Instruments of concord: making peace and settling disputes through a notary in the city and contado of late medieval Bologna.

Wray, Shona Kelly

On January 1, 1339 Taddeo Pepoli, Bologna's first signorial lord, stood with three law professors, Paolo Liazari, Maccagnano degli Azzoguidi, and Pietro Bompietri, and about seventy leading citizens from the dominant Scacchese faction to negotiate an end to the interdict placed on the town by Pope Benedict XII when Taddeo had seized power as signore on August 28, 1337. While bearing the title of "supreme and perpetual preserver of peace and justice" Taddeo protested the pope's demand that exiles of factional violence be allowed to return to the city, reasoning that this would only produce more bloodshed for "there is nothing sweeter or more delightful for a man than to carry out a vendetta for injuries and other evils inflicted upon him." (1)

Taddeo's view that revenge was the sweetest thing was shared by citizens of towns all over medieval Italy. Recent scholarship has revised the traditional view that vendetta in late medieval society was a remnant of primitive or privatistic forms of government, arguing that despite occasional condemnation by religious and political leaders, violent conflict was seen by most as an ordinary social relation and that vendetta was recognized as a legitimate means for defense of one's interests. (2) At the same time that medieval Italians turned to the sword to settle scores, they were increasingly litigious, as new studies of conflict and the law in late medieval Italy have demonstrated. (3) Legal studies of medieval France and Italy have emphasized that dispute settlement was a process in which the consumers of the law could make use of several disputing strategies, such as force, arbitration or court decisions that could be played off against one another within the diverse legal world of civil, canon, and customary law. (4) Thus violent vendetta, legal litigation, and private arbitration should not be viewed as counteractive or fundamentally opposed. Instead all were seen as part of one normative system of dispute settlement.

While most studies of dispute settlement focus on the solutions dictated by a judge within a court of law, many cases were taken to court merely to provoke settlement outside of court with contending parties commissioning a notary to record their agreement with the legal authority of a notarial act. This article will focus on that much less examined side of the equation. When investigated, such settlements are normally studied in isolation from each other--for example, focusing on a particular type of settlement such as arbitration. Historians generally treat reconciliations after violence by means of a instrumentum pacis, or peace act, separately from compromise acts which usually involved property disputes. But all were notarial acts, available to the public who came to notaries for many kinds of services, and notarial formularies placed them under the single rubric of compromise. This paper will examine all types of extra-judicial settlements in a short space of time--the year that Taddeo Pepoli was named lord--to show how notarial culture served the needs of residents of town and countryside. (5) As a normal year free of famine, wars, and plague, the period of analysis was significant in the political history of Bologna, marking its departure from the age of medieval communal rule to the signoria, the political form that dominated many Italian cities during the Renaissance. The sources reveal the fundamental yet varied functions of notarial culture in late medieval civic life. Rulers and their elite peers used notarial documents to wield and maintain power, while commoners used them to work out conflicts of daily life within communities of work, family, and neighborhood.

Bologna, famous for its law school, was also the site of influential notarial studies, and during the thirteenth century its school of notarial law produced significant manuals that shaped practice in the city and beyond. Notaries directed politics in Bologna during the second half of the thirteenth century. Indeed Antonio Ivan Pini called Bologna a "Republic of notaries" during the rule of the popolo in the 1270s and 1280s when one of their own, Rolandino Passagieri, a doctor of notarial arts, led the dominant Guelf faction and spearheaded the exile of the Ghibelline faction lead by the Lambertazzi. (6) After the death of Rolandino in 1300, instability increased, and the traditional forces of the popolo, such as the guilds and armed companies (the arti and armi), succumbed to the rise of the rule of "tyrants," signori or lords. The first of these was Romeo Pepoli, a very wealthy banker--the richest man in Bologna and possibly Italy--and a strong Guelf supporter. He ruled Bologna from behind the scenes, never holding a major office but designating candidates and directing decisions through membership on balie, ad hoc committees, producing what Massimo Giansante has called a "crypto-signoria." (7) His pretension to signorial authority became too much for Bologna's citizens in 1321 when he replaced the podesta, the leading civic magistrate, with an ally. The opposing faction, the Maltraversa party (allied with the Ghibellines), amassed violent resistance to expel the podesta and would-be signore. Factional conflict continued between the Maltraversi and Scacchesi (according to the chronicles the city was "turned upside-down, in great ruin"), prompting the communal government to accept the rule of a papal legate, Bertrand du Pouget, in 1327. The legate's heavy-handed rule was opposed by guild forces, such as the notaries and butchers, as well as the Scacchese faction. (8) After Romeo's son, Taddeo, and his close allies Bornio Samaritani and Brandelisio Gozzadini led a revolt ousting Pouget in 1334, they restored the communal institutions suppressed by Pouget and staffed them with Scacchcse supporters. The year of study here is 1337 when Taddeo Pepoli managed to gain power as the first ruler with full title and powers of signore in Bologna.

The source, the Libri Memoriali, containing copies of testaments and acts concerning transactions of a value over 20L, is well preserved for 1337 and abundantly documents the daily workings of urban and rural Bolognese society. (9) Thousands of contracts remain from each year of the Memoriali registers from the 1330s to 1350s. The bulk of the contracts are sales and loans, but settlement acts of compromise and peace represent a considerable amount of notarial activity, appearing only less than half as frequently as testaments or dowry contracts. (10) Table 1 demonstrates the rich notarial record for dispute settlement that remains for this period. The notarial formularies of the day outlined several types of contracts under the single rubric of compromissi. Following their lead, I will analyze all of the contracts of dispute settlement, viz., the instrumenta compromissi, transactionis, arbitrii, and laudi, and of reconciliation or peace, viz. i. pacis et concordie. (11) These settlements could have come before, during, or after legal proceedings. Some parties may have initiated action in court in order to pressure their adversaries to settle out of court, while in other cases disputants may have desired formal legal recognition for their extra-judicial settlements. (12) My strategy here is not to take a few cases and try to follow them through various stages of conflict and resolution in and out of court, but to study all extra-judicial participation in a single year in order to examine as many individuals and conflicts as possible. I will examine who were parties to dispute, who assisted them, what their disagreements concerned, and where they worked out their settlements. My aim is to expose the notarial culture that supported, complemented, and proved indispensable to the citizens and the communities of civic life.

Table 1
Contracts of Reconciliation and Dispute Settlement in the 14th-century
Memoriali

      Instr.      Instr.      Instr. Emologationis,     Instr.
Year  Pacis   Compromissions    Arbitrii et Laudi    Transationis

1337   122          28                  12                15
1348    53           8                   8                15
1358    61          11                   8                20

Source: ASB, Memorial], volumes 191-193 (1337), 228-230 (1348), 256-
258(1358).

The principal contracts used for a dispute settlement were the i. compromissionis in which parties promised (promiserunt et conpromiserunt) to follow the settlement decided by "friendly arbitrators" (amicabiles arbitratores), who were usually labeled as two discretos et sapientes viros, and the i. emologationis or laudi, in which the arbitrated settlement itself was stated, at least according to directions in notarial manuals. (13) In practice, such contracts in the Memoriali usually served the single purpose of registering the agreements and promises of parties to follow the decisions of named arbiters, while the settlement itself was not declared. Thomas Kuehn found that arbitration "flourished" in early 15th-century Florence, and the Bolognese records demonstrate that it was already in active use in late medieval society. Kuehn studied the acts of one Florentine notary to argue that arbitration was a flexible and open system, used by all sorts of people, and that arbitrators could be anyone, "not a class of specialists", thus countering Luciano Martone's contention that "arbitrators simply came from the same social groups as the parties whose interests were being transacted." (14) The medieval notarial evidence shows, however, that disputants and arbiters belonged to a narrow stratum of society and that the political purposes of the elite often lay behind these negotiations.

The people who used these contracts generally show up as individuals or family groups and were predominantly from the elite, since more than twice as many disputants possessed surnames (of the form de plus ablative) rather than simple patronymics (e.g. of the late Johannes), and the only occupations named are of the well-off: a goldsmith, an apothecary, and a lawyer, with the possible exception of a tailor (sartor). In addition to their privileged economic and political position, several of the arbitrating parties were likely to be familiar with the legal proceedings of court, since disputants included a student, sons of a judge, and, as noted above, a lawyer. The names that stand out most frequently among disputants belong to the powerful families of the leading Scacchese faction: the Pepoli, Caccianemici, Ghisilieri, Preti, Albiroli, and Surici. As noted above, this faction rose to prominence at the beginning of the fourteenth century under Romeo Pepoli, father of Taddeo. The records of 1337 reflect the political climate in that the elite, the principal group using arbitration, were dominated by the Scacchesi. Nevertheless, the Maltraversi do show up in one act: the Boateri of the Maltraversi faced off against the Albiroli over land in Borgo Panigale near Bologna. (15) Civic communities and political organizations (other than factions) appear infrequently: three rural communes, represented by sindici, entered disputes with individuals and one confraternity, a societa laudi, was in conflict with the nuns of the church of Santa Caterina.

The troubles of the landed elite involved, naturally, property. Although the arbiters' decisions are not pronounced in these acts, the matter of the dispute for most of the 40 contracts was income from property in the form of sale or rental of land and houses. Families fought over property, but some families were divided from within, for there are five acts involving siblings or cousins facing off over inheritance, dowry, or guardianship. Women, who appear infrequently in these acts, were more likely to show up as parties in disagreements among family members about inheritance (as Kuehn found for arbitration cases in fifteenth-century Florence). (16) There were two unmarried women in conflict with their brothers over their dowries and two widows, one of whom sided with her three children against a man and his two sons, while the other stood alone in a dispute over land facing her relative, a lawyer (iurisperitus), who had been made heir of her deceased husband. (17) There is one dispute over a more peculiarly Bolognese property, a law textbook, Gratian's Digest, of which both a student from Sicily and a townsman claimed to be the rightful owner. (18)

Arbitration, while taking place outside of the courts, was in no way a casual arrangement among friends. About a third of the arbitrators were at the heart of Bologna's political class, enmeshed in the momentous political events of the day, that is, the rise of the new signoria. Taddeo Pepoli himself appeared once as arbitrator in his robes as doctor of law, shortly before he became signore. Assisting his decision concerning a land dispute involving Filippo Pepoli and the commune of Bagnarola on June 2, were Brandelisio Gozzadini and Filippo Bentivoglio. (19) Brandelisio, a doctor of law, had already been chosen as the single arbitrator for two land disputes between the Ghisilieri and Caccianemici families, both of the Scacchese faction, in January and February of 1337- He had been Taddeo's closest political ally for years, but their partnership turned into a famous rivalry when Taddeo had Brandelisio and the Gozzadini sent into exile after they clashed with other Scacchesi on July 7, 1337. (20) The records reflect this split and suggest that the reversal was rapid and the exile was permanent, since Brandelisio's last appearance in the notarial record on June 2 was only a month before his exile.

