1Nel saggio si verifica se, al fine di inserire gli statuti cittadini nel complesso del panorama documentario dell’Italia comunale, possa essere utile prendere in esame le scelte lessicali che vennero adottate per rubricare una norma oppure per riassumerne il contenuto. La proposta metodologica consiste nel semplice procedimento di confrontare tra sé e con il testo normativo le brevi note, le rubriche, i sommari, seguendo il percorso che accompagna la norma dalla deliberazione consiliare, primo atto della decisione politica, fino alla sua pubblicazione in uno statuto cittadino vero e proprio oppure fino alla sua trascrizione nelle raccolte di estratti normativi redatti a uso di singoli uffici oppure, ancora, negli statuti delle comunità del contado.

2Campo dell’esperimento è un dossier di documenti che si riferiscono alla diffusione e alla regolamentazione della mezzadria del Senese. L’analisi di alcuni casi concreti riguarda la posizione fiscale dei mezzadri, il divieto per gli inurbati di continuare a svolgere il lavoro della terra, i contenziosi tra lavoratori e proprietari, i conflitti di proprietà tra comunità rurali e proprietari cittadini.

3La conclusione è che le brevi note partigiane e incisive che accompagnano il verbale delle disposizioni consiliari esaminate rendono trasparente la rete di relazioni e la dialettica politica dalla quale scaturisce la decisione, della quale svelano il versante politico. La scelta lessicale dei termini contro e in favore sintetizza il messaggio diretto ai soggetti politici e chiarisce chi godrà del provvedimento o chi ne sarà penalizzato, al punto che, scorrendole in sequenza, si ottiene un trasparente condensato degli obiettivi e delle parole d’ordine sotto le quali si riconosce l’azione politica. In molti casi soltanto i sommari contribuiscono a rendere esplicite le prudenti reticenze del dettato, palesando l’obiettivo politico e lo spirito della norma, il significato e la direzione di quello specifico momento decisionale. Con la sua esibita partigianeria e utilizzando un linguaggio politico evoluto, il governo della città si esprime su questioni che giudica rilevanti e fondanti della sua identità politica.

4Headings, summaries, partisan notes and political goals in the Siena’s 13^th to 14^th c. AD laws on share-cropping

5This paper examines the lexical choices made to record a law or to sum up its content in towns statutes. The goal is to evaluate, whether it is possible to put them within the complex scenario of documentary sources of Communal Italy.

6The methodology consists of a simple comparison of the short notes, the headings, and the summaries among them and with the normative text. We shall follow the route of the norm from the council act, which is the first step of political conviction, up to the publication in a town statute. Alternatively, we shall follow it up to the registration within the collection of norms abstracts. They were used by single offices or, again, in the rural communities statutes.

7We shall focus on a set of charts related to the spread and regulation of Sienese share-cropping. The analysis of case studies concerns the fiscal position of share-croppers, the prohibition to keep on doing their job for those living in the town, and ownership’s conflicts between rural communities and urban owners.

8The output of this research is that the short partisan and affective notes associated to the examined council reports make it clear the network or relationships and the political dialectic. It produces the resolution and it unveils the political side. The choice of words against and in favour of summarises the message addressed to the political actors. It makes also clear who will benefit of the resolution or who will be damaged. To list them one after one makes it clear the goals and the watchwords underneath we can see the political action. Often, only the summaries contribute to make the cautious silence text more explicit. They unveil the political goal and the core of the rule. In addition, they point out the meaning and the direction of that specific act. According to its clear partisan attitude, and thanks to an advanced political language, the town government conveys its opinion on relevant topics, which are basic for its political identity.

