The Emergence of the Communes

Abstract

While it was the economic revival that provided the driving force, the direction taken by Italian society was strongly influenced by the political conditions of the time. Throughout the peninsula during the eleventh century, the time-honoured imperial system of government — Byzantine in the south, German in the north — passed through a time of strain and weakness, ending in virtual collapse which handed the initiative to local forces. In the south the breakdown of the central government was relatively short-lived and a powerful Norman kingdom built upon Byzantine and Arab foundations emerged; in the north, on the other hand, the attempts to revive imperial power all ended in failure and local particularism triumphed all but completely. It was in this region, stretching from Rome to the Alps, that the characteristic Italian society of the Middle Ages was free to evolve most fully; here the communes became in effect city-states, so that the area may be conveniently described as communal Italy.