#medieval cities

[racefortheironthrone]

Please tell me more about neighbourhood PMCs in renaissance Italy

It would be my pleasure! (My research into this owes a lot to the excellent Power and Imagination: City-States in Renaissance Italy by Lauro Martines.)

The first thing to note that, unlike the condottieri, these were not private military companies. Rather, the neighborhood military companies (in the sense of a military unit, rather than a profit-making entity) were self-defense organizations formed as part of a centuries-long political struggle for control over the urban commune between the signorile (the urban chivalry)/nobilita (the urban nobility) and the populo (the guilded middle class, who claimed to speak on behalf of "the people").

This conflict followed much the same logic that had given rise to the medieval commune in the first place. Legally, the communes had started as mutual defense pacts between the signorile and the cives (the free citizens of the city) against the rural feudal nobility, which had given these groups the military and political muscle to push out the marquises and viscounts and barons and claim exclusive authority over the tax system, the judicial system, and the military.

So it made sense that, once they had vanquished their enemies and established the commune as the sovereign, both sides would use the same tactic in their struggle over which of them would rule the commune that ruled the city. The signorile and nobilita formed themselves into consorteria or "tower societies," by which ancient families allied with one another (complete with dynastic marriage alliances!) to build and garrison the towers with the knights, squires, men-at-arms, and bravi of their households. These phallic castle substitutes were incredibly formidable within the context of urban warfare, as relatively small numbers of men with crossbows could rain down hell on besiegers from the upper windows and bridges between towers, even as the poor bastards on the ground tried to force the heavy doors down below.

To combat noble domination of communal government, achieve direct representation on the political councils, establish equity of taxation and regulate interest rates, and enforce legal equality between nobility and citizenry, the populo formed themselves into guilds to build alliances between merchants and artisans in the same industries. However, these amateur soldiers struggled to fight on even footing with fully-trained and well-equipped professional soldiers, and the guild militias were frequently defeated.

To solve their military dilemma, the populo engaged in political coalition-building with the oldest units of the urban commune: the neighborhoods. When the cities of medieval Italy were originally founded, they had been rather decentralized transplantations of the rural villages, where before people had any conception of a city-wide collective their primary allegiance was to their neighborhood. As can still be seen in the Palio di Siena to this day, these contrade built a strong identity based on local street gangs, the parish church, their traditional heraldry, and their traditional rivalries with the stronzi in the next contrade over. And whether they were maggiori, minori, or unguilded laborers, everyone in the city was a member of their contrade.

As Martines describes, the populo both recruited from (and borrowed the traditions of) the contrade to form their armed neighborhood companies into a force that would have the manpower, the discipline, and the morale to take on the consorteria:

"Every company had its distinctive banner and every house in the city was administratively under the sign of a company. A dragon, a whip, a serpent, a bull, a bounding horse, a lion, a ladder: these, in different colors and on contrasting fields, were some of the leitmotifs of the twenty different banners. They were emblazoned on individual shields and helmets. Rigorous regulations required guildsmen to keep their arms near at hand, above all in troubled times. The call to arms for the twenty companies was the ringing of a special bell, posted near the main public square. A standard-bearer, flanked by four lieutenants, was in command of each company."

To knit these companies organized by neighborhood into a single cohesive force, the lawyers' guilds within the populo created a state within a state, complete with written constitutions, guild charters, legal codes, legislative and executive councils. Under these constitutions, the populo's councils would elect a capitano del popolo, a professional soldier from outside the city who would serve as a politically-neutral commander, with a direct chain of command over the gonfaloniere and lieutenants of the neighborhood companies, to lead the populo against their noble would-be overlords.

And in commune after commune, the neighborhood companies made war against the consorteria, taking the towers one by one and turning them into fortresses of the populo. The victorious guilds turned their newly-won military might into political hegemony over the commune, stripping the nobilita of their power and privilege and forcing them either into submission or exile. Then they directed their veteran neighborhood companies outward to seize control of the rural hinterland from the feudal aristocracy, until the city had become city-state.

(Ironically, in the process, the populo gave birth to the condottieri, as the nobility who had lost their landed wealth and political power took their one remaining asset - their military training and equipment - and became professional mercenaries. But that's a story for another time...)

[lunegrimm]

Nachtschwärmer - [night owl/ night person]

New personal piece just in time for the return of the werewolf designs (more details will follow soon] I felt like making coloured version this time as well & I love how it looks! #WerewolfWednesday

[fregolicotard]

13.06.2024

The drive to Zaragoza was beautiful, albeit very exhausting. And the fire alarm at 5 am going off in the hotel was something I could do without.

“If they are truly my enemies, then why do I want to weep?” Light Bringer - Pierce Brown

#165of366

[illustratus]

Rothenburg ob der Tauber by August Eduard Schliecker

[elbiotipo]

It's fascinating to me that for our modern (at least on European-influenced societies) thinking, the classical Roman way of life is so familiar. When you read about it, the rethoric of the speeches feels modern, a society based on contracts and laws and litigation, with public works, a state bureucracy and standing army and trade economy and even spectator sports, a concept of philosophy separated from religious dogma and tradition, with even a limited understanding of a government by 'the people' and 'citizenship', even the names all sound familiar even if in completely different contexts, and no wonder since they inspired our current politics.

This all in contrast to medieval feudalism, which is completely alien to me. A society created upon family connections and oaths of fealty and serfdom with no such thing as an overarching state, not even kingdoms were any more real than a title one person holds, and all held together completely, utterly, to an extent I cannot emphasize enough, by the institution of the Church and the Christian faith. In a way we just aren't used today in our secular world. I simply cannot overstate how everything, every single thing, was permeated by faith in the Medieval worldview and the Church which took its power from it, we have an understanding of it but I think people just don't realize it.