Taddeo and his son, Giovanni, each served as arbiter only once, but their political clan played a large role in arbitration, giving the impression that arbitration was a political tool. Five arbiters, in particular, were closely linked to Taddeo in their political careers. Before the signoria, on July 14, Filippo Ben- tivoglio, Paolo Albiroli, Mino Garisendi, and Buvallelo Conselmini were appointed with Taddeo to a balia with extraordinary powers (all but the collection of taxes) of 14 sapientes. Francesco Bentivoglio was not on the July 14 balia, but he had served as sapiens on a papal commission with Taddeo during the communal rule. Several of these men had important political careers during the commune--some serving as anziani, members of the principal legislative and executive body of the communal government--and their political fortunes continued under Taddeo's rule. For example, Paolo Albiroli--who settled an argument over land between a goldsmith and a married couple that was signed in the loggia in front of the notaries' paiatium or guild hall and witnessed a compromissum worked out at the Palazzo degli Anziani between members of the Albiroli and Boateri families--was made an anziano by Taddeo as part of his program to keep the older communal institutions under signorial control. (21) These men worked as arbiters separately except Filippo who was with Taddeo and Brandelisio on June 6. (22) Francesco Bentivoglio, Mino Garisendi, and Buvalello Conselmini were key advisors to Taddeo during the difficult first years of his rule, for they served on a secret council of sapientes to assist Taddeo during the papal interdict of 1338. (23) Mino, a iurisperitus, was principal witness for an arbitrated settlement signed in the house of Taddeo Pepoli on May 23 and the next day appeared in the Paiatium Vetus (Palazzo del Podesta) as arbiter to a land dispute. (24) Buvalello Conselmini, who had been the preconsul, or leading officer, of the notaries guild, settled a controversy over citizenship in which three brothers claimed to be citizens of Bologna while the rural commune of Ponticelli claimed them as fumantes, that is, as rural householders subject to greater taxes and an inferior juridical position. (25) This political matter was settled in February in the house of Buvalello. Similarly, the case on June 6 involving Taddeo, Brandelisio Gozzadini, and Filippo Bentivoglio with the sindicus of the rural commune of Bagnarola was arranged under the portico in front of Filippo Pepoli. Taddeo and his clan were present in arbitration acts only during the first half of the year when Taddeo was working his way to become signore in August. Given the nature of some these disputes, it appears that Taddeo was carrying out political decisions before receiving formalized legal authority through arbitration. Notarial contracts made these political acts public.

The other principal group of arbiters were lawyers and professors, who served regularly through out the year, before and after Taddeo became signore. Though chosen because of their legal knowledge, their ties to Taddeo Pepoli and his signoria are also manifest, so again it appears that Taddeo continued to carry out his political agenda through arbitration even after he had gained the highest political office. A dozen law professors served in 1337 as arbiters; the most famous of these was Giovanni Andrea, noted professor of canon law who stands out in the notarial record with the unique title of excellentissimus. (26) Despite being renowned as jurist and Guelf supporter, his ties to political power were indirect, unlike some of the other professor-arbitrators linked directly with Taddeo through previous political partnership and marriage. Exemplary in this regard is Pietro Bompietri, professor of civil law and the most popular arbiter. He had worked with Taddeo Pepoli in 1335 to write the statutes produced after the overthrow of Bertrand du Pouget, and in 1337 we find him in the Palazzo del Podesta three times as arbiter. (27) In 1338 he served Taddeo as ambassador in negotiations with the pope to gain legitimacy for the new signorial regime, in 1339 he supported Taddeo's protests to the papal envoy, and in 1340 he was the leading representative of the city in its continued dealings with the pope. (28) As ambassador, Bompietri worked with law professors Paolo Liazari and Maccagnano Azzoguidi, both of whom were arbiters together in May 1337 for a guardianship argument worked out in the offices of the podesta. Maccagnano's brother Nicola was a professor of law and an arbiter. These men--Arbiters, professors, and ambassadors--were closely linked to Taddeo: Maccagnano married Taddeo's daughter, Zanna, and their sister married Taddeo's son, Giovanni. Laygono Basacomari was another doctor of law and popular arbiter whose family was linked to the Pepoli via marriage. (29) These four arbiters--Pietro Bompietri, Paolo Liazari, Maccagnano Azzoguidi, and Laygono Basacomari--took an oath to Taddeo Pepoli during the papal interdict of 1338 to remain in Bologna and not leave to find employment at other universities (and as noted above they were present before Taddeo and the papal envoy on January 1, 1339). (30) Thus, arbitration appears to have been a political affair involving disputes between families of the leading faction orchestrated by Taddeo and his political allies.

Sites of settlement complemented the political nature of the disputes and arbitrators. Half of all compromises were written up in the halls of government and justice. The most frequent meeting place was the palatium vetus, where the court of the podesta was located. Although the documents give no indication of previous court action, the fact that six of the 17 acts in palatio veteri were written up ad discum potestatis (at the court of the podesta) makes this appear likely. Three groups met in the Palazzo degli Anziani where one meeting took place near the judges' chambers (ante cameras indicium). Nine groups met in the homes of the arbitrators, including those of Brandelisio Gozzadini, Taddeo Pepoli, Francesco Bentivoglio, and Buvalello Conselmini.

Thus far the picture presented by arbitration acts is that of high politics involving prominent citizen families. The religious do not make a strong showing in the compromise settlements either as arbiters--only one case called for a friar, either a Franciscan or Dominican, to settle their dispute over property outside the city--or as parties to a dispute, with the exception of the nuns of Santa Caterina and a laudesi confraternity who were represented by notaries. Religious houses, however, were sometimes sites for arbitration, or at least the formal consent to arbitration. Five parties met in the cloisters of the church of San Francesco, within San Pietro (the city's principal church), and in three hospitals belonging to confraternities.

The other group that used acts of compromissum was the contadini, residents of Bologna's rural district. Men from the contado preferred to come into town to have their settlements finalized or have townsmen serve as their agents for this purpose, although one group from Crevalcore brought arbiters from their village. Rural residents did not meet in the Palazzo del Podesta as so many of their urban counterparts did, instead preferring the help of notaries who served as arbitrators, provided the sites for the publication of the settlements, and acted as witnesses. For some this meant more than one trip into town. For example, in January three men from the village of Sant'Agata came into town and met at a notary's statione, or workshop, to choose two notaries as their arbitrators and draw up a compromise act. In April they returned to Bologna to a new site, a confraternity, the Ospedale dei Devoti, to stand before the same notary witness and hear their notary-arbitrators' decision in their dispute over a contract of two oxen. It is likely they chose to settle their affair in town because they were going to take it to court, but it appears to have remained totally extra-judicial, worked out through arbitration with notaries.

Rural residents preferred to take their troubles over land and business into town where they could access the legal expertise of notaries and lawyers. There were in fact only two compromise contracts written in the contado during 1337. These were nothing like the grand meetings of professors, powerful men, and officials that took place in the city hall or homes of Bologna's famous citizens. (31) The arbitrators were local, and the settlements, about the sale or rental of land, were in private homes. (32) But with only two contracts to go by, it is hard to determine anything concrete about settlements between rural residents, except that many saw an advantage in going to town to be aided by the urban notaries and elite families. In town, arbitration was largely the preserve of the powerful for political and landed interests.

Notaries did, however, offer an alternative to arbitration through a contract identified in the notarial registers with the rubric i. transactionis et concordie or consensus, that was used to make a simple settlement between individuals either outside of the courts or, as the introductory phrase cum lis et questio verteretur suggests, connected with formal action in court. The difference between these and the more common compromise contracts is that arbitration had not taken place. The 15 i. transactionis appear to be the result of more private settlements than the compromise contracts, because 1) none took place in the city hall, (33) but almost all were conducted in private homes, 2) almost half deal with internal family disputes over dowry and inheritance, 3) the individuals involved were less likely to bear elite surnames and those with surnames were generally not prominent members of the Scacchesi, and 4) rural communes were not represented. Perhaps because of the more private nature of the conflicts, women appear in greater numbers, facing off against their brothers or sons over their dowries. (34) The Pepoli show up in two of these acts but in neither case does the reader sense factional politics of a high order: in March two families from the rural town of Budrio sent their procuratores to meet under the portico of Taddeo's house to work out a land dispute (perhaps he acted as informal arbiter), and the next month the Pepoli gathered in the courtyard of the home of Taddeo's brother Zerra to set in order an internal affair, Zerra's inheritance. (35) Another internal matter involves guildsmen: a draper (strazario) and a mercer settled an argument over a house in the drapers' guildhall before witnesses who included two notaries, two officers of the guild, a draper, and a jacket-maker. (36) Thus, the typical instrumenta transactionis concerned inheritance or small property disputes involving men from the town or contado.

