Not only was the city of Lucca one of the main political centres of the regnum Italiae, it is also, thanks to its rich heritage of chartae preserved in the Archivio Storico Diocesano, one of the best documented geographical areas of the early Middle Ages. It is thus the best place in the kingdom to observe the dynamics both of a city’s society and of the rural areas within its ambit, and of its institutions, allowing us to highlight in particular the trajectories of the city elite, whether focusing on individuals or on the family groups to which they belonged. In this article I will focus on the so-called “diocesan elite”, investigating three family groups who emerge from the Lucchese records and whose activities can be traced over a number of generations. I will seek to reveal both the similarities and the differences between these groups, and the strategies they appeared to use in building networks of relations with other families and with the various actors operating in the same urban and rural contexts, as they strove – in a constant process of negotiation – to attain, maintain and pass on to future generations a social position which would allow them to present themselves as firmly integrated within the elite.
University of Trento, Italy - ORCID: 0000-0003-4669-3239
Titolo del capitolo
Aiming at the aristocracy: social mobility in Lucca at the time of Lothar I
Autori
Manuel Fauliri
Lingua
English
DOI
10.36253/979-12-215-0771-3.13
Opera sottoposta a peer review
Anno di pubblicazione
2025
Copyright
© 2025 Author(s)
Licenza d'uso
Licenza dei metadati
Titolo del libro
Aristocratic networks. Elites and social dynamics in Italy in the age of Lothar I
Curatori
Giuseppe Albertoni, Manuel Fauliri, Leonardo Sernagiotto
Opera sottoposta a peer review
Numero di pagine
350
Anno di pubblicazione
2025
Copyright
© 2025 Author(s)
Licenza d'uso
Licenza dei metadati
Editore
Firenze University Press
DOI
10.36253/979-12-215-0771-3
ISBN Print
979-12-215-0770-6
eISBN (pdf)
979-12-215-0771-3
eISBN (xml)
979-12-215-0773-7
Collana
Reti Medievali E-Book
ISSN della collana
2704-6362
e-ISSN della collana
2704-6079