• Sandrine Lavaud, Entre normes et pratiques. Les memoranda d’Agen, passeurs de mémoire (fin xv^e-début xvi^e siècle)

9Lors de leur sortie de charge après leur mandat d’un an, les consuls d’Agen rédigent des memoranda dans le double objectif de dresser leur bilan du gouvernement de la ville et de donner informations et directives à leurs successeurs. Insérés dans les délibérations de la Jurade de 1344-1355 ou en trois rouleaux séparés pour l’extrême fin du Moyen Âge (1491-1506), ces notes à l’adresse des futurs magistrats sont organisées en alinéas, mêlant indistinctement rappels des actions passées et injonctions pour l’avenir. Si elles font ostensiblement œuvre de mémoire, c’est pour mieux orienter l’administration municipale, en maintenir la continuité et le souci du bien commun. Expressions de la pratique dont elles donnent à voir, bien plus que les ordonnances des délibérations, l’efficacité tangible comme les ratés, elles couvrent aussi le champ de la norme ; d’abord par leur intertextualité avec d’autres écrits municipaux – dont les coutumes – qu’elles rappellent et dont elles constituent une courroie de transmission ; mais encore, parce qu’en tant qu’écrits référents que les consuls en exercice sont engagés par leurs prédécesseurs à consulter, ces mémoires tendent eux-mêmes à faire jurisprudence et à devenir normatifs.

10Après une présentation codicologique de ces documents, assez rares dans le paysage scripturaire des villes médiévales, on s’interrogera donc sur la fonction de ces memoranda dans la circularité documentaire des écrits de la Jurade d’Agen : quelle interconnection, quelle intertextualité avec les coutumes et les productions de la pratique, tels les livres de Jurade ou de comptes ? Au service de quelle conception du gouvernement municipal, de quels enjeux pour ses acteurs ?

11Between Norms and Practices; the Memoranda of Agen, passing on Remembrances in the Late Fifteenth and Early Sixteenth Centuries

12When leaving their responsibilities after their one year mandate the consuls at Agen drew up memoranda with the dual aim of summarising their government of the town and also of giving information and directives to their successors. These notes were inserted into the deliberations of the Jurade of 1344-1355 or are in three separate rolls at the end of the Middle Ages (1491-1506). Addressed to future magistrates these notes are organised as paragraphs, indiscriminately mixing reminders of past actions and orders for the future. If they clearly seem to be a kind of account, their purpose was in fact to better direct the municipal administration and maintain continuity with a wish to serve the common good. They are the expressions of practices which are clearly defined rather more than being prescriptions for decisions, and they reflect tangible efficaciousness as well as instances of failure as well as covering the range of normal practices. This is first achieved by their intertextuality with other municipal writings—including the statutes—which they recall and in which they play their role of transmitting these customs. Moreover, as written references which consuls in post were encouraged to consult by their predecessors, these registers tended to take on a role of jurisprudence and to become normative.

13After a codicological presentation of the documents, which are fairly rare among the surviving texts of medieval towns, we will question the function of these memoranda and the part they played in the circulation of documents within the Jurade of Agen. What is the interconnection and what is the intertextuality with the practices and the way in which documents such as the Jurade books and accounts were produced? In what kind of conception of municipal governance did they play a role and what was at stake for the various actors involved?

• François Otchakovsky-Laurens, L’assemblée de ville, la tutelle du prince et les statuts à Marseille au milieu du xiv^e siècle

14Les statuts communaux marseillais conservent un caractère évolutif même après la prise de contrôle de la seigneurie urbaine par Charles d’Anjou (1257-1262). Parallèlement à cette activité d’écriture statutaire, le xiv^e siècle connaît une forte croissance de la production documentaire municipale, en particulier les enregistrements de délibérations. Les normes statutaires s’articulent à l’activité quotidienne du gouvernement de la ville. Les élites urbaines, à l’origine des ajouts et modifications apportés aux statuts, savent manier ceux-ci, s’y réfèrent et y recourent fréquemment, de façon plus ou moins précise, selon leurs besoins.