Those who are not prominent figures in the arbitration acts made a stronger showing in these simpler settlements. The nuns of San Vitale engaged their proctor or sindicus in a dispute with a Bolognese citizen over a piece of land, and the Augustinian Hermit friars were in conflict with a Bentivoglio man described as a former cleric of the church of Santa Cecilia. According to the notarial register, these men initially met in the chapel of the friars' church to name proctors in the case and then three weeks later in the men's choir (in coro virorum) of the church of Santa Cecilia to write up an i. transactionis et concordie about the conclusion of a dispute over a land sale. (37) Whether the nuns of San Vitale or the friars had taken their cases to court is not clear from the contracts, but they had turned to notaries at different stages to appoint proctors and to reaffirm and formalize the resolutions of their disputes. Contadini also show up in larger numbers as disputants in these simple settlement acts. They turned to notaries and occasionally lawyers for help--there are no professors, prominent officials, or members of Taddeo's clan named in these acts. For example, a son and his widowed mother from Budrio came to the house of a notary to draw up an act of agreement related to the mother's dowry. The notary stood in as a witness in addition to three other men from Budrio. There men from the village of Marano went to the main square and met two notaries who served as witnesses to their agreement. Two servants, the heirs of a Bolognese man, met a rural resident at the home of a lawyer to discuss the inheritance. All five of the witnesses were men living in the servants' parish in Bologna. Thus, while arbitrating professors and factional leaders settled disputes among the leading families, notaries offered the urban populace and rural residents instruments of concord to settle minor property issues outside of the courts.

All of these settlement acts involved the transfer of property of some sort, with three exceptions concerning violent acts between the disputants. (38) Although notarial manuals provide several examples of i. compromissionis to be used for reconciliation after violence, in practice the favored method was the i. pacis et concordie (see Table 1). (39) As is demonstrated in Table 2, the principal purpose of the pax, as stated in the act, was to overturn a sentence of banishment imposed after a specific crime, but it could also be used to end court proceedings in progress or to reduce penalties. All peace contracts include two parties: the offended, or the offended's heirs, and the offender, both with or without his or her representatives. This kind of settlement could appear after arbitration with an official arbiter, but since there is no mention of arbitration in any pax, only two arbitrations involve violence, and none of the compromise or consensus acts resolved prosecuted crimes, it is likely that in mid-fourteenth-century Bologna the pax was the result of negotiations without formal arbitration between the parties. (40) The reconciling parties came together after a crime had been committed, which, according to instructions in notarial manuals, was carefully described with a statement of the people involved, whether it took place during the night (thereby incurring heavier fines), and if involving violence, what weapons were used, what wounds were inflicted on each part of the body, whether there was blood drawn, and if involving homicide, whether the victim died immediately or later.

Table 2
Peace Contracts from 1337 (ASB, Memoriali, 191-193)

  1337          Assault        Homicide   Threats     Feud

Bologna  54 (62.7% of crimes)  9 (10.4%)     2      7 (8.1%)
Contado   6(23.0%)             5 (19.2%)     1      4 (15.3%)

  1337   Theft/Burglary  Fraud  Trespass  Total Crimes  Peace Acts

Bologna    11 (12.7%)      2       1           86           90
Contado     9 (34.6%)      0       1           26           32

For the majority of crimes, the criminal had been sentenced and banned as contumacious by the court of the podesta. In the pax the offended party stated that they gave their consent and approval that the aggressor "be removed and canceled freely and with impunity from any ban or condemnation brought against him or her as a result of the stated crime by any official or notary assigned in the past or future to the office of the podesta." (41) In addition, the offended party agreed not to bring suit against the offender for the crime under settlement. (42)A fine was then established that the victim or his or her party agreed to pay if they broke their promise not to pursue the case in the future. Although the contract is initiated and introduced by the victim or his representatives--it is they who "make a peace, end, remission, and concord" with the offender--the aggressor gained much from this contract. If a trial was underway to prosecute him or her, it was halted. If the aggressor had been banned as contumacious, the peace contract could release him from that ban and his name would be removed from the books of the banished, the Libri Bannitorum. (43) Furthermore, an imprisoned criminal could not take advantage of the periodic amnesties offered by the communal government without having first drawn up a peace with the victims of his or her crime.

Historians have studied this type of settlement: in the context of vendetta, and scholars of the political and religious history of late medieval Italy have emphasized the use of peace contracts to settle violent feud and factional discord. (44) Religious or political leaders orchestrated ceremonies of peace in significant sites such as the public palatium or a church where feuding parties came together and exchanged kisses of peace. Notarial instruments formalized their peace. (45) Such pregnant political events are certainly evident in the Bolognese notarial record of 1337, where we find that the pax was an instrument for power, wielded by the ruler as a way to gain and legitimize authority. Notarial instruments punctuated the rise of the signoria, and they form a useful tool for us to watch Taddeo at this crucial point in his career. For political historians, the highlighted dates are July 7 when Brandelisio and the Gozzadini were exiled, leaving Taddeo as principal leader; July 14 when the consiglio del popolo (the major representative governing body) created a balia of 14 sapientes, consisting of Taddeo, Bornio Samaritani, and sustainers of the Pepoli (as noted above in the discussion on arbitration); and August 28 when Taddeo's armed supporters took over the piazza and the communal government voted to grant him full powers of signore. The notarial records fill out this picture and show the activities before and after these dates, allowing us to better understand why Taddeo was accepted as peace-maker.

The first appearance of Taddeo in the peace acts is on July 1 when he was named as doctor of law present in the Palazzo degli Anziani, in the room where the consiglio del popolo met, with three other doctors of law, members of the elite Gozzadini and Bentivoglio families, and two notaries serving as witnesses. (46) Two brothers of the Stissini family faced brothers from the Gozzadini to reconcile "out of honor and reverence for all mighty God, the Virgin Mary, and the heavenly court ... all the injuries, insults, beatings, wounds, and offenses that had been made by both sides." (47) Each pledged an unusually large peace bond of 100 gold florins. The peace appears to have been a hopeless last resort, since, as noted above, the Gozzadini, including Taddeo's ally Btandelisio, were exiled within days of this act.

Factional violence was again the focus of peace efforts on the part of the Pepoli when on July 11 a pax was conducted at the home of Taddeo's son Giacomo, who would become signore in 1347 after his father's death. In this case the victim was Paolo de Buvalleli, a member of the Scacchesi, who made peace with a certain Ture de Massa represented by Giacomo de Bianchi (the Bianchi also belonged to the Scacchesi) and the notary who redacted the peace act. The crimes clearly involved factional violence, for the act described an episode in which several men entered the victim's home setting fire to his door and shouting "death to those of Zapolino" (mora mora gli da Zapolino) which was the call to arms of the Maltraversi during the street battles between factions after the end of Pouget's rule. (48) Thus, as the Pepoli family and their faction ascended to power, they also worked to reconcile the Scacchesi and Maltraversi. The consiglio del popolo would have acknowledged this when they created the balia of July 14.

Reconciliation to preserve the public peace is again evident in the last public act Taddeo made as a private citizen. On August 9 he settled a feud between the Albiroli and de Sala families who gathered under the "great loggia" of the notaries' hall on the main square in order that "peace and tranquility would be preserved." (49) Each side was represented by one group of ten "provident and magnificent" men. Taddeo was named as doctor legum, but it is clear that he was present as political leader and not as university professor, because he was standing among the closest members of his political clan. The group of men who arranged this peace were on the brink of taking control of the government. They included Taddeo Pepoli, Nicolo de Magnani, who was named as preconsul of the notaries but would shortly become head of the signorial chancery, with seven members of the July 14 balia of sapientes, viz., Bornio Samaritani, Ferrino Galluzzi, Paolo de Bonacaptis, Dinarello Ghisilieri, Mino Garisendi, Buvallelo Conselminis, Biancolino Bianchi, and lastly two representatives of the commune, Maschillino Bentivoglis, the barigello of the popolo and a notary, Alberto Pietro Teste. Essentially, Taddeo's government was already at work. Nineteen days later, on August 28, Taddeo was back in the piazza, this time with his supporters and mercenaries who occupied this central civic place and disarmed the communal militia.

As we saw for the arbitration acts, once Taddeo was in power, he dropped out of the notarial record, but his family, political clan and professors allied to him continued his agenda. For example, on November 3 a personal assault case from the previous year was settled in the home of Taddeo, now titled in the act as conservator pads et iustitie civitatis. Apart from recognition as owner of the site of reconciliation, the signore was not named as party to the act, but the principal witness was Giacomo, his son, and the aggressor's representative was a member of the Bianchi family of Taddeo's faction. (50) Another political ally acting at the end of the year, presumably at the will of his signore, was Raniero Samaritani who hosted a pax in his home to cancel the ban for an assault by three men the previous year. (51) Taddeo was married to Raniero's aunt and had strong links to Raniero and Bornio since the rule of Bertand du Pouget and through out his own signoria. (52) Also long connected to the Pepoli were the Galluzzi who also settled feuds, as for example on April 14 when three Galluzzi men hosted in the courtyard of their home a pax between a Bolognese father and son "on one side" and three brothers of another family who lived in the contado "on the other side." (53)

A long-term feud, perhaps factional, seems to be the issue here, because neither side is represented in the pax as the offended or offending side, no ban or trial is mentioned, and heach side "graciously promised to each other" to hold the peace with a pledge of 50 pounds. (54) Another member of Taddeo's political clan who acted as peace-maker for what may have been factional conflicts was Francesco Bentivoglio, who we have seen as arbitrator above. According to a pax of July 17, three brothers of the parish of San Vitale faced off against two men from their parish who had come to their house with their allies (sociis) with the intention to harm them shouting "kill, kill them; set their house on fire," causing a riot in the neighborhood (tumultus et rumor et rissa). Francesco hosted the settlement in his home and represented the aggressors who were seeking to cancel the ban imposed on them. (55) Six days later Francesco again represented an aggressor, this time a nobleman living in the contado banned for murdering a Bolognese aristocratic in 1336. (56) Although there are no recognizable names of factional leaders in these acts, it is clear from the language of the July 17 act that Francesco was acting to settle the factional feuding that had plagued Bologna and which the commune had been trying in vain to prevent. In fact, earlier in the year, on February 14, the consiglio del popolo and the anziani had passed legislation condemning to death those who caused a tumultus rumor vel rissa in the city or suburbs. Anyone inciting such violence through calls to arms or shouts of "death to or long live so-and-so" would be subject to a perpetual ban. (57) Here, we see Francesco acting to overturn just such a perpetual ban. Again, on the threshold of civic power, Taddeo's allies are using notarial acts to clear their way.

