British Academy: The UK's National Academy for the Humanities and Social Sciences
Dr Gianluca Raccagni
Dr Gianluca Raccagni is a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Faculty of History in the University of Cambridge and a Teaching Associate at Gonville and Caius College. He is conducting research on the Medieval Italian Leagues (12th–16th Centuries), focusing on the Lombard, Guelf, Ghibelline and Italian leagues, which are largely understudied. He argues that, rather than temporary military alliances, these leagues functioned as regional entities with governing bodies, which fostered economic co-operation and peaceful resolution of disputes and had leading roles in the creation of the regional states. His project will also examine the link between these regional associations and identities, including the Italian one, drawing on sources including the records of these associations, but also contemporary iconography, and historical, political and juridical treatises.
Dr Raccagni presented a poster entitled 'Medieval Italian Regional Leagues' at the 2009 British Academy Postdoctoral Symposium.
MEDIEVAL ITALIAN REGIONAL LEAGUES
Seal of the Lombard League (above),
which constrained the emperor
to come to terms (below)
Bilateral and multilateral bonds were very common among the city communes and lordships of late medieval Italy. I focused on regional organisations, studying documentary and narrative sources, poems, iconography, juridical and political treatises.
- These unions were extremely rare, since very few cases can be found in the Po Valley and Tuscany
- Their template was provided by the Lombard League, which was created in 1167 and renewed several times in the 13th century
- Juridically they were portrayed as having a body (corpus), while bilateral and multilateral leagues were simply sworn agreements (coniurationes)
- In fact they had official names and governing bodies deciding disputes, issuing privileges, creating common market areas and coordinating defence
- Solidarity between their members depended upon the external threat from the German emperor and equal standing between the members. These unions tended to decline when these characteristics were lacking
These organisations were similar to the republican regimes of the city communes, but they remained voluntary collegial associations and authority continued to belong to individual members and the emperor. In many ways they resembled international organisations of today.
Gianluca Raccagni's book The Lombard League, 1167-1225 was published as a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellowship Monograph in 2010.