15Ces pratiques vivantes du droit montrent la capacité de l’assemblée urbaine à influer sur le corpus statutaire, pour l’adapter aux nécessités du gouvernement de la ville. Les élites marseillaises s’appuient sur les statuts pour affirmer leur autorité, notamment vis-à-vis de la tutelle des officiers royaux. Les statuts marseillais constituent un instrument réel du pouvoir, à la fois pour gouverner la ville et pour affirmer le gouvernement du conseil vis-à-vis des pouvoirs supérieurs.

16The Urban Assembly, the Prince’s Domination and the Statutes in Marseilles in Mid-14^th Century

17The communal statutes of Marseilles were still evolving after Charles d’Anjou’s taking-over of the urban seigneury. At the same time as this statutory writing activity, the scriptural production of the municipal authority grew fast, in particular the recording of deliberations. The statutory norms interacted with the day-to-day government of the city. Marseilles’ elites, who impulsed the additions and changes in the statutes, knew how to handle them—more or less precisely—, by frequent use in accordance with their own needs.

18These lively practices of law show the urban assembly’s ability to influence the statutory corpus, adapting it to the necessities of the city’s government. Marseilles’ elites relied on the statutes to assert their authority, notably over the royal officers’ control. Marseilles’ statutes form a genuine tool of power, to both rule the city and to assert the council’s government confronting the royal hierarchy.

• Marialuisa Bottazzi, Gli statuti epigrafici dell’Italia centro-settentrionale (secc. XII-XIV)

19Nella larga costruzione monumentale italiana d’ambito medievale le iscrizioni apposte dal secolo XII sulle facciate delle chiese o degli edifici dei Comuni ormai istituzionalizzati iniziarono a riportare interi capitoli, larghi stralci, comunque parti rilevanti dei testi statutari a beneficio della cittadinanza e di quanti, oramai numerosi e culturalmente evoluti anche in ambito laico, popolavano le città. Il contributo offre un largo panorama dell’importante e consapevole impiego inciso della scrittura lapidaria riscontrato in modo diretto o indiretto, grazie alla documentazione al nostro attivo, per le città di Rimini, Genova, Ferrara, Milano, Lucca, Orvieto, Aquapendente, Lugnano in Tavernina, Perugia, Todi, Corneto in Tarquinia

20The epigraphic statutes of central and northern Italy (12^th-14^th centuries)

21In the large Italian monumental construction of the medieval areas, the twelfth century inscriptions engraved on the façades of the churches or on the buildings of the recently institutionalized Communes began reporting whole chapters, large excerpts, anyway significant parts of the statutes for the benefit of citizens and of the whole city population, which at the time had known, even among laymen, a remarkable improvement. The contribution offers a wide “panorama” of the important and self-conscious development of lapidary writing, directly or indirectly known by historians, throughout the documentation issued by the cities of Rimini, Genoa, Ferrara, Milan, Lucca, Orvieto, Aquapendente, Lugnano in Tavernina, Perugia, Todi and Corneto Tarquinia.

• Philippe Bernardi et Nicolas Leroy, Des statuts urbains aux statuts de métier : l’exemple de la fusterie d’Avignon au milieu du xiii^e siècle

22La règlementation concernant les charpentiers et marchands de bois (fustiers) avignonnais au xiii^e siècle se compose de trois documents ou trois versions successives élaborées entre 1246-1247 et 1265. Le premier est formé d’un groupe de trois articles insérés dans le corpus de 1246-1247 des statuts d’Avignon, les deux suivants se présentent comme l’enregistrement de véritables statuts (consuetudines) de métier (le 15 juillet 1247) et leur réforme partielle (28 mai 1265). Ces sources nous permettent de revenir sur la hiérarchie généralement établie entre règlementations communales et professionnelles. Elles attestent d’échanges ou d’influences entre les strates normatives. L’analyse proposée met en évidence non une tension entre différents niveaux de règlementation superposés mais un rapport dynamique entre ceux-ci. Elle invite, à partir du cas avignonnais, à considérer, au-delà de la lutte éventuelle entre émetteurs de statuts, le rôle que purent tenir, dans l’ombre, les groupes sur lesquels portaient ces règlements.