Also working for peace on behalf of Taddeo during the crucial month of July were his notaries, such as Giacobino, son of Pietro Angelelli, the Pepoli's family notary since the days of Romeo, who went on to become notary for the anziani under Taddeo in 1346, and professors, especially those closely connected to Taddeo, such as Pietro Bompietri who was one of the most frequent arbiters. (58) As arbiter Bompietri worked in the Palazzo del Podesta, but peace acts were made in his home. On July 23, 1337 a pax for a recent violent assault was drawn up at Bompietri's house. A week later he was in his house in Ozzano, an area of the contado where the Pepoli had a lot of land and connections, hosting a pax for a violent assault carried out three years before. The two aggressors had already met to make a pax with a different victim, but apparently from the same episode, in another town, Monterezoli. Again, political allies and agents of Taddeo worked out reconciliations for disputes involving long-standing issues encompassing many people.

While it is apparent that Taddeo and his political allies used notarial services to arrange peace and reconciliation after feuding or factional conflict, the records reveal little such activity on the part of the other traditional agent in this area, viz., the church. Only two settlements with the characteristics of feuds, that is, with violent assaults noted on both sides, were settled in churches in 1337. (59) Only one act listed a cleric among the witnesses, none of whom appear to have been linked to Taddeo and his faction, while no cleric acted as representative. Church intervention is not apparent in the language of the acts; even the occasional phrase that the victim makes peace "mindful of piety and misery" (intuitupietatis et misericordie) is absent. Churches were the meeting grounds for only six out of the 86 reconciliations in Bologna and three of the 26 in the contado. It is reasonable to think that clerics were involved in the enactment of these and other peace settlements, but only a few are listed among the witnesses of any peace act. Outside of acts redacted in churches, only two other religious men are listed as witnesses in Bologna: both were rectors of parish churches, apparently not those of any of the parties in the disputes, who joined others in a private home or at a notary's workbench. Religious men, however, were more likely to be involved in peace acts in the contado, since eight of the reconciliations there named religious among the witnesses.

Thus, the peace contract was a crucial tool for political gain that Taddeo Pepoli and his allies wielded in order to cement a rise to power. In 1337 there was much tension in the city due to factional fighting, and the pax suited the needs of Taddeo's party. July and August reflect this: there were 42 peace acts in July and 19 in August, whereas May and June had 8 each. The average number over all months, except July and August, is six. Despite this high-profile nature, political action was only one of the purposes of the pax. In fact, as Table 2 demonstrates less than ten percent of the contracts reflected violent assaults or murders carried out by both parties, which consisted of large groups of related men, reflecting the conditions of feuds. A few of the assaults, such as those involving armed gangs or tumults, were the products of factional violence, but as can be seen in the breakdown of assaults in Table 3, the vast majority of these episodes were one on one, and I have not been able to discern factional identities or feuding behaviors in these cases. For most peace acts, high politics was not what was at stake. Notarial culture was available to all residents of the town who could afford the notary's fee, and when examined in the aggregate it turns out that the pax was most commonly used to end banishment over daily crimes, especially personal assault. Moreover, the chief instigators of these settlements were private citizens, acting in their own interests and representing themselves, not the state or church. My conclusions for Bologna have been confirmed by recent studies of peace acts in 13th-century Florence by Katherine Jansen and 14th-century Siena by Glenn Kumhera. (60)

Table 3
Assaults in the city (1337)

One on one: male victim                               38
One on one: female viction                             4
2 or 3 on male victim                                  5
4 or more men or armed gang on male victim             3
Armed gang in tumult on female victim                  1
Other: family attacked priest                          1
Other: two men attacked man and married woman          1
Other: one man attacked two men                        1
Total cases assault:                                  54

Victims from contado making peace in the city         13
Aggressors from the contado making peace in the city  12
representatives for aggressors from the contado        5
Assault victims who represent themselves              50
Assault aggressors who represent themselves           20

The frequency of crimes which resulted in peace acts displayed in Table 2 is similar to statistics of crime in medieval Italian towns for which the principal crimes were assault, murder, and theft. (61) Furthermore, the heavy emphasis on personal assault is similar to the findings for peace acts in Siena and Florence. Rape and arson were infrequent in both statistics on crime and in peace contracts. Arson was a crime for which a peace act was made, but it does not appear in Table 2, because in the acts of 1337 it accompanied burglary or assault. Rape was not a crime settled through a pax in 1337, but it was not unknown since there are two peace acts concerning this from Bologna in 1348 and a few in fourteenth-century Siena. From the evidence of Bologna it appears that more homicides, feuds, and thefts were settled by pax in the contado than in the city. Without the data available on crime statistics in the city and contado of Bologna, it is impossible to say whether there was a larger incidence of these crimes in the contado, but it would seem more likely that the peace act was used differently in the contado than the city, as I will argue below. It should also be noted that, while there is a close similarity between crimes brought to trial and those ending up in peace (because so many trials ended in a peace act), certain crimes would not have shown up in the peace acts. (62) Laws of the late thirteenth century prohibited private settlements for crimes directly threatening the security of the commune such as treason, counterfeiting, entering or occupying a fortification against the wishes of the commune, and fraud of communal property (unless that property was returned), as well as peace acts made by criminals viewed as particularly insidious, viz., poisoners, sodomites, and their pimps. (63) Thus, the principal purpose of the pax was to deal with the frequent violent assaults between residents.

Table 3 examines in further detail these assaults. Most were one-on-one attacks, with the spilling of blood, carried out with knives, clubs, or other weapons. Except for tumults and riots, there is seldom any mention of where the attacks took place, but most one-on-one attacks have the appearance of spontaneous, unplanned hostilities. The great majority involved men. Among the 150 victims appearing in the peace acts from the city and contado there appear only 13 women (or 8.7%) and among the 179 aggressors there appear only two women (only 1.1%). The slight appearance of women in the peace contracts of Bologna reflects the general pattern of female participation in crime in medieval Europe. Women, however, were active in making peace as representatives for the victims or perpetrators of crimes: four acts include mothers, daughters, sisters, or a grandmother as the agent for their murdered relative, while four acts involving different crimes in the contado listed as representative a woman of the village of Cassano as agent for the accused. Thus, female presence in the peace acts of 1337 was 18% of all acts (22 out of 122), with roughly equal participation in acts in the city (in 16 out of 90 acts or 17.8%) and the contado (in six out of 30 acts or 20%). This matches their presence in peacemaking in fourteenth-century Siena, where Kumhera found women in one party in 15.5% of peace acts, but is less than their appearance in thirteenth-century Florence where women were party to about one quarter of the peace acts. (64) It also should be noted that women, when they did engage in peacemaking, behaved similarly to men. As Table 3 shows, most assault victims represented themselves in the peace agreements. The four women who were victims of one-on-one assaults faced their attacker in the pact as did the three female victims who settled after theft and trespassing. The other six female victims were involved in crimes for which they were better represented by others: four were victims with other men in assaults for which the men faced their aggressors in negotiations and the remaining two were homicide victims, represented by heirs. Both of the female criminals, a burglar and a woman who had assisted in the murder of her husband, were represented in peace negotiations by their brothers, which was a common choice also for men: fourteen brothers and fourteen fathers were the second most popular group as representatives, with notaries making the most appearances as agents for perpetrators reconciling with victims in peace settlements.

The peace contract was most commonly used by men and women of the town to make settlements in order to cancel or prevent action by the communal courts. Of 57 peace acts (not incidents) that dealt with assault, 41 acts settled specific one-on-one assaults. Instead of reflecting the presence of professors and political leaders of the Pepoli faction, most of these parties were assisted by notaries, who often served as representatives for the accused. Seventeen or 41% of the one-on-one assaults were settled at the workplace or home of a notary. Parties sought the help of notaries to formalize their private settlements. The state and church did not intervene, for fifty assault victims made peace directly with the aggressor's representative, pledging a bond, usually 50 or 100 pounds. A small minority of these one-on-one assaults were embedded in larger conflict, such as three acts that were settled by Pepoli/Scacchesi leaders in their homes (as noted above), but 13 other such assaults were reconciled in private homes of individuals who to the best of my knowledge were not political leaders. In four of these cases it was the victims themselves who hosted their aggressor or his representative in their own home to sign the peace. Three of these include cases of minor violence among neighbors. One involved a woman who was attacked by a smith of her parish who had not yet been banned, but had a representative, a shoemaker, meet the victim in her home to make a peace and release her attacker from any ban that might result. A man who had been assaulted by his neighbor with a stick, for which the assailant had been banned, met the brother who lived in a different parish to make peace at the victim's home. (65) In the third example a man who had been wounded on his hand in a fight with another of his parish met the aggressor's representative in his home with three men from his parish to cancel the ban imposed on his aggressor. (66) The fourth example of an assault victim hosting the assailant's representatives in his home concerned a shoemaker of Bologna who lived with a woman married to a man from Casalecchio outside of Bologna. They had been assaulted in their home (ad domum habitationis dictorum Johannis et dominae Betisie) by two men from Casalecchio, who, after they were banned, were able to make a peace to gain release from the ban through the brother of one aggressor acting as representative. The woman's father came to represent her in the act, which was written up under the portico or colonnade in front of the shoemaker's house. Here we have moved from politics to battles on the domestic front.

