Litigation strategy and information management in late medieval Italy : Case study of Lucca

Abstract

This paper will examine the judicial system in late medieval Italy, focusing on the practices of parties involved in court cases. In Northern-Central Italian cities in the 13^<th> and 14^<th> centuries, communes became established as the governing institutions of cities. In judicial matters, they compiled statutes and established ordinary courts. In addition, various affairs were recorded and archived in an organized manner. Conventional scholarship has studied these problems from the perspective of understanding the roots of the modern state. However, recent studies have revealed that the judicial policy of communes did not exclude the practices of Fehde and private reconciliation, but rather incorporated them. The government of communes was not a top-down control of society but was exercised through a mutual relationship with the social practices of peoples. I will consider the practices of parties in the judicial system from the court records of Lucca. In Lucca in the first half of the 14^<th> century, under the rule of foreign lords, there were numerous courts used by many peoples in civil trials. In these trials, the parties were able to skillfully acquire money or land through judicial orders and agreement between parties. Arguments in the courts often centered not on the principle of entitlement but on exception based on statutes regarding the qualifications of the parties or procedural errors. An analysis of the defense reveals the following points. First, the statutes based on Roman procedures and a commune's administrative orders were utilized by parties as weapons in their litigation strategy. Secondly, information in the archive of a commune was diffused to people through fama and was used in court defense. However, judges were indifferent to the information in the archive. In this way, the judicial system and the documentary system were strategically used by disputing parties. Even though these systems aided the government of a commune, it is in fact through the practices of people within them that these systems were ultimately able to function.