23From urban statutes to professional statutes: the example of Avignon’s “Statuts de la fusterie” in the 13^th century

24Avignon’s carpenters and lumber merchants (fustiers) regulations during 13th century are composed by three documents or successive versions of the same document elaborated between 1246-1247 and 1265. First of them is a group of three articles inserted in Avignon’s statutes of 1246-1247, the others are real professional statutes (consuetudines), in the original version (July 15^th 1247) and a partially reformed one (May 28^th 1265). These sources allowed us to examine hierarchy generally built between municipal and professional regulations. They prove mutual influences between normative strata. This analysis reveal a dynamic relationship between different levels of superposed regulations more than tensions. Beyond statutes issuers struggle, the Avignon case invite to study the shadow role of groups concerned by these regulations.

• Sylvie Duval, Les testaments, l’usure, les statuts. L’exemple de Pise au xiv^e siècle

25À la fin du xiii^e siècle, le deuxième concile de Lyon (1274) prend acte du lien existant entre testaments et restitution des usures post mortem : avec la constitution Quamquam, les pères conciliaires réglementent cette pratique, et demandent en outre aux testateurs une caution garantissant la restitution. Les constitutions synodales toscanes du début du xiv^e siècle intègrent cette nouvelle norme, en instaurant des règles très précises à ce sujet, destinées aux curés, aux testateurs et aux notaires. Le thème de l’usure, toutefois, est aussi amplement abordé dans les statuts communaux. Se crée donc ainsi, à propos de l’usure et de sa restitution, une concurrence entre différents types de législations, amplement documentée dans le cas de Pise. À travers l’examen des constitutions de l’archevêque Simone Saltarelli (1324), des statuts communaux contemporains et de documents nous permettant de comprendre comment ces différentes législations étaient effectivement appliquées (testaments, procès), la présente étude montre que cette concurrence était à l’origine d’une certaine inquiétude chez les citoyens « pécheurs » (comment concilier restitution des usures et transmission des biens ?), mais qu’elle pouvait aussi, du moins pour ceux qui étaient assistés par des juristes compétents, créer des espaces de liberté.

26Testaments, usury, statutes. The example of Pisa in the fourteenth century

27The Second Council of Lyon (1274) took into account the existing link between testaments and the restitution of usury. According to the canon Quamquam, a guarantee (cautio) was required, in order to protect the effectiveness of the restitution post-mortem. The synodal constitutions of Tuscany integrated this new norm at the beginning of the XIV c.: they contain indeed some specific rules about the restitution of usury that had to be applied by the parish priests, the testators and the notaries. Usury, however, was also an important topic for the communal statutes: there was thus a kind of overlap between these two legislations. The numerous historical documents preserved in Pisa allow us to investigate about how the ecclesiastical and communal norms could be applied. In this article, I study and compare the synodal constitutions of the archbishop Simone Saltarelli (1324), the contemporary local communal statutes and, finally, the testaments and the records of the activities of the ecclesiastical court of Pisa during the XIVc. and beginning of the XVc. The analysis of these different types of documents shows that the overlap between the two types legislations led the Pisan citizens to worry about how to combine the salvation of their souls with the transmission of their goods to their children, but created also, for those who were helped by qualified lawyers, some spaces of freedom.

