| Summary: | <p>My thesis investigates the dynamics which made it possible for the conflict-ridden polities of late communal-age Italy (c.1250-1350) to keep the peace and experience relative political stability, using Bologna and its surrounding countryside (contado) in c.1265-1307 as case study. The aim is to analyse the ways in which European and Mediterranean late-medieval polities could function in what was a period of unprecedented institutional and legal growth, but also one of deepening pluralism and rising inequality. By doing so, my thesis addresses a number of key debates linked to the study of this important historical period. These are the question of the relationship between the growth and development of polities and the control of ‘private’ violence; and the ways in which new administrative, legal, and judicial developments – but also the circulation of new intellectual ideas – affected the functioning of society and its internal power relations. As I argue, deeply divided late-medieval polities could actually achieve an internal balance which secured peaceful coexistence between enemy families and factions. During these periods, civic governments managed to carry out more or less coherent political programmes. This was not only the consequence of new advances in the fields of law , bureaucracy , and administration, but it was also – and mainly – possible thanks to formal and informal collaboration between different sections of society. In particular, I demonstrate the existence of a restricted network made of 161 elite urban families whose members appeared in a mediating capacity in thousands of disputes and in the most delicate conflicts. This system of peace-keeping also came at a cost, however, as it produced many side-effects and did not completely eradicate the problem of internecine divisions. The underlying argument is that the growth of public institutions around 1300 did not replace an older political system made of interpersonal relations but, rather, was built onto it.</p>
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