Abstract
At the turn of the first millennium, the rise of autonomous communes and city-states in northern Italy coincided with the development of a particular sense of attachment to land and city, which is widely labeled as civic patriotism. Neither the transformation of these collective identities across time nor the macrostructural dynamics behind this transformation has received much attention. Through an examination of these communes and city-states from the eleventh to the sixteenth century, this paper unpacks different forms of collective identities that prevailed in northern Italy in different periods of time, all of which have previously been labeled as “patriotism” in the literature. The differentiation I propose between “communal patriotism,” “civic nationalism,” and “city-state chauvinism” presents a more nuanced picture which highlights the differences in the ways these collective identities are produced, reproduced, and transformed. My analysis also discusses the role played by macrostructural dynamics (e.g., changing climate in the macropolitical economy as well as inter-city-state system in the peninsula) in transforming these collective identities. Alongside a longue durée evolutionary transformation, there were two conjunctural moments which created ruptures in the transformation of collective identities in northern Italy: The first took place during the territorialization of the communes and the conquest of the contado in the mid-twelfth century and the second occurred in the aftermath of the crisis of the fourteenth century.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
This is not the only distinction in the literature. Scholars that belong to ethnonationalist school of thought argue that nationalism is love of one’s nation and patriotism is love of one’s state (Connor 1994, p. 2002). This perspective, however, excludes all civic forms of nationalism from the definition of nationalism. Ethnosymbolist scholars prefer the term patriotism (instead of nationalism) when they talk about small-sized polities in world history—such as medieval city-states in Venice and Florence—despite similarities in their definition of (civic) nationalism and “patriotism” in these city-states (see Smith 2010).
The distinction between “communes” and “city-states” is very difficult to make. Although historians often use these terms interchangeably (Scott 2012, p. 21; Epstein 2000), they are distinct but partially overlapping forms of communal associations or corporations known as universitates. In this paper, I use the term “commune” when these entities have partial autonomy, and reserve the term “city-state” for universitates that gained their full de facto or de jure sovereignty (Epstein 2000).
Lopez (2005, p. 70) once defined Italian communes as the “government of the merchants, by the merchants for the merchants”. Although this statement turns attention to the role played by merchants in these societies, it does not do justice to the complex class structure of these societies. Different and fluid forms of nobility also had a prominent place in the class structure of the early communes (see Jones 1997, pp. 143–145; Martines 1988, pp. 29–33; also see Vigueur 2003). Because some sections of the nobility also heavily engaged in trade, it was very difficult to distinguish between mercantile and noble/military classes in northern Italy. Nor was it easy to derive social classes based on professions since most were engaged in more than one type of economic activity (Waley 2013, pp. 12–30). Postan’s description of medieval Italian communes as “mixed societies of noblemen and rentiers (milites), of shopkeepers and artisans, notaries and peasants (pedites)” (1966, p. 348) describe this complex structure more effectively.
It must be noted that there is still a dispute over the extent of the membership to the communes and if the oaths were voluntary in the early communal era. There is probably significant temporal and spatial variety in existing practices. Weber (1958, p. 10) writes that as inter-city-state warfare accelerated, more people were forced to join the commune. “[W]ars accelerated the internal structuring of the communes for within the city the mass of the burghers were forced to join the sworn communal brotherhood. Resident urban noble and patrician families often led the way in the institution of fraternization, taking under the civic oath all inhabitants qualified by land ownership. Whoever did not enter voluntarily was forced to join”. Yet, it is not clear when exactly this process started. As we will examine in the next section, after the conquest of the contado, there is an overall trend whereby each commune starts to force new inhabitants to make their oaths.
There is an ongoing debate over the nature of these struggles and violence. Recent scholarship brings new political insights to the intensification of power struggles and to a paradox of state violence whereby attempts to prevent destructive violence through the use of violence gradually start a process of monopolization of violence. Zorzi (2010) argues that the magnates were attacked and demonized by the popolo in order to ideologically legitimize their newly emerging regimes. Marie Vigueur (2003) argues that the increasing raids of the countryside/contado by the urban milites in the thirteenth century were linked not only to the acquisition of spoils but also to the pursuit of diplomacy by other means. Vigueur (2003, pp. 313–315) also associates the emergence of “culture of conflict” in the thirteenth century with the adoption of “the knightly mentality” by “the more-well-to-do among the lower classes” (also see Zorzi 2010, p. 35).