• Judicaël Petrowiste, Statuts de la cité, statuts du bourg. Circulation documentaire et rivalités locales à Rodez au début du xiv^e siècle

28La ville de Rodez fut une de ces localités, fréquentes dans le sud du royaume de France, dont le développement médiéval s’est opéré sur un mode bicéphale. La vieille cité héritée de l’Antiquité, grandie à l’ombre de la cathédrale, se doublait sur son flanc méridional d’un pôle d’habitat formé autour du monastère Saint-Amans et de la résidence comtale. Ces deux noyaux urbains se constituèrent en entités indépendantes à la fois topographiquement, sous la forme de deux villes closes séparées, et juridiquement, avec l’affirmation de deux universitates soumises l’une au pouvoir des évêques, et l’autre à celui des comtes de Rodez. Les relations entre les deux communautés d’habitants furent volontiers houleuses tout au long des derniers siècles du Moyen Âge, à l’image de celles entretenues par leurs seigneurs. Les conditions et les formes de la production statutaire à Rodez témoignent de ce paysage institutionnel complexe, et des rapports de compétition et de collaboration qui unissaient les universitates du Bourg et de la Cité, ainsi que l’évêque et le comte de Rodez. La comparaison entre deux textes promulgués au début du xiv^e siècle s’avère de ce point de vue significative. En 1307, l’évêque Pierre Pleinecassagne fait publier dans la Cité une ordonnance statuant sur l’exercice de la justice et édictant plusieurs mesures d’ordre social et économique « ad reformationem morum, correctionem excessuum, vitandum fraudes ». Deux ans plus tard, c’est cette fois le comte de Rodez qui promulgue des statuts répondant à la demande de la communauté du Bourg de bénéficier de dispositions comparables à celles en vigueur chez leurs voisins. Les grandes similitudes entre les deux textes – l’ordonnance du comte constituant pour l’essentiel une transposition de celle de l’évêque, dont plusieurs articles sont directement recopiés – rendent compte de la circulation de la documentation statutaire d’une communauté à l’autre, et des enjeux multiples de leur diffusion. On ne saurait en effet lier cette dernière au seul souci pratique d’étoffer et d’optimiser le dispositif normatif en vigueur au sein du Bourg. Il convient aussi de faire toute la part de l’émulation entre les deux communautés voisines, ainsi qu’entre leurs seigneurs. La promulgation des statuts de 1307 était en effet explicitement justifiée par le constat de l’importance des activités économiques de la Cité et par l’octroi à ses consuls de droits et prérogatives qui échappaient encore, à cette date, à leurs homologues de l’universitas voisine. De quoi expliquer la démarche de ces derniers, assortie de la promesse d’un paiement de 1500 livres au comte de Rodez pour qu’il accorde les mêmes privilèges au Bourg, « inter alia loca comitatus Ruthene magis insignis et etiam populatus ». La construction en vis-à-vis des statuts de l’évêque et des statuts du comte s’inscrit bien, de ce point de vue, dans le contexte d’exacerbation de rivalités micro-locales concurrentes propre à la ville de Rodez du début du xiv^e siècle.

29Statutes of the City, Statutes of the Borough. Documentary Circulation and Local Rivalries at Rodez at the Beginning of the 14^th Century

30In the XIII^th and XIV^th centuries, the town of Rodez consisted of two independent parts: the Cité, which had grown up around the ancient cathedral, and the Bourg, formed around the monastery of Saint-Amans and the count’s residence. In these two separated walled-boroughs lived two autonomous burghers’ communities, one of which was submitted to the bishop, and the other to the count of Rodez. The coexistence in the town of Rodez of two major lordships and two municipal authorities furthered the circulation of normative texts on a local scale, leading to mutual influences. This paper focuses on these influences by comparing two seigniorial ordinances of the beginning of the XIV^th century. The first one was promulgated in 1307 by bishop Pierre Pleinecassagne. It took judicial, social and economic measures « ad reformationem morum, correctionem excessuum, vitandum fraudes » in the Cité. The second one, enacted two years later by the count of Rodez, responded to the request of the inhabitants of the Bourg to be granted the same statutes as their neighbours. Both documents show, therefore, many similarities: most of the count’s ordinance is a mere transposition of that of the bishop, with several articles directly copied from one text to the other. Such borrowings do not only result from a decision to expand and improve the normative system in use in the Bourg, on the authority of the count and the municipal government. They also reflect the emulation spirit that characterises the relationships between the two burgher’s communities and between their lords. The fact that the 1307 bishop’s ordinance strongly insisted on the economic importance of the Cité and granted several rights and prerogatives to its universitas could explain why the neighbouring community, not to be outdone, paid 1500 £ to the count of Rodez to obtain the same privileges for the Bourg, « inter alia loca comitatus Ruthene magis insignis et etiam populatus ». In that respect, the circulation of this text highlights the strength of the micro-local identities developed in the two urban cores of the town of Rodez at the beginning of the XIV^th century, as well as their competition.