People met to reconcile after all kinds of assaults ranging from threats to cuts on fingers or hands to multiple wounds with much blood that sometimes ended in death. Fathers and children of the murdered agreed to peace. People robbed of cattle, of all their furniture and goods--no minor thefts appear in these acts--settled with the thieves to arrange for their freedom. Why would they do this? I have argued that political pressure from Taddeo and his clan was the cause behind a minority of settlements, and it also appears from the textual evidence that religious motivation did not play a significant role for most reconciliations. The most common reason given--"out of love of God and with the intent of pity and mercy"--appears formulaic and is stated in less than ten percent of the acts. (67) The pax was largely the product of private negotiations, but could these reconciliations be the result of force or social pressure? Had the weak been bullied into letting the strong go free? From the limited information available on occupations and social status (determined by titles, surnames, and occupations), there is no large imbalance between the status of victims and aggressors. Elites and commoners appear in both roles. (68) Thus, it is not at all clear that victims were being forced to make peace and accept the admission of their enemies back into society.

Each peace act came at the end of a history of activity which we cannot uncover. For example, criminals and their families may have bribed victims into making peace (and such bribes could have taken place after failed attempts at bribing judges). (69) Just how common this was is impossible to tell, but the structure of the peace act actually fits within this scenario. As noted above, most acts included a pledge which was made by the victim to the aggressor's party, not the other way around. (70) If the aggressor had bribed the victim to make a peace, the former would want some money returned if that pledge was broken. The seven settlements that do not record a pledge were all cases in which one can detect the hand of governing officials in negotiating the pax (negotiations presumably not involving a bribe from the victim, but pressure by the state). (71) However, not all public meetings were guaranteed by oaths and the political or religious clout of the negotiating forum, since several pax made before church and state (as discussed above) did involve a pledge, following the standard notarial formula.

Thus it is possible that in some cases bribes took place, while for others government or religious forces may have held sway. It is also likely that the neighborhood or communities of work, such as the butchers noted above, aided to secure peace for the benefit of their members. In fact, the peace acts bear evidence of close neighborhood participation: within the city, in twelve of the peace acts the victim and aggressor or aggressor's representative lived in the same parish and in nine acts they were from adjoining parishes, while 18 of the parties from the contado were from the same village.

Further evidence of community desire for healing can be derived from the time lag between the incidence of crime and the redaction of the peace act. The settlements overturning a ban state the name of the podesta who issued the ban, and since the podesta ruled for a six-month period which was seldom repeated, it is possible to provide a rough estimate of how long an aggressor was banished before he could be reintegrated back into society by means of a peace contract. Ninety acts show that the intervals ranged from two days to 16 years. Only 27 acts came within six or seven months of the ban, another 18 sometime within a year and a half later, and 21 between one and half and two years later. The rest of the acts were made after longer intervals of three to four years later (15 acts), six or seven years later (three acts), ten years and sixteen years (three acts). (72) Most of the contracts which were made after three years from the initial violence involved homicide or feuds in the contado, but not exclusively so, since one assault between two men was settled six and half years after the crime. The statutes of the late thirteenth century had imposed a ten-year minimal term of banishment for homicide, but this does not appear to have been in effect in 1337, since only two acts for homicide, both involving the same case of assistance in a killing as part of a feud for which the criminals had been banished 16 years before, had fulfilled the ten-year term. Ten of the peace acts made for homicides in the city or contado were for crimes for which banishments had been meted out less than two years before. Among these acts are two redacted in palatio veteri in the halls of justice, so it is plausible that these pacts were accepted in court and resulted in the cancellation of those bans. (73) While there is no discernible pattern of corresponding crimes and times, it is the case that the longest intervals more often involved crimes in the contado: a theft of cattle settled ten years later and a feud involving a homicide settled after sixteen years.

What appears to be at work here is that victims agreed that aggressors could be released from ban after they had undergone what was viewed as a sufficient period of banishment. In other words, when the victims believed that the aggressors had in a sense paid their dues, they could be reintegrated back into society. Indeed, there must have been widespread recognition of how difficult this most common form of punishment was for families. That banishment could cause problems especially for women and at times of family transition, such as the devolution of property with a will, is evident in the registers of 1337 where there are two wills of women with male family members who were banned. (74) One wife, whose husband was bannitum et confinatum comunis Bononie went against normal testamentary succession to name her young daughter (instead of her husband) as heir and entrusted her to the care of a niece and two aunts. A widow of the elite Boatieri family had to name her married daughter as her heir, until her son could return to live freely in the city or contado of Bologna. The daughter is named executor and instructed not to sell the land she would receive in inheritance as long as her banned brother or her husband was alive (since the son-in-law would have access to that money).

The majority of peace agreements functioned to reintegrate criminals back into society: 86 of the 122 acts from 1337 were made after the aggressor had been banned, and the explicit purpose of the act was to cancel that ban or, in one case, to release the assailant from prison. However, a significant number of acts concern assailants who had not yet been banned and for whom a trial was going on. Seventeen acts state that the purpose of peace was to cancel any legal proceedings (processus or inquestio) and any resulting ban or sentence. (75) In these cases criminals could hope to escape banishment altogether or at least reduce their fines. Some of these cases seem to be indeed private affairs where settlements were worked out within the family. For example, Zana de Tebaldis had aided another in the murder of her husband. With her brother as her representative, she made peace with the heirs of the victim, that is, with her father-in-law and her four children, to cancel any trial or inquest. (76) In another unusual case, a priest of the parish church of Sant'Antonio made peace with a family of four (two parents and a son and daughter) who had attacked him when he came to administer last rites to a neighbor. (77) Meeting a cousin of the father and a notary in his church, the priest pledged 200L to halt the trial that was going on and cancel any ban. In another case it appears to be the neighbors who were involved in arranging the end to a trial. Under the portico of a neighbor's house, the daughter of a butcher agreed to end the trial of her assailant, a smith from her parish, while four other neighbors watched and served as witnesses. (78) In two cases assailants were able to get their trials for assault halted through quick action: one got his victim to meet him in front of the window of the prison and the other went to the house of a notary. (79)

The pax may not have successfully stopped all legal procedures against the criminals for a particular incident. A case in which settlements for the same crime were arranged both inside and outside of the court system concerns three men, two from the parish of Santa Cecilia and one from San Vitale, who made a deal with a man they had assaulted, their neighbor, Johannes Jacobi, in the house of another neighbor in Santa Cecilia, on November, 19. (80) They had attacked Johannes in the public street in front of this house that same month and now met their victim without having yet been banned and thus without needing a representative, in order to stop their trial. But one month later, on December 12, they already were banned men and had to use a notary as their representative to settle with the owner of the site of the first pax, Domenicus Tebaldi Baldini, who, it appears, had also been assaulted in the same incident. (81) This second pax was arranged in the halls of the criminal court (ad discum mallorum) and carried a doubly high penalty for breaking the peace of 200L. It is likely that the first pax with Johannes Jacobi had in fact worked to stop one trial, but another accusation had been brought forward by Domenicus, for which the three men had been banned. Perhaps Domenicus, noted as civis in the contract, wanted public recognition in the courts for the crime that had happened in front of his house. Thus, he took the three men to court with the agreement that a pax would be made to gain their freedom. Other victims, such as Johannes, may have been more easily persuaded to make a pax outside of the courts. Domenicus must have agreed to this first pax, however, since it was redacted at his home.

The pax, therefore, could be used for the benefit of Bologna's urban communities of work, neighborhood, and family as well as for the interests of political leaders and the church. It was a private contract, but as Sarah Blanshei, Glenn Kumhera, and Massimo Vallerani argue, it was used in conjunction with the court system. The pax was not an alternative system of private justice but was well-integrated into the public or governmental system within the courts. Litigants went to court hoping that the charges they were making would result in a pax with their offender. According to Blanshei, "what [victims] often sought was recognition in public (i.e., in court and in the banishment decrees that were read aloud in the councils and often in the piazze) that they would not suffer in silence the injury done to them or to a relative." (82) The peace act and possibly the i. transactionis et consensus and compromise could be tools that litigants used to their advantage within the court system but outside of the halls of justice.

Rural residents also understood the benefit of notarial culture. There are examples of contadini who came into Bologna to arrange for their freedom. Two men from different villages had gotten into a fight for which they both had been banned, but they arranged for their release from the bans by having two peace contracts drawn up in Bologna, near the cemetery of a church, in which each took a turn playing the role of victim and aggressor. (83) The deal was done more cheaply for two other contadini who came to Bologna and made one pax in which they stated they "made peace together and between themselves" concerning mutual aggression and that "each one and the other could be released and cancelled from the bans on both." (84) But contadini also knew that they could stop a trial one rural assailant had his rural victim make a pax with him at a notary's workbench near the Palazzo degli Anziani so that his trial and condanacio could be halted and any ban removed. (85)

In general, the peace contracts written up in the contado differ from their urban counterparts in that more deal with the settlement of feud than the acts in the city. One represents a classic means for settling a vendetta, that is, a peace between feuding parties whose negotiations included marriage to maintain the peace (pro conservatione pacis occsione discordie). (86) In this case, the daughter from the family of the victims was given in marriage to the son, still a minor, from the other family. The notary who wrote these acts may have helped with the dowry, since we find him in the notarial register buying a piece of land from the father of the bride five days later. I have not found any such dowry arrangements made in the contracts redacted inside the city of Bologna. (87) It is also the case that other reconciliations, such as theft and even personal assault, have characteristics that hint at more state or church intervention than would suggest from their simple categorization in Table 2. For example, two theft cases involved a certain Paolo de Lazaris who may have been a notorious outlaw. (88) He had formed an armed gang (guarnimentum) and stole grain from two families in the village of Crevalcore, for which he was banned. He was able to make pacts with his victims in January and July at two homes in Crevalcore, one of which belonged to Giovanni, son of Taddeo Pepoli, and future ruler of Bologna.