[mahgnolias]

doeeme

[tanadrin]

genuinely boggles my mind that it took until the year of our lord two thousand and twenty-four for new york city to embrace the concept of garbage bins.

[2seeitall]

Tarragona, Catalonia (Spain)

[simstoricalish]

Fashion in Essos

Free Cities pt. 1

Tyrosh

💜01: Dress | Headpiece | Hair | Belt

💜02: Dress | Headpiece | Hair/gold piece n' ribbons |

Norvos

💜01: Dress | Headpiece | Tiara | Belt pendant

💜02: Dress | Sleeves | Headpiece | Tiara |

Braavos

💜01: Top | Skirt | Hair | Belt | Shawl | Necklace

💜02: Top | Skirt | Headpiece | Hair | Shawl

[barbucomedie]

Obsidian Mace from Mexico City, Mexico dated between 1325 - 1521 on display at the Templo Mayor Museum in Mexico City, Mexico

In the Aztec's view of the world, obsidian was considered a cold and nocturnal material. The deposit sites controlled by the Aztecs were found in the Basin of Mexico, whereby the product arrived at Tenochtitlan through trade as well as through the payment of tribute.

Most pieces found at the Templo Mayor were manufactured with green obsidian from the Sierra de las Navajas, a mountainous fromation located in the current state of Hidalgo; gray obsidian stones from deposit sites located in the current states of Mexico and Pueblo, ar found in lesser proportion as well as the "Meca" obsidian with red streaks, coming from various sources.

Photographs taken by myself 2024

[racefortheironthrone]

Hello, years ago you mentioned that it would be difficult to create a city grid on hilly terrain (like King's Landing). However, if one were to make a grid on rugged terrain, how would they do so?

It can be done, it’s just harder and more expensive.

Either you need to level out the terrain by leveling down the peaks and using the dirt to fill in the valleys, or you need to build a lot of streets and buildings on sharp inclines and (if necessary) build lots of stairs (like San Francisco), and/or elevated streets and viaducts (like Edinburgh…or Yharnum), with tunnels to connect areas of lower elevation separated by areas of higher elevation (like Seattle).

Or do a mix.

[ahsoka-in-a-hood]

Coming up with ways for Jango to have way too many sons in aus is kinda fun tbh. I know the most common thing is just for him to have a big family and that's fine but ideally could be way weirder. Maybe all the sperm at the sperm bank got swapped with Jango's and there's a nationwide epidemic of mini Jangos. Maybe someone discovered a compound full of a hundred of boys in the desert in idk Nevada or somewhere and only the first ten or whatever even have birth certificates and they're all 'homeschooled' (badly) and it gets a lot of press and everyone has a lot of questions, such as "what the fuck?" and also perhaps "how?". Maybe there was an actual secret cloning project not unlike canon but it's in a modern au.

[fuckitandmovetobritain]

Great Britain: Chawton. Kynance Cove, Allerford, Wells, Oxford, Isle Of Skye, Polperro. Eilean Donan Castle

[racefortheironthrone]

As someone who comes from a long line of peasants who somehow survived despite a genetic predisposition to crippling hayfever, I have a strong suspicion that quite a few farmers in preindustrial societies were fucking miserable.

And just to wax urban-historical for a second, I don’t think it was a few people, either. At the height of medieval urbanization, cities blossomed despite the existence of serfdom, despite the fact that cities were unrelentingly demographically negative, precisely because thousands and thousands of people were willing to roll the dice on death rather than work the land for another day.

There is a common motte-and-bailey argument applied to paper over expressions of dissatisfaction with life in industrial society.

The motte is "before industrial production of vaccines and antibiotics, infant mortality rates were extremely high, and this was an inordinate tragedy that can now thankfully be prevented".

The bailey is "your claim to personal dissatisfaction with being a (post-)industrial wage laborer is invalid, it is false that you would feel more stimulated or satisfied (etc.) by a hunter-gatherer lifestyle (etc.) than by your current lifestyle".

Look, I don't know what type of lifestyle would make random internet posters feel the most stimulated or the most satisfied. I don't know if it's running around in the woods or working at a desk job or being a rich failchild. I have no fucking clue and neither do any of us, maybe not even them! Although obviously I suspect they have a better approximation of the answer than any of us do.

But what I do feel confident in saying is that 90% of people complaining about industrial society online are not anti-civ. They're not saying "let's get rid of vaccines". They're saying "boy this wage labor shit makes me unhappy, and the way people used to live looks more rewarding". I don't know if they're right, in any individual case, and also people have a lot of misconceptions about how we used to live that are worth correcting. But I can say with great confidence that no important aspect of this discussion hinges on historical child mortality rates or vaccine production. Those are relevant points when discoursing with a small set of radicals, and not with the average tumblr user romanticizing pre-industrial life.

It is not a law of the universe that when one thing gets better, everything else gets better too. Maybe that cottagecore girl or whatever actually would feel more fulfilled living off the difficult physical labor of a pre-industrial farm. Is that so hard to imagine? It seems straightforwardly plausible to me.

I think a lot of the frustration that people have with this is that the cottagecore girls and the running-around-in-the-woods guys present these ostensible lifestyle preferences with a moralizing tone. Like "you're all such sheep for wanting to live a modern life". And I get that that's annoying, but I'll point out that their discourse-foils are also doing much the same thing in reverse: "you're all such fools for thinking you'd enjoy working on a farm more than in an office". I don't know, maybe they would! I don't think they are necessarily being fools!

[illustratus]

The Storming of Bizerte (Orlando Furioso) by Gustave Doré