• Valérie Theis, Jeux d’échelles, jeux de normes ? Les statuts du Comtat Venaissin, fin xiii^e-début xvi^e siècle

31Cet article part de l’étude des différents statuts qui ont été produits au sein du Comtat Venaissin entre le xiii^e et le xvi^e siècle. De là, il s’agit d’abord d’essayer de voir s’il existait une circulation des normes entre les statuts provinciaux et les statuts communaux, les villes ayant joué un rôle majeur dans la production de statuts bien avant qu’un corpus de normes commence à être élaboré au niveau des provinces. Dans la mesure où le Comtat Venaissin faisait partie des États pontificaux, il s’agit aussi de s’interroger sur d’éventuelles circulation de normes entre les différentes provinces soumises à la domination de l’Église romaine. Observer quelles normes passèrent du niveau communal au niveau provincial et quelles normes furent amenées à circuler au sein des différentes provinces de l’Église romaine permet de mieux cerner les objectifs qui étaient ceux des officiers pontificaux en charge du gouvernement de ces provinces et de mettre en valeur le caractère spécifique de la politique italienne des papes par rapport à la politique qu’ils développèrent dans le Comtat Venaissin. Suivre l’une des dispositions qui semble circuler à une vaste échelle dans le monde méditerranéen, celle qui concerne la cession de bien, permet en outre d’élargir la question des circulations au-delà des seuls états pontificaux et de mettre en valeur la manière dont ces statuts sont construits à la croisée de multiples influences qui vont du droit romain aux normes coutumières.

32Changing Scale, Changing Norms? The Comtat Venaissin Statutes, from the End of the Thirteenth Century to the Beginning of the Sixteenth Century.

33This paper starts with the study of the statutes produced within the Comtat Venaissin from the thirteenth to the sixteenth century. From there, it seeks to establish whether there existed what might be called a circulation of norms between provincial statutes and municipal statutes, given that cities played a major role in the production of statutes long before a corpus of norms began to be developed at the provincial level. As the Comtat Venaissin was part of the Papal States, it is also legitimate to wonder whether a possible circulation took place between different provinces under the domination of the Roman Church. Tracing the norms that passed from the municipal to the provincial level and those circulating within the Papal States as a whole provides a way to identify the objectives of the papal officers in charge of the government of these provinces, but also to emphasize the specific nature of the papal policy in Italy, which was markedly different from that developed in the Comtat Venaissin. A detailed analysis of a provision that seems to have circulated right across the Mediterranean world, concerning the surrender of goods, makes it possible to widen the scope of the investigation beyond the Papal States and to show that statutes were constructed at the crossroads of multiple influences ranging from Roman law to customary norms.

• Fabrizio Titone, Il ruolo delle universitates nella produzione normativa in Sicilia, secoli XIV-XV

34Il presente saggio considera il ruolo della corte regia e delle comunità (universitates) nella formazione degli ordinamenti normativi locali nella Sicilia del basso Medioevo. Si mette in luce come il rapporto di subordinazione delle comunità rispetto al re non escludesse che le prime potessero sia conseguire un ruolo significativo nella produzione normativa, in corrispondenza a un incremento della strategia regia d’apertura alle richieste dal basso, sia ottenere gradualmente d’influenzare la politica del sovrano sui governi locali. Si tratta di processi che emergono con maggiore evidenza durante fasi di contrapposizioni politiche. L’accesso alle assemblee, la regolamentazione della politica economica, il controllo della magistratura preposta alla giurisdizione criminale ecc., erano tutti ambiti su cui le universitates potevano intervenire e sui quali il re fungeva da autorità regolatrice.