The residents of the contado, thus, were well integrated into the notarial culture. They could negotiate in their village, often aided by clerics, and have their settlements written up in the contado, or they could go to use notaries in Bologna. There they joined the urban clients--men and women from elite and non-elite families--of the Bolognese notaries who offered a variety of ways to reconcile. The pax was the most widely used contract, utilized by all classes to reconcile after many different kinds of crimes in order to further the interests of state, church, neighborhood and families who wanted to reintegrate members and preserve the stability of community. Leaders of these communities drew moral and political strength from these peacemaking efforts. Thus, although only a minority of pax were used to settle feuds, such actions would have carried much significance: certainly Taddeo Pepoli saw peacemaking as key to political power when he incorporated it into his title as conservator pacis et iustitiae civitatis Bononie. The pax also served private needs of individuals or the needs of the community to avoid or end prosecution and punishment, and is a product of the extensive familiarity with notarial culture of townspeople and contadini. Arbitration was another method available, apparently not used in conjunction with a pax, that was preferred by the elites of town who paid for the services of Bologna's leading citizens as arbiters. Rural communes and religious communities took part in conflict resolution. Lastly, commoners and women used the simplest method of dispute settlement, the i. transactions.

The ability to resolve conflicts outside of the courts was widespread, and the justice system of the courts appears to have been, as Massimo Vallerani has characterized it, "elastic" and flexible in incorporating different systems in order to promote peace. (89) Peace was a fundamental aspect of the legal and political structure of medieval Italian cities, which adopted a functional vision of justice allowing for privately negotiated settlements that could be used to overturn the decisions of the court. The evidence from Bologna shows that the notary was a key figure in this system of justice. Whether people chose to compromise with arbitrators, to make simple settlements, to work out their hopes in court with the offer of a peace contract to cancel the ban, or to use a pax to halt court action, the notaries facilitated it all. The numbers from the registers of 1337 demonstrate just how pervasive their presence was: notaries were arbitrators or representatives in six compromise acts; they served as representatives in 24 peace contracts in the city and contado; 14 peace contracts were made at the workshop (ad ban-cum or ad stationem) of a notary, one pax was written up under the loggia of the notarial hall, eight were the results of meetings at the gabella or scarania (where the notaries of the Memoriali worked), and eight reconciliations were done at the home of a notary; and finally, notaries were the witnesses of 49 peace contracts made in the city and contado of Bologna, with groups of three or four notaries assisting the settlements 13 times.

The notaries were everywhere with their pens and notebooks producing the written fabric that sustained medieval life. While other studies have argued for the familiarity and frequent use of courts by commoners, these halls of justice were nevertheless a daunting and foreign environment for many, especially women, the poor, and rural residents. Notarial culture, on the other hand, was not. People were familiar with notarial contracts, they knew the notaries and notaries knew their clients. Being conversant with their business and even personal matters, notaries could well have suggested solutions to their clients. With their knowledge of law and their array of contracts for dispute settlement, notaries provided a socially useful alternative to and/or support for action in court. We have seen that notarial contracts reinforced court decisions or allowed for private arrangements negotiated within families, neighborhoods, guilds or convents, as well as serving the political purposes of factions at a crucial moment in Bologna's history. The notary and his instruments were essential components to justice and power at all levels.

Department of History

Kansas City, MO 64110

ENDNOTES

I am indebted to Sarah Blanshei, Glenn Kumhera, and Roisin Cossar for sharing their insights on juridical history and notarial culture. This article has greatly benefited from the comments of two reviewers of the Journal of Social History. I thank Len Kuffert and Allen Peacher for editing assistance. All errors remain my own.

(1.) "[N]ihil dulcius vel delectabilius est homini sicuti vindictam sumere de iniuriis et aliis malis sibi illatis" in Niccolo Rodolico, Dal comune alla signoria: Saggio sul governo di Taddeo Pepoli in Bologna (Bologna, 1897, repr. 1974), 126. On the rise of Taddeo Pepoli see Guido Antonioli, Conservator pacis et iustitie: La signoria di Taddeo Pepoli a Bologna (1337-1347) (Bologna, 2004).

(2.) Andrea Zorzi, "La cultura della vendetta nel conflitto politico in eta comunale" in Le storie e la memoria. In onore di Arnold Esch, edited by Roberto Delle Donne and Andrea Zorzi (Florence, 2002), 135-170.

(3.) Christopher Wickham, Courts and Conflict in Tweifth-Centtury Lucca (Oxford, 2003); Daniel Lord Smail, The Consumption of Justice: Emotions, Publicity, and Legal Culture in Marseille, 1264-1423 (Ithaca and London, 2003), Introduction and ch. 1; Massimo Vallerani, La giustizia pubblica medievale (Bologna, 2005), Introduzione and ch. 1. For Bologna Sarah Blanshei has argued that the Pepoli used the court system as means of conflict resolution. Sarah Rubin Blanshei, "Crime and Law Enforcement in Medieval Bologna," Journal of Social History 16 (1982): 121-138; "Criminal Law and Politics in Medieval Bologna" Criminal Justice History 2 (1981): 1-30; "Criminal Justice in Medieval Bologna: Commune and Signoria" Paper presented at The Twelfth Biennial New College Conference on Medieval-Renaissance Studies, Sarasota, Florida, March 11, 2000.

(4.) For the development and significance of the processual approach to dispute studies see Warren Brown and Piotr Gorecki, "What Conflict Means: The Making of Medieval Conflict Studies in the US, 1970-2000," in Conflict in Medieval Europe: Changing Perspectives on Society and Culture, ed. Brown and Gorecki (Aldershot, 2003), 1-36.

(5.) I understand notarial culture to be the legal and administrative structure involving notaries and their written acts that shaped and facilitated the documentation of the transactions of daily life.

(6.) Antonio I. Pini, "Bologna nel suo secolo d'oro: Da 'comune aristocratico' a 'repubblica di notai'" in Rolandino e l'Ars Notaria da Bologna all'Europa: Atti del convegno internazionale di studi storici sulla figura e l'opera di Rolandino, edited by Giorgio Tamba (Milano, 2002), 3-20.

(7.) Massimo Giansante, Patrimonio familiare et potere nel period tardo-comunale: 11 progetto signorile di Romeo Pepoli banchiere bolognese (1250-c.1322) (Bologna, 1991), 22-24.

(8.) There was discontent early in the legate's reign among the traditional popular forces, such as notaries--two had their tongues cut out in 1328 for "speaking badly of the pope and legate"--and butchers--three were decapitated in the same year for shouting "Popolo, Popolo". Cronica di Bologna, edited by L.A. Muratori in Rerum Italicarum Scriptores (Milan, 1723-1751; reprint, Bologna, 1975-1982), vol. 18, p. 349. By 1333 resentment was intense so that when the legate sent three notaries into exile for criticizing his financial policies and then locked up Taddeo Pepoli, Bornio Samaritani, and Brandelisio Gozzadini--the three political leaders who will appear in the compromise and peace acts below--the public outcry was so immediate and acute that he had to release them within hours. One of these exiled notaries was Pietro Angelelli who will become the family notary of Taddeo Pepoli and whose sons appears in the acts discussed below. Cronica, 355.

(9.) Luisa Continelli, L'Archivio dell'Ufficio dei Memoriali, Inventario, vol. I: Memoriali 1265-1436, tomo I: 1265-1333, Universitatis Bononiensis Monumenta 4 (Bologna, 1988); Giorgio Tamba, "Un archivio notarile? No, tuttavia ...," Archivi per la Storia 3 (1990), 41-96 and Giorgio Tamba, "I Memoriali del commune di Bologna nel secolo XIII, note di diplomatica," Rassegna degli Archivi di Stato 47 (1987), 235-290.

(10.) There remain 315 and 149 testaments of city residents in the Memoriali of 1337 and 1358, respectively. The Black Death produced an incomparable number of testaments, over 1110. See Shona Kelly Wray, Communities and Crisis: Bologna During the Black Death (Leiden, forthcoming). 160 dowry contracts were registered in the Memoriali in 1348 and 192 dowry contacts in 1358. Glenn Kumhera calculated that peace contracts comprise 4.8% of acts in 17 sample imbreviature from notaries in fourteenth-century Siena and concludes that "[p]eace agreements were truly daily occurrences." See his "Making Peace in Medieval Siena: Instruments of Peace, 1280-1400" (PhD diss., University of Chicago, 2005).

(11.) Chapter Six in the most influential manual, Rolandino Passagieri's Summa artis notarie (Venice, 1546.; reprint, Bologna, 1976) and in his manual of contract samples, Contractus, ed. Roberto Ferrara (Rome, 1983). The other types of contracts that appear under the rubric of compromise are acta societatis and acta divisionis. I have not included these, because they are usually of a narrowly financial nature, either the investment of money from parties engaged in a particular business transaction or the division of an inheritance.

(12.) Stephen White's point that court proceedings "sometimes constituted only a single stage in the often and long and complex process through which conflicts were resolved" can be equally applied to the notarial agreements under study here. See Stephen White, "Pactum ... Legem Vincit et Amor Judicium: The Settlement of Disputes by Compromise in Eleventh-Century Western France" American journal of Legal History 22 (1978): 294.

(13.) Salatiele, Ars Notarie, II, ed. Gianfranco Orlandelli, (Milan, 1961), 306. The formulary of Rainerius Perusinus, written around 1233, has these contracts bunched together as one type, the "carta conpromissi et transactionis, arbitrii atque laudi." His formula does not contain phrases for naming the arbitrators. See Rainerius Perusinus, Ars Notarie, edited by Ludwig Wahrmund (Aalen, 1962), 53-54. In the Summa totius artis notariae, Rolandino Passaggieri separates the instrumentum compromissi from the arbitrium et laudum contract.

(14.) Thomas Kuehn, "Law and Arbitration in Renaissance Florence" in his Law, Family, and Women: Toward a Legal Anthropology of Renaissance Italy (Chicago, 1991), 19-74, and p. 36.

(15.) Archivio di Stato di Bologna, Memoriali [hereinafter as Mem], vol. 192, f. 268r.

(16.) See Kuehn, "Law and Arbitration," 40-41.

(17.) Mem, vol. 191, f. 336v; vol. 192, ff. 50v and 453r; vol. 193, f. 348r.

(18.) Mem, vol. 192, f. 460r.

(19.) Mem, vol. 191, f. 42v.

