Border pacts are an Italian peculiarity in the early Middle Ages. They indicate the existence of a traditional and specific practice of agreements between different powers coexisting on the Italian territory, which is much older than the Carolingian age. This paper, however, focuses only on the latter period, examining first of all the pacts between the Lombards of Benevento and the Neapolitans, then, in the North, the pact of Lothar with the duchy of Venice (840). All these pacts concern rural life and commercial activities and give rise to interesting situations, such as the condominium on the lands and the peasants of Liburia (a land between Naples, Caserta and Capua), or the recognition of commercial activities that took place across the borders, under the protection of political powers (both in the South and in Venice). None of these texts proves the existence of military frontiers. On the contrary, the most important element that has emerged is the existence of border areas of a politically mixed character, in which the daily life was not conditioned by the existence of a frontier, but by the needs of the agricultural and commercial work.
Ca' Foscari University of Venice, Italy - ORCID: 0000-0002-1374-504X
Titolo del capitolo
Border pacts and frontier areas in Carolingian Italy
Autori
Stefano Gasparri
Lingua
English
DOI
10.36253/979-12-215-0416-3.15
Opera sottoposta a peer review
Anno di pubblicazione
2024
Copyright
© 2024 Author(s)
Licenza d'uso
Licenza dei metadati
Titolo del libro
Carolingian Frontiers: Italy and Beyond
Curatori
Maddalena Betti, Francesco Borri, Stefano Gasparri
Opera sottoposta a peer review
Numero di pagine
354
Anno di pubblicazione
2024
Copyright
© 2024 Author(s)
Licenza d'uso
Licenza dei metadati
Editore
Firenze University Press
DOI
10.36253/979-12-215-0416-3
ISBN Print
979-12-215-0415-6
eISBN (pdf)
979-12-215-0416-3
eISBN (xml)
979-12-215-0418-7
Collana
Reti Medievali E-Book
ISSN della collana
2704-6362
e-ISSN della collana
2704-6079