Legal Privilege; Conclusion: A Legacy of Government Coercion; Conclusion; About the author; Index; List of Figures; Table 1: Bologna: Persons Denounced per Semester; Table 2: Bologna: Curfew Case Outcomes by Percentage; Table 3: Bologna: Arms-bearing Case Outcomes by Percentage; Table 4: Bologna: Gambling Case Outcomes by Percentage

Table 5: Bologna: Total Amount of Penalties in LireTable 6: Bologna: Case Type by Percentage of Total Cases; Table 7: Bologna: Convictions, January-March 1256; Table 8: Bologna: Crowns and Arms Fragment, April-October 1264; Table 9: Perugia: Inventiones, January-December 1279; Table 10: Perugia: Inventiones, January-August 1283; Table 11: Perugia: Persons Convicted; Table 12: Perugia: Persons Convicted by Percentage of Total Convictions; Table 13: Siena: Convictions, 1305II; Table 14: Siena: Convictions, 1306I; Table 15: Siena: Convictions, 1306II

Table 16: Siena: Total Convictions, 1305II-1306IITable 17: Orvieto: Convictions, November 1294-November 1295; Image 1: The record of Carlo Baciacomari's trial in the Crowns and Arms series. Archivio di Stato di Bologna.; Image 2: Drawings of prohibited weapons on the cover of a Crowns and Arms register. Archivio di Stato di Bologna.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Police are generally thought of as an invention of the modern state, yet policing in medieval Italy had much in common with modern law enforcement. Foreign soldiers - hired as such to ensure their impartiality in enforcing the statutes - patrolled the streets daily, patting down residents for prohibited weapons and raiding homes and taverns for illicit gambling, sometimes on the basis of concrete intelligence. 'Police Power in the Italian Communes, 1228-1326' is the first book to examine focus on how urban governments in medieval Italy one region policed their populations. Focusing mostly on numerous Bologna Bolognese records from the thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries, Roberts demonstrates how police patrols compelled hundreds of residents to appear in court each year and functioned as a political tool to control violence and disorder. Using largely unexplored archival sources, he paints a vivid picture of how city residents experienced police power in everyday life, and challenges both popular and scholarly assumptions about the role of policing in medieval society.

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