(20.) In November 1334 when the communal government sought to reconcile with the pope after routing Bertrand du Pouget, Brandelisio and Taddeo represented the commune as sapientes on a commission to the pope, and in September 1336 the government gave them special powers to put down conflicts between citizens. See Rodolico, Dal comune, pp. 58-72, on the debate over Taddeo's motives for exiling his political partner.

(21.) Vol. 192, f. 268r.

(22.) Filippo Bentivoglio had held top offices in the communal government and his family ties with the Pepoli went far back (his father Bente Bentivoglio went into exile in 1321 with Taddeo's father, Romeo Pepoli).

(23.) Antonioli, Conservator, 176. See Rodolico, Dal comune, 239-40 for list of men on the secret council. Francesco Bentivoglio was able to get the signore to cancel the criminal ban placed on his son for homicide.

(24.) Vol. 191, ff. 174r, 272v; Rodolico, Dal comune, 215.

(25.) Mem, vol. 191, f. 403r. Buvalello had been named sapiens with consulting powers by the commune in 1334 and was preconsul in 1336. On the fumantaria tax and restriction of political offices for fumanti see Rolando Dondarini, Bologna medievale nella storia della citta (Bologna, 2000), 197.

(26.) Giovanni Andrea was asked to decide only if the two arbiters, both iurisperitos, could not agree: Mem, vol. 191, f. 357v in a compromissum redacted on February 5, 1337 His son was arbiter on October 27: vol. 193, f. 27r.

(27.) In February Bompietri settled a dispute over rental property, in May he appeared with another professor and frequent ambassador for the communal government, Tomaso Formaglini, to consider a disagreement between student and a townsman, and in November, he worked out a deal between two Lucchese and Bolognese citizens. Formaglini was exiled with the Gozzadini and thus no longer appears in the notarial record after May. For Tomaso Formaglioni as ambassador see Codex diplomaticus dominii temporalis S. Sedis edited by A. Thenier (Rome, 1861-62), vol. I, docs. DCCLXVII, DCCLXIX, pp. 598, 600.

(28.) For Pietro Bompietri as sindicus for the city see Thenier, Codex diplomaticus, vol. II, doc. XCIX, p. 69; doc. CI, p. 80, doc. CII, p. 81; as ambassador with Paolo Liazari and Maccagnano Azzoguidi, vol. II, doc. C, p. 78. Moreover, Pietro Bompietri is one of three citizen witnesses to various agreements made with the papal officers concerning Bologna's defenses in its contado in August, 1340. Bompietri went with the bishop and papal notaries to five different fortresses naming the captains of defense of each. While the other two witnesses changed, Pietro remained the principal. See Thenier, Codex diplomaticus, vol. II, doc. CXII, pp. 90-94.

(29.) Johanna, the daughter of Filippo Pepoli, married Berto Basacomari. Her mother, Lasia, was the daughter of Egidio Malavolti, another professor of law.

(30.) The document is reprinted in Rodolico, Dal comune, 287-9.

(31.) These acts of arbitration in the contado differ from such acts in the cartulary of a fifteenth-century Florentine notary studied by Kuehn in which one party was usually an urban resident, generally wealthy Florentines arranging debt collection from groups of many contadini. See Kuehn, "Law and Arbitration," 37-38.

(32.) Mem, vol. 192, f. 67r: the first a compromise among father and son and other members of their family concerning the sale of property made by the tutor and mother, redacted in the village of Grochia in the house of one of the family members involved, and the second a compromissum between two men from Capraria about land rental.

(33.) One transactionis act was, however, redacted in salario comunis, the communal storehouse for salt located near the main square. See Mem, vol. 193, f. 108v.

(34.) Six out of the 15 identified disputes involve dowry or inheritance. All but one of these (a brother of Taddeo Pepoli disputing his inheritance) involve women and their dowries: a widow against her son or sisters against brothers.

(35.) Mem, vol. 191, f. 565r: two notaries and a neighbor of the Pepoli acted as witnesses.

(36.) Mem, vol. 191, f. 10v: actum in domo et super domum societatis draperiorum.

(37.) Mem, vol. 193, f. 278r, i. sindicationis redacted on August 3, 1337 and Mem, vol. 193, f. 426v, i. transactionis redacted on August 26, 1337.

(38.) These included two arbitrations in which the parties agreed "to return to concord and peace" and an i. consensus et transactionis that ratified a previously made contract, an i. pacis, which brought resolution to what may have been a feud among contadini.

(39.) Rolandino, Contractus, 196-205. One example of i. compromissionis calls for "peace, harmony, and unity" for the "good and peaceful state of the city" after many sorts of vio lence acts and killings were carried out, for which the model arbitrators are a bishop and two noble knights. Historians have generally viewed this kind of grand-scale settlement involving leading religious and secular elites as characteristic of the peace contract, but we will see that it was usually a more modest affair.

(40.) According to Rolandino Passagieri an instrumentum pacis that follows arbitration makes note of that arbitrated settlement in the peace contract. See Rolandino, Contractus, 211-213.

(41.) In general the formula is as follows: "volens et consentiens dictus Jacobus quod dictus Johannes possit et debeat libere et impune tolli et cancelari de omni banno seu figura banni et condepnatione per quemcumque notarium et officialem comun is Bononiensis ad hoc deputatum vel deputandum."

(42.) This point was a matter of debate among medieval jurists. Some argued that a third party ought to be able to make an accusation against the offender at a later date, and in fact there is an example of such an act that will be discussed below. Other jurists argued that if a peace contract did not preclude any further prosecution than it would serve little use. See Padoa Schioppa, "Delitto e pace privata nel pensiero dei legisti Bolognesi" Studia Gratiana XX (1976): 278-80. However, according to the language of the contracts studied here, it appears that the offenders expected that they would not suffer future prosecution for the crime under settlement.

(43.) A banned criminal lost all his rights of judicial protection. Anyone could harm him or his goods with impunity. See Desiderio Cavalca, Il bando nella prassi e nella dottrina giuridica medievale (Milan, 1978), 42-58 and 206-215.

(44.) Anna Maria Enriques, "La vendetta nella vita e nella legislazione fiorentina," Archivio Storica Italiano 91 (1993): 85-146, 181-223; Marvin Becker, "Changing Patterns of Violence and Justice in Fourteenth-and Fifteenth-Century Florence," Comparative Studies in Society and History 18 (1976): 284-285. For Bologna see Blanshei, "Criminal Law and Politics". 6-7; "Crime and Law." 121, 126. For Perugia see Massimo Vallerani, Il sistema giudiziario del comune di Perugia: Conflitti, reati e processi nella seconda meta del XIII secolo (Perugia, 1991), 99 ff. It does not appear to have been used in Venice or Genoa. For peace acts outside of Italy, see Daniel Lord Smail, "Common Violence: Vengeance and Inquisition in Fourteenth-Century Marseille," Past and Present 151 (1996): 473-485 and his "Hatred as a Social Institution in Late-Medieval Marseille," Speculum 76 (2001): 92-126. Smail treats peace acts that deal with vendetta only.

(45.) While modern scholarship has privileged the ritualistic aspects of these peace ceremonies, for the medieval observer the written notarized act was equally significant. The chronicler Giovanni Villani described two famous episodes of peace-making between Guelfs and Ghibellines arranged by the church and formalised by notarial acts. In 1273 the ceremony took place at the banks of the Arno where pulpits were set up for Pope Gregory to prech reconciliation before the people of Florence. The pope stayed on in Florence for a few days to found a church at the site and to complete the peace acts ("rimasi in Firenze per dare compimento a' contratti della pace"). The peace did not hold, and in 1279 the commune asked Pope Nicholas X to send cardinal Latino who preached in front of the Dominican's new church, Santa Maria Novella. The Guelf and Ghibelline parties were ordered to kiss on the mouth and the peace was formalized by notarial acts ("fermando la detta pace con solennie vallate carte"); Giovanni Villani, Nuova Cronica, ed. Giuseppe Porta (Parma, 1990), I, 42, 480 and I, 56, 500.

(46.) The Gozzadini family was the head of the Maltraversa faction that opposed the Scachesi dominated by the Pepoli. Their feuding had disrupted civic life in the previous decades, but the compromise and peace acts during the consolidation of power under Taddeo Pepoli in 1337 show a peaceful integration of the Gozzadini in political affairs.

(47.) Mem, vol. 193, f. 191r.

(48.) The attackers stole 500L. worth of goods, arms, and horses from Buvalleli. In 1334 Bologna was defeated at Zapolino by Monteveglio, which had joined the Pepoli and their Galluzzi allies in rebellion against the city. See Villani, Cronica, X, 325-327, 494-498.

(49.) Mem, vol. 192, f. 84v. The feuding men swore an oath--no money was pledged nor did they exchange the kiss of peace (at least according to the contract). With no mention of specific injuries or judicial action, they swore to end "all injuries, wounds, insults and offenses said, heard, or understood to be committed by one side against the other."

(50.) Mem, vol. 192, 110r. The victim, from Barga, had sent his proxy from Barga. Other examples of peace brokered by Taddeo's family include acts made on January 6 at the home of Taddeo's son Giacomo in Crevalcore, on July 27 at a Pepoli house in Ozzano, on August 11 at Giacomo's house in San Giovanni in Persiceto, and on November 1 in the courtyard of the home of Taddeo's brother, Zerra Pepoli, in Bologna.

(51.) Mem, vol. 192, f. 115v.

(52.) Taddeo had gone on an embassy with Raniero during the rule of Pouget and in 1332 he had plotted with Raniero's father, Bornio, to bring down the papal legate. For this, Raniero, Taddeo, and Bornio were imprisoned. Taddeo married Bornio's sister, Bertolomea. These strong connections continued after Taddeo's rise to power in 1337 for Bornio was at his side during the crucial months of papal negotiation in late 1337 and early spring of 1338, when the town was under interdict, and after Bornio's death in 1345, his son Raniero took his place, often acting as Taddeo's ambassador.