35The role of the universitates in normative production in Sicily, XIV-XV centuries

36The present essay considers the respective role of the royal court and of the communities (universitates) in the local formation of normative systems in the Sicily of the late Middle Ages.

37It highlights how the communities’ relationship of subordination to the king did not preclude room for manoeuvre. Indeed, the universitates were able both to play a significant role in the production of norms, as the royal strategy of responding to requests from below was further refined, and gradually to obtain influence over royal policy regarding the local governments. We are concerned here with processes that are more in evidence during phases of political confrontation. Access to the various assemblies, the regulation of economic policy, the control of magistracies responsible for criminal jurisdiction etc., were all contexts in which the universitates could intervene and over which the king functioned as a regulatory authority.

• Matteo Magnani, Statuts vénitiens et paysage documentaire à Candie aux xiii^e et xiv^e siècles

38L’article se centre sur les rapports entre les Statuts produits et promulgués par Jacopo Tiepolo à Venise en 1242 et leur application à Candie, capitale de l’île de Crète et centre névralgique de l’empire maritime construit par la République de Saint Marc après la quatrième croisade. Les enjeux entre pratiques sociales et savoir juridique est abordé d’une façon nouvelle, à savoir à partir des interconnections entre les sources judiciaires produites à Candie et les normes des Statuts. L’un des objectifs de cet étude est direct à cerner le caractère communale d’une ville qui reflet et reproduise les expériences et l’articulation documentaire d’une commune italien au plain cœur de la Méditerranée orientale. Cet aspect nous permet également de joindre le premier axe du colloque centré sur les Statuts en rapports à d’autres documents produits par la commune. La production documentaire fondait les mesures sur lesquelles reposait la gouvernance vénitienne et reproduisait la structure des organismes délibérants. Il faut rappeler que la production des actes de la pratique correspond à un geste précis de gouvernement, à savoir la construction des modèles de références institutionnelles qu’il fallait imposer aux sujets. À partir des Statuts vénitiens notre parcours crétois nous amène à « mesurer la hiérarchie, la complémentarité et les conflits de normes entre statuts ». En outre, l’article vise à saisir le syncrétisme qui s’était produit entre expériences normatives différentes, à savoir entre la tradition législative byzantine et vénitienne d’un côté et leur emploi en justice.

39Venetian statutes and overview documentary in Candia in the 13th and 14th Centuries

40The article is centered around the history of justice and its social relations in the first half of fourteenth century Venetian colony of Crete. In particular, the aim is to focus on the differences between the practical behavior of justice and the law system ruled by the Statuti promulgated by Iacopo Tiepolo in 1242 in Venice. Our study give particular attention to the situation in Candia, the island’s capital city. As we show, Candia has to be also considered in a deep relation with its internal political structure. Indeed, we have to keep in mind that Candia and all the other cities of Crete—Rethymno, Chanià and Sithia—were ruled as communes, reworked by the Venetian political ideology and structural constitution. The mixed cultures that coexisted on the island gave to Candia an international dimension, which has to be analyzed in order to catch a glimpse about its social complexity; in particular regarding the interactions between the Greek-Byzantine culture, the communal background and the Venetian institutional model. From the historiographical point of view, the article enrolls itself to the principle for which the term “Governance” defines all the measures and the organs of decision and information that allow the good government of a State. The administration of justice is one of the fields in which we can observe all the social boundaries that belong to governance, for example the reaction of the subjects during a trial.