An interesting evidence for the mass popularization of these saints is the “antroponymic revolution” that started this era. “In the twelfth century names with a specifically Christian character were rare” but this started to change rapidly after the thirteenth century. For instance, “a recent investigation of the anthroponymy of Genoa shows 11.72 percent of a representative sample of the population with saints’ names from 1099 to 1199; 23.33 per cent in the years 1200–99; and 66.66 per cent in 1300–1401” (Larner 1980, p. 247).
The earliest known carroccio was constructed by Archbishop Heribert in Milan in 1039.
It must be noted that in addition to these new practices, former practices of the early communal era—which marked patriotism—also continued. Oaths were still made. Almost every citizen continued to devote their time remaining from their professional and other preoccupations to the administration of the commune affairs (Waley 2013, pp. 46–52). Likewise, citizens of the Italian city-states originally organized their protection in the form of “militias” (Lane 1973, p. 49; Abu-Lughod 1989, p. 113; McNeill 1974; McNeill 1982, pp. 72–73; Waley 2013, pp. 50–51; Mallett 1974, p. 11; Davis 2013, p. 223). So the transition from “communal patriotism” to “civic nationalism” also had some elements of continuity.
These examples can also be extended to communes’ attitudes toward religious minorities as well. In his comparison of the ethnic and religious hostilities in Early Modern port cities of Europe, Barrington Moore (2001) observed that Genoa had a positive record in treating Jews between the twelfth and fourteenth centuries, which he saw as a “good index of its general attitudes toward ethnic minorities [in general]” (Moore 2001, p. 696).
References
Abu-Lughod, J. L. (1989). Before European hegemony: the world-system A.D. 1250–1350. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Appiah, K. A. (1989). Cosmopolitan patriots. In M. C. Nussbaum (Ed.), For love of country: debating the limits of patriotism. Boston: Beacon.
Arendt, H. (1945). Imperialism, nationalism, chauvinism. The Review of Politics, 7(4), 441–463.
Armstrong, J. A. (1982). Nations before nationalism. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press.
Arrighi, G. (1994). The long twentieth century: money, power and the origins of our times. London: Verso.
Baron, H. (1966). The crisis of the early Italian Renaissance. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Baron, H. (1968). From Petrarch to Leonardo Bruni. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Becker, M. B. (1967). Florence in transition: the decline of the commune. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press.
Billig, M. (1995). Banal nationalism. London: Sage.
Benveniste, E. (1969). Le Vocabulaire des Institutions Indo-Europennes I. Paris: Editions de Minuit.
Bloch, M. (2005). Feudal society II: social classes and political organization. London: Taylor & Francis.
Braudel, F. (1981). Civilization and capitalism 15th–18th century: volume 1: the structures of everyday life, the limits of the possible. New York: Harper & Row.
Brown, J. C. (1989). Prosperity or hard times in Renaissance Italy. Renaissance Quarterly, 42(4), 761–780.
Burckhardt, J. (1914). The civilization of the Renaissance Italy. London: George Allen.
Burg, D. F. (2004). A world history of tax rebellions. New York: Routledge.
Burke, P. (1986). The Italian Renaissance: culture and society in Italy. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Calhoun, C. (1997). Nationalism. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Chabod, F. (1964). Was there a Renaissance state? In H. Lubazs (Ed.), The development of the modern state. New York: MacMillan.
Chittolini, G. (1989). Cities, “city-states” and regional states in north-central Italy. Theory and Society, 18(5), 689–706.
Chittolini, G. (1990). Civic religion and the countryside in late medieval Italy. In T. Dean & C. Wickham (Eds.), City and countryside in late medieval and Renaissance Italy. London: Hambledon.
