City-states in early Medieval Southern Italy
Channel: Recording Archaeology
Date: 09/04/2016

Urbanism was a key tool of power politics in early medieval Italy, especially in the South. The vast majority of the events and activities which permitted rulership, brought about political legitimacy, and facilitated diplomatic relations happened in cities. More than anywhere in Europe at the time, the elites of Southern Italy channelled resources into the built environment, infrastructure, and social networks established in urban contexts. The built environment was no mere backdrop to this process, rather it was one of the means by which ideas about power were communicated, and through which cultural and political hegemony was practiced. Our theoretical toolkit for understanding the archaeology of medieval urbanism is, however, a bit out of date and mostly borrowed from elsewhere (architectural history, anthropology, sociology). We rely strongly on decoding the symbolic expressions of buildings and social space, between, for example, 'patron/maker' and 'viewer', or the reciprocal persuasions between 'actor' and 'network', or qualifying the economic effects of population density. This paper will review the state of the question of medieval urbanism in Europe, seeking to identify some new pathways forward in our analysis of the cities of the past. I will address both the built (architecture and infrastructure) and the unbuilt (in particular urban cultivation and rubbish) in the period between 600-1100. 

Caroline GOODSON (Birkbeck College, University of London)