Power Politics
Rob de Wijk
- Title
- Police Power in the Italian Communes, 1228-1326
- Author
- Gregory Roberts
- Price
- € 117,00 excl. VAT
- ISBN
- 9789463725309
- Format
- Hardback
- Number of pages
- 332
- Language
- English
- Publication date
- 05 - 08 - 2019
- Dimensions
- 15.6 x 23.4 cm
- Discipline
- History, Art History, and Archaeology
- Preview
- Download Preview
- Also available as
- eBook PDF - € 116,99
Acknowledgments
List of Figures
A Note on Usage
Abbreviations
Introduction
Police as a Mode of Governance
Police and Impersonal Rules
The Plan of the Book
Works Cited
Chapter 1: Police Power in the Italian Communes
The Podestà's Household
Police Patrols and Inspections
The Legal Process: From Detention to Trial
A Comparison of Selected Data
Conclusion: Policing and Hegemonic Justice
Works Cited
Chapter 2: Police Discretion and Personal Autonomy
Social Identity
Political Status
Factual Matters
Legal Presumptions
Police Jurisdiction
Mitigating Factors
Conclusion: The Paradox of Impersonality
Works Cited
Chapter 3: The Logic of Third-Party Policing
"To=Pursue and Capture Outlawed Criminals"
"To=Search for Men Bearing Prohibited Arms"
"Trustworthy Foreign Men"
"The Good State of the Commune"
Conclusion: A Preventive Police
Works Cited
Chapter 4: External Threats: Policing Out-Groups and Criminality
Judicial Violence
The Public Interest
Outlaws, Infames, and Men of Ill Repute
Police Patrols as Dragnet
The Role of Fama
Conclusion: A Persecuting Society?
Works Cited
Chapter 5: Internal Threats: Policing Violence and Enmity
Enmity and Instability
Policing Feud
Toward a Monopoly on Violence
Preventing Enmity
Conclusion: Legislating in the Shadow of Violence
Works Cited
Chapter 6: The Social Impact of Third-Party Policing
Mandatory Rules
Legal Literacy
Fear of the Familia
Violent Self-Help
Police-Community Relations
Public Corruption
Legal Privilege
Conclusion: A Legacy of Government Coercion
Works Cited
Conclusion
Works Cited
Index
Reviews and Features
"Police Power in the Italian Communes surely deserves to be recognized as one of the foundational studies of police power in the late medieval Italian communes, especially Bologna. Roberts’s book is dense and complex but will repay significant dividends for readers interested in violence, justice, and related issues in the medieval Italian urban context and beyond. Indeed, the author deserves great credit for his interdisciplinary approach to the topic, his well-organized and persuasive arguments, and his skillful marshalling of rich veins of archival evidence. It is certainly, to borrow from Francis Bacon’s famous taxonomy, a book "to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention," but one well worth the time and effort."
- Peter Sposato, The Medieval Review, 22.02.04 (2022)
"Policing Power is an important piece of scholarship that is thoroughly researched and well-written. It is a pivotal work for historians interested in the pre-modern formation of law enforcement and adds a much-needed perspective on questions about the fluid role of the policing power and how society navigates them."
- Mohammed Allehbi, The New Rambler Review (2020)
- Peter Sposato, The Medieval Review, 22.02.04 (2022)
"Policing Power is an important piece of scholarship that is thoroughly researched and well-written. It is a pivotal work for historians interested in the pre-modern formation of law enforcement and adds a much-needed perspective on questions about the fluid role of the policing power and how society navigates them."
- Mohammed Allehbi, The New Rambler Review (2020)
Gregory Roberts
Police Power in the Italian Communes, 1228-1326
Medieval states are widely assumed to have lacked police forces. Yet in the Italian city-republics, soldiers patrolled the streets daily in search of lawbreakers. Police Power in the Italian Communes, 1228-1326 is the first book to examine the emergence of urban policing in medieval Italy and its impact on city life.
Focusing on Bologna in the thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries, Gregory Roberts shows how police forces gave teeth to the communes' many statutes through a range of patrol activities. Whether seeking outlaws in the countryside or nighttime serenaders in the streets, urban police forces pursued lawbreakers energetically and effectively. They charged hundreds of individuals each year with arms-bearing, gambling, and curfew violations, convicting many of them in the process. Roberts draws on a trove of unpublished evidence from judicial archives, rich with witness testimony, to paint a vivid picture of policing in daily life and the capacity of urban governments to coerce.
Breaking new ground in the study of violence, justice, and state formation in the Middle Ages, Police Power in the Italian Communes sheds fresh light on the question of how ostensibly modern institutions emerge from premodern social orders.
Author
Gregory Roberts
Gregory Roberts is a foreign affairs officer at the U.S. State Department and previously served as a historian at the U.S. Army Center of Military History. He received his PhD from Yale University in 2013 and was a 2010-2011 Fulbright scholar in Italy.