Chittolini, G. (1996). The “private”, the “public”, the state. In J. Kirshner (Ed.), The origins of the state in Italy (pp. 1300–1600). Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
Cohn, S. K., Jr. (2006). Lust for liberty: the politics of social revolt in medieval Europe, 1200–1425. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Coleman, E. (2004). Cities and communes. In D. Abulafia (Ed.), Italy in the central Middle Ages. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Connor, W. (1994). Ethno-nationalism: the quest for understanding. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Cox, O. (1959). Foundations of capitalism. New York: Philosophical Library.
Davis, A. E. (2013). Bringing politics back in: violence, finance, and the state. Journal of Economic Issues XLVII(1), 219–246.
Dean, T. (2000). The towns of Italy in the later Middle Ages. Manchester: Manchester University Press.
Epstein, S. R. (2000). Rise and fall of Italian city-states. In M. H. Hansen (Ed.), A comparative study of thirty city-state cultures: an investigation. Denmark: Special Trykkeriet Viborg.
Frugoni, C. (1991). The city and “new” saints. In A. Molho, J. Raaflaub, & J. Emlen (Eds.), City states in classical antiquity and medieval Italy. Ann Arbor: Michigan University Press.
Gavitt, P. (1990). Charity and children in Renaissance Florence: the Ospedale degli Innocenti, 1410–1536. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
Gellner, E. (1983). Nations and nationalism. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
Golinelli, P. (1988). Indiscreta Sanctitas: Studi sui rapporti tra culti, poteri e societa’ nel pieno Medioevo. Rome: Istituto Storico Italiano per il Medio Evo.
Gramsci, A. (2007). Prison notebooks (Vol. III). New York: Columbia University Press.
Gross, F. (1999). Citizenship and ethnicity: the growth and development of a democratic multiethnic institution. Connecticut: Greenwood.
Hay, D., & Law, J. (1989). Italy in the age of the Renaissance 1380–1530. London: Longman.
Hechter, M. (2001). Containing nationalism. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Hechter, M. (2013). Alien rule. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Hobsbawm, E. (1990). Nations and nationalism since 1780: programme, myth, reality. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Hobsbawm, E. (2012). Introduction: inventing traditions. In E. Hobsbawm & T. Ranger (Eds.), The invention of tradition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Hobson, J. A. (1902). Imperialism: A Study. London: James Nisbet.
Hörnqvist, M. (2000). The two myths of civic humanism. In J. Hankins (Ed.), Renaissance civic humanism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Hyde, J. K. (1973). Society and politics in medieval Italy: the evolution of the civil life, 1000–1350. New York: St. Martin’s Press.
Jones, P. (1997). The Italian city-state: from commune to signoria. Oxford: Clarendon.
Karataşlı, Ş. S. (2013). Financial expansions, hegemonic transitions and nationalism: a longue duree analysis of state-seeking nationalist movements. Baltimore, MD: Unpublished Ph.D dissertation, Department of Sociology, Johns Hopkins University.
Kohn, H. (1956). The idea of nationalism: a study in its origins and background. New York: MacMillan.
Lachmann, R. (2000). Capitalists in spite of themselves: elite conflict and economic transitions in the early modern Europe. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Lane, F. C. (1973). Venice: a maritime republic. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Lane, F. C. (1979). Profits from power: readings in protection rent and violence-controlling enterprises. Albany: State University of New York Press.
Larner, J. (1980). Italy in the age of Dante and Petrarch 1216–1380. London: Longman.
Lopez, R. S. (1962). Hard times and investment in culture. In W. W. Ferguson (Ed.), The Renaissance. New York: Harper & Row.
Lopez, R. S. (2005). The commercial revolution of the Middle Ages, 950–1350. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Lopez, R. S., & Miskimin, H. A. (1962). The economic depression of the Renaissance. The Economic History Review, 14(3), 408–426.
Machiavelli, N. ([1532] 1964) The prince. New York: St. Martin’s.
Mallett, M. (1974). Mercenaries and their masters. New Jersey: Rowman and Littlefield.
Marcu, E. D. (1976). Sixteenth century nationalism. New York: Abaris Books.
Martines, L. (1988). Power and imagination: city-states in Renaissance Italy. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Mattingly, G. (1988). Renaissance diplomacy. New York: Dover.