(53.) Romeo Pepoli relied on Galluzzi for support and arranged the marriage of a son to Besia Galluzzi, Mem, vol. 192, f. 404r.

(54.) Mem, vol. 192, f. 404r.

(55.) Mem, vol. 192, f. 41r: "animo et intentione offendendi percuciendi et vulnerandi ... clamando et dicendo alta voce ad dictas domos moriantur moriantur ad ignem ad ignem ... tumultus et rumor et rissa fuerunt in dicta contrata." On June 27 Francesco was witness to a peace drawn up for a similar tumult.

(56.) Mem, vol. 192, f. 42v on July 23, 1337.

(57.) The proviggione "to preserve and strengthen peace" is reproduced in Rodolico, Dal comune, Appendix, 207-209. Francesco Bentivoglio is one of the sapientes named.

(58.) Mem, vol. 192, f. 141 von July 11, 1337. A pax for theft was redacted at the statione of Giacobino who acted as representative for the aggressor. Three of the five witnesses were notaries. Giacobino also served as witness to a compromissum over property worked out between two families of Scacchese faction in January (Mem, vol. 191, f. 112r). On Pietro Angelelli and his sons see Antonioli, Conservator, 166 ff.

(59.) Mem, vol. 191, f. 79v and vol. 192, f. 468v. On February 28 two brothers met two men from different parishes in a church (not belonging to the parish of any of the contenders) to cancel any ban that would he issued for one particular assault and any further violence on both sides. On May 10 two parties from two different villages came into town to write up three acts canceling bans issued by the current podesta for assaults on both sides.

(60.) Kumhera, "Making Peace in Medieval Siena" based on 349 peace agreements from the fourteenth century. Katherine L. Jansen, "Peacemaking in the Oltrarno, 1287-1297" in Pope, Church, and Society: Essays in Honour of Brenda M. Bolton, ed. Frances Andrews, Christoph Egger and Constance M. Rousseau, (Leiden and Boston, 2004), 327-344, based on 32 peace contracts from the Florentine neighborhood of San Giorgio alla Costa. My conclusions here on peace contracts were presented as "Reconciliation after Violence: Peace Contracts in the Libri Memoriali of Fourteenth-Century Bologna" at the Fordham University Conference on "Violence in the Middle Ages" April 16, 1994 based on a smaller sample of peace acts.

(61.) Vallerani finds that thirteenth-century Perugian peace acts were made for the same kinds of crimes, that is, assaults of greater or lesser violence, that make up the common crimes prosecuted in criminal court: Vallerani, Giustizia pubblica, 187-189. For a summary of the general characteristics of crime in late medieval Italy see Trevor Dean and K. J. P. Lowe, "Writing the history of crime" in Crime, Society and the Law in Renaissance Italy, ed. Trevor Dean and K.J. P. Lowe, (Cambridge, UK, 1994), 1-15.

(62.) Vallerani found that in 1290 44.1% of trials initiated by private accusation ended with a peace act and 66.6% of acquittals were gained with a pax (and, notably, that a pax did not always cancel the sentence but often resulted in a reduction of the fine), with similarly high numbers for acquittals in trials that originated by inquisition in the court of the podesta in Perugia in 1258. See Vallerani, Giustizia pubblica, 179-181.

(63.) Gina Fasoli and Pietro Sella, eds. Statuti di Bologna dell' anno 1288 (Vatican City, 1937), Book V, rubric LXVIIII, p. 363. See Blanshei, "Criminal Law and Politics", 21, note 16 on the revisions of this law in 1292. Earlier it was not possible to obtain a peace for false witness or falsification, but in 1337 two peace acts were made for such crimes, so the laws of 1292 did have a liberalizing effect. Vallerani found that some peace acts in Perugia were made for crimes prohibited by city statute. See Vallerani, Giustizia pubblica, 193. One could also be banned for debt, but this was canceled after payment, without the need for a pax. See Cavalca, Il bando, 239.

(64.) Kumhera, "Making Peace in Siena," 167; Jansen, "Peacemaking in the Oltrarno," 335.

(65.) Mem, vol. 192, f. 334v.

(66.) Mem, vol. 192, f. 92v.

(67.) Nine acts in Bologna include this phrase: reconciliations after homicide, aiding in a homicide, a burglary, five personal assaults, and an assault of seven men on one. None was redacted in a church, but all were in notarial workshops or homes, apart from the homicide, which was settled in the Palazzo del Podesta. The same percentage of acts in the contado, three or 10%, used the same terms, but all were reconciliations after homicide, and again in private homes. Two acts were made "in honor of omnipotent God and the blessed Virgin Mary Gloriosa and the entire celestial court," but these were exceptional as peace celebrations that took place in either the palatium vetus or the palatium novum (Palazzo Re Enzo) before government leaders and doctors of law. In three acts the victims claimed to be acting "with God before their eyes and knowing that the aggressor was innocent," but we should not make too much of this since they were all conducted before the same notary. There is no evidence for a "language of hatred" that Smail has found in the peace contracts from Marseilles. Notaries do not note the existence of hatred between the parties nor is hatred treated as a right to be remitted by the victim's kin. See Smail, Consumption of Justice, ch. 2, "Structures of Hatred."

(68.) Roughly the same number of victims and aggressors bore elite surnames. Occupations of all levels are recorded for both parties: the perpetrators were a banker, barber, smith, miller, draper, and wool worker, while victims included an innkeeper, baker, furrier, priest, herald, mason, the daughter of a smith, and the wile of a brentator (wine-porter). The seven men who bear the title civis all appear as victims, not aggressors.

(69.) Dean and Lowe, "Writing the history of crime," 6-7.

(70.) Twenty-seven assault settlements include a pledge of 100L, thirteen of 50L, five of 25L. Three assault pacts contain pledges of 200L. The highest sum of 500L was pledged by feuding contadini who met in a church in Bologna and by a woman to eight men who had killed the father of her four wards in an attack by an armed gang during a tumult in their neighborhood. The eight men were to be released from prison and have their names cancelled from the Libri Bannitorum: Mem, vol. 192, f. 356v. Four victims of assaults and theft pledged all they owned.

(71.) All but three of these acts took place in the homes of the powerful, such as the Pepoli palace, the house of Raniero Samaritani, and the loggia of the notaries' hall, where feuding parties met the proconsul of notaries, lord Pepoli and other powerful citizens. The other three acts in which money was not pledged were settled in the following public spots: in the parlatory of the nuns of Santa Maria Maddalena, where three sons met a man who had threatened their father; at a notary's statione, where a procurator and notary hashed out the agreement between an innkeeper, his guest and a robber from the contado (none of whom may have been present); and at a butcher's shop in the beccario of Porta Ravennate where several butchers met after the assault of a butcher's son.

(72.) Three acts name a podesta or rettore for whom I cannot establish a year.

(73.) Mem, vol. 192, f. 508v (actum in palatio veteri ad discum agle); vol. 193, f. 467r (actum ad discum Ursii in palatio veteri in pressentiam iudicis Ursii).

(74.) Mem, vol. 193, f. 339v testament of Francisca filia quondam Bolvexii quondam Zacharie on 28 September, 1337 and vol. 193, f. 25v testament of Marina f.q. Gracioli de Boateriis on 5 Februrary. Another testator of 1348 (Mem, vol. 228, f. 99v), named the Augustinian Hermits as her heirs until her brother was able to freely return to Bologna.

(75.) The language varies: "omnis processus et condenacio factus vel fiendus et omne bannum datum seu dandum" or "omnis inquisitio et processus factis vel fiendis predictorum occasione sit cassus vanus vana et capsa [sic] et nullius valoris" or "omnis processus factus vel fiendus tollatur et cancelatur et ulterius non procedat."

(76.) Mem, vol. 193, f. 470r.

(77.) Mem, vol. 193, f. 349r. The whole family was involved in the attack and each member is listed as party to the peace. The father had beaten the priest and cut his fingers with a knife. Furthermore, the son held him by the neck and the mother and daughter held his robes, as the father threatened him with a knife at his throat.

(78.) Mem, vol. 193, f. 529v. This case is unique in that the month of the attack is noted, instead of simply the name of the podesta who had issued the ban is provided. The pax was made on August 6, 1337 and the attack had happened the month before. To end a trial one had to obtain a pax within five days in Siena or eight in Perugia. In this case, a pax was produced within six but possibly more days, while the other pax to stop trials were all arranged sometime within the six-month period of the current podesta.

(79.) Mem, vol. 191, f. 70v and vol. 192, f. 357r.

(80.) Mem, vol. 193, f. 291r.

(81.) Mem, vol. 193, f. 402v.

(82.) Personal email correspondence with Sarah Blanshei. This argument will be addressed in her forthcoming book on summary justice in medieval Bologna. See also Smail, "Hatred as a Social Institution" on citizens using courts for purposes of revenge.

(83.) Mem, vol. 192, f. 334v. Each man represented himself when he made the peace (as victim of various generic violent acts), but when he was the aggressor he had representatives make the peace with the victim, viz., the brother of one with the notary of the act and for the other a cousin, also a notary. I have assumed that in most peace pacts the aggressor had a proxy making the peace because he was absent as banned, but in this case the aggressors are stated as present (as victims), and it is unclear why they would then need a representative when they took the role of aggressor. The notarial manuals do not require this, and in fact, aggressors represent themselves in 16 acts written in city and contado. It is unclear why these men felt such a charade was necessary.

(84.) Mem, vol. 193, f. 419r.

(85.) Mem, vol. 193, f. 372r.

(86.) Mem, vol. 193, f. 328v.

(87.) I have not entered the dowry contracts into a database, but have only looked out for and read any dowry contracts that are near peace contracts in the registers. Thus, it is possible (but I think unlikely) that marriage arrangements followed reconciliations, which I have counted here as simple assaults, but may have been the results of longer lasting feuds.

(88.) Mem, vol. 192, f. 362v and vol. 193, f. 267r.

(89.) Vallerani, Giustizia pubblica, 27-28.

By Shona Kelly Wray

University of Missouri, Kansas City