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‘The Poor driven from Siena in 1328-30' as shown in a mid-14th-century Florentine manuscript. Notę the shields with the arms of Siena over the gate. (Ms. Tempi 3.c, f. 57v, Bib. Laurenziana, Fiorence; photo. Alberto Scardigli)

ITALIAN MILITIAMAN

1260-1392

ITALY - A EUROPEAN ANOMALY

taly was very different to the rest of Europę in the medieval era. There were also extreme regional differences within its physical confines. Though feudalism had developed along the same lines as elsewhere, Italy was highly tirbanised and many of its regions were exceptionally well populated. The Black Deatli of the mid-14th century had devastated sonie areas, but the populations of both the centre and north were quick to re\ive. Southern Italy, meanwhile, continued to witness the aban-donment of villages. Rural poverty was a major feature of life: lnige numbers of wandering beggar families roamed the countryside, and banditry was commonplace.

Italy's mountain \alleys flourished during the Middle Ages and the farmers and semi-nomadic pastoralists inhabiting them were regarded as good military recruits. Armies from the tirbanised lowlands drew manv soldiers, particularly crossbowmen, from these primitiye mountain com-munities. By contrast to the smali, impoyerished settlements of rural areas, Italy’s great cities were not only wealthy but also powerful and densely populated. Late-13th-century Yerona, for example, had a population of sonie 40,000 people; Florence’s stood at around 95,000; and Lucca, Siena and Pisa eacli had around 28,000 inhabitants. Italy as a whole had a population of around twelve million, compared to the four million of England.

The disparate naturę of life in medieval Italy was also evident on the country’s peripheral islands. Sardinia and Corsica had remained primitive. On the former, the riyal maritime republics, principally Pisa and Genoa, battled for control, while the indigenous Sards played a sig-nificant military role in the seryice of their foreign rulers. Meanwhile in Sicily the Muslim population had been conyerted, expelled or forcibly relocated to a mainland outpost around the massiye royal castle of Lucera, where Arab-Islamic culture continued to flourish. The Orthodox Greek population was also in decline, as was the Jewish one. Sicily had degeneratecl from a rich centre of Mediterranean trade to an impoyerished backwater wracked by yiolence. During the 14th century, forests reclaimed the centre of the island and hunting became a major economic actiyity.