McNeill, W. H. (1982). The pursuit of power: technology, armed force, and society since A. D. 1000. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
McNeill, W. H. (1974). Venice: the hinge of Europe 1081–1797. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
Merriman, J. (1996). A history of modern Europe: from the Renaissance to the present. New York: W. W. Norton.
Miskimin, H. A. (1969). The economy of early Renaissance Europe 1300–1460 (p. 1969). New Jersey: Prentice-Hall.
Molho, A. (1995). The state and public finance: a hypothesis based on the history of late medieval Florence. In J. Kirshner (Ed.), The origins of the state in Italy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Moore, B., Jr. (2001). Ethnic and religious hostilities in early modern port cities. International Journal of Politics, Culture, and Society, 14(4), 687–727.
Najemy, J. M. (2004). Governments and governance. In J. M. Najemy (Ed.), Italy in the age of Renaissance (pp. 1300–1550). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Najemy, J. M. (2006). A history of Florence, 1200–1575. Malden: Blackwell.
Orwell, G. (1968). Notes on nationalism. In G. Orwell (Ed.), The collected essays. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.
Parry, S. (2008). Fifty years of failed plans: Venice, humanism, and the Turks (1453–1503). New York: Unpublished Ph.D dissertation, The City University of New York.
Pirenne, H. (1936). Economic and social history of medieval Europe. London: K. Paul, Trench, Trubner & Company.
Postan, M. M. (1966). The Cambridge economic history of Europe: the agrarian life of the Middle Ages. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Reed, F. E. (2008). Centennia historical atlas [Computer Software]. Conanicut Island: Centennia Software
Rösch, G. (2000). The serrate of the Great Council and Venetian Society, 1286–1323. In J. Martin & D. Romano (Eds.), Venice reconsidered: the history and civilization of an Italian city-state (pp. 1297–1797). Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Schiera, P. (1996). Legitimacy, discipline, and institutions: three necessary conditions for the birth of the modern state. In J. Kirshner (Ed.), The origins of the state in Italy (pp. 1300–1600). Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
Scott, T. (2012). The city-state in Europe, 1000–1600: hinterland, territory, region. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Smith, A. D. (1986). The ethnic origins of nations. Basil: Blackwell.
Smith, A. D. (2010). Nationalism. Cambridge: Polity.
Snyder, L. (1976). Varieties of nationalism: a comparative study. Illinois: Dryden.
Sparkes, A. W. (1994). Talking politics: a wordbook. London: Routledge.
Thompson, A. (2005). Cities of God: the religion of the Italian communes, 1125–1325. Pennsylvania: The Pennsylvania State University Press.
Tilly, C. (1992). Coercion, capital and European states, AD 990–1992. Cambridge: Blackwell.
Trevelyan, J. P. (1956). A short history of the Italian people. New York: Pitman.
Viroli, M. (1995). For love of country: an essay on patriotism and nationalism. Oxford: Clarendon.
Vigueur, J. M. (2003). Cavaliers et citoyens. Guerre, c onflits et société dans l’Italie communale, XIIe-XIIIe siècles. Paris: Éditions de l’École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales.
Waley, D. P. (2013). The Italian city-republics. London: Longman.
Webb, D. (1996). Patrons and defenders: the saints in the Italian city-states. London: I. B. Tauris.
Weber, M. (1946). Nation. In H. H. Gerth & C. Wright Mills (Eds.), From Max Weber: essays in sociology. New York: Oxford University Press.
Weber, M. (1958). The city. New York: Free.
Zorzi, A. (2010). Legitimation and legal sanction of vendetta in Italian cities from the twelfth to the fourteenth centuries. In S. K. Cohn Jr. & F. Riciardelli (Eds.), The culture of violence in Renaissance Italy. Firenze: Casa Editrice Le Lettere.
Acknowledgments
I would like to thank Şefika Kumral, Daniel Pasciuti, Beverly Silver and anonymous reviewers of International Journal of Politics, Culture and Society for their useful comments, suggestions and feedback.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Karataşlı, Ş.S. From Communal Patriotism To City-State Chauvinism: Transformation of Collective Identities in Northern Italy, 1050–1500. Int J Polit Cult Soc 29, 73–101 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10767-015-9207-1
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10767-015-9207-1