Geografia feudale e poteri signorili nel Salento tardomedievale

Abstract

The essay describes the feudal geography of late medieval Salento and examines the main forms of exercise of feudal power over men, the territory and the communities subjected to it. During the XV century the noble domains underwent continuous transformations, caused by dynastic conflicts and the system of transmission of feudal property, which produced a widespread fragmentation. In this province, as elsewhere in the kingdoom of Naples, there were basically two types of lordship, coexisting and interacting. There were the "territorial" lordships, more or less extensive, controlled by powerful dynasties and born from the amalgamation of various feudal complexes, divided into suffeudi; and there were the "personal" lordships (secular or ecclesiastical), exercised by custom on groups of peasant families subject to performance and obligations, even hereditary, more or less burdensome.