Arimannia (from Germ. Heer—army and Mann—man). In early medieval Lombard Italy, arimannia was the class of arimanni, the free armed men who took part in public gatherings and were subject only to the king. Arimannia came to be identified with the public tax paid by the arimanni. In the high Middle Ages, the levy of this tax was no longer a prerogative of royal power, as in many areas it had been granted to noblemen linked, whether directly or indirectly, to public powers.
Breve testatum a certified charter, which possesses legal validity because it has been drawn up by a notary public, abiding by all due formalities. The LF focus in particular on the various circumstances in which a breve testatum could be used as valid proof of investiture (1.2.1; 1.3pr.; 1.4; 2.2; 2.32; App. 1, ch. 16, 20).
Capitaneus (from Lat. caput, capitis—head). In several regions of northern Italy, c. 1000–1200, capitaneus was a title reserved for the first tier of the military aristocracy, characterised by a direct tie with marquesses, counts, archbishops, or bishops, from whom they often held benefices: La vassallità maggiore del Regno Italico. I capitanei nei secoli XI–XII, ed. Andrea Castagnetti (Roma: Viella, 2001). In Milan, the term applied to followers and direct fief-holders of the archbishop, one of the great nobles in the Kingdom. The LF (1.1, 1.7, 1.16, 2.10) suggest that only the king’s direct tenants were originally called capitanei, while their followers were called greater valvasores (see valvasor) and that only later the latter came to be called capitanei, and, subsequently, the second-tier military aristocrats to be called valvasores. Moreover, LF 2.10 suggests that the ‘new’ capitanei, in Milan, were holders of a plebs (see plebs), i.e. an ecclesiastical district, stressing their connection with archepiscopal power.
Clientulus (lit. a petty dependant). One of the several terms (vasallus, fidelis, miles) used to describe fief-holders. Its use seems to reveal an early influence of Roman law notions of patronage; the analogy between vassals and ‘clientuli’ is indeed stressed by Ardizone c. 1230–1240 (Summa feudorum, f. 3rb), who described the clientulus, a domestic servant, as the only clear similarity with vassals he could draw from the Corpus Iuris Civilis. In the LF, the term occurs only in tract B (LF 1.7–12), dating from the early twelfth century—the same tract also utilises fidelis as a synonym of vassal (see fidelis) and provides the uncommon meaning of religio as ‘individual oath’ (see religio). The term clientulus seems to stress the vertical nature of the feudal bond, by depicting the fief-holder as a humble client.
Consultum a marital pledge that is given to a wife which had the same value as her dowry, so as to secure the wealth brought to the household by her family: Le pergamene della canonica di S. Ambrogio nel secolo XII. Le prepositure di Alberto di S. Giorgio, Lanterio Castiglioni, Satrapa (1152–1178), ed. Annamaria Ambrosioni (Milano: Vita e Pensiero, 1974), docc. 40, 57, 60. The term reflects local Lombard usage: in the 1216 book of customs of Milan, the verb consultare bears the peculiar meaning of ‘exchange’: Liber consuetudinum Mediolani, ed. Enrico Besta (Milan: Giuffrè, 1949), 124 (ch. 25.13–15).
Curia (often as a synonym of curtis): a polysemic word that in the LF is used to indicate (1) a lord’s entourage or council; (2) a tribunal—e.g. curia Mediolanensis, the court of Milan; (3) a rural district. Concerning the last meaning, a curia was generally comprised of a village, agricultural land, commons such as pastures and woods, and, usually but not necessarily, a signorial house.
Curtis (often as a synonym of curia): a polysemic word, that in the LF indicates (1) a lord’s entourage or council—i.e. pares curtis or curiae, the peers of a lord’s court; (2) a rural district, or manor; according to the Carolingian manorial system, a curtis was ideally divided into a signorial demesne and land parcelled into farms (see mansus) allotted to tenants. In the high Middle Ages, this meaning had become obsolete.
Defensio in the LF, the term defines defence by oath, or compurgation, through which one party could establish its innocence or conclude a dispute. In some circumstances, this oath had to be confirmed by oath-helpers (sacramentales), generally twelve. Whilst this meaning seems unusual, references to the Lombarda (Lomb. 2.55.32 or 35) in LF 2.57.3 make explicit the connection between defensio and oath-helping.
Dominus in the LF the term generally indicates a lord or, more precisely, the grantor of a fief; however, in some instances, it can be intended as ‘owner’ (most notably, in LF 2.8.1). The distinction between the two meanings is sometimes very slight and points at the interpenetration of political power and ownership of land in the high Middle Ages.
Dominus plebis (see plebs): someone to whom a ‘plebs’ has been assigned or enfeoffed.
Feudum de camera a fief consisting of a sum of money paid annually out of a lord’s treasury.
Feudum de caneva a fief consisting of a fixed quantity of products paid annually out of a lord’s warehouse.
Fidelis (see fidelitas): a polysemic term describing (1) a believer, or, in the plural form fideles, the community of the faithful; (2) any person bound by an oath of allegiance; (3) more precisely, a person bound by an oath of fealty to a lord (dominus) from whom he holds a fief, hence a ‘sworn vassal’.
Fidelitas (see fidelis): fealty, and by extension, an oath of fealty; this oath could be an oath of allegiance to a lord or ruler or, in a stricter sense, an oath sworn in return for the grant of a fief.
Fodrum in the early Middle Ages, fodder that the subjects of the kingdom were bound to provide to the king and public officers while fulfilling their duties; from the eleventh century it became a pecuniary taxation levied for the same reason. The imperial ‘fodrum’ was levied when the emperor, or emperor to-be, organised an expedition in the Kingdom of Italy.
Gastaldus In early medieval Italy, the office of ‘gastaldus’ concerned the administration of portions of the Lombard king’s demesne. In high medieval Italy, it referred to the administrator of a lord’s estate (or curtis/curia), a synonym of villicus (see App. 1, ch. 9).
Laudamentum (see laudare): a collective statement which, according to the context in which it was given, could be an official approval or declaration concerning matters discussed at a public assembly, such as a signorial court, a civic council, or an imperial diet; or a collective ruling provided by a judging panel to decide an arbitration or a court case.
Laudare (see laudamentum): to provide a collective approval or declaration, or to deliver a collective legal decision. The verb laudare often pairs with confirmare in the end of disputes, when a panel of judicial authorities, like the peers of a signorial court or the officials of a civic government, were asked to ratify a judgment usually delivered by a member of that same panel.
Mansus (from Lat. manere—to remain, to dwell): a farm, usually comprised of a house, parcels of agricultural land, and shares of commons in the surrounding areas. According to the manorial system, a mansus (or, in earlier Italian sources, massaricia) was the basic cell of land exploitation, framed in curtes (see curtis) and allotted to a family (see LF 1.4.6).
Miles a knight. In the LF, the term indicates a fief-holder of noble status whose fief was protected under the custom of fiefs.
Plebs a baptismal church on which other suffragan parish churches depended; by extension, an ecclesiastical district centred on a baptismal church, which included several parish churches.
Populus (1) the people, a community of people; (2) in high medieval Italy, the community of free adult males who took part in the civic assembly of a communal city.
Precaria (from Lat. precari—to pray, implore): a precarial grant. In the early and high Middle Ages, a conveyance of land granted for a fixed time in exchange for rent, on acceptance of a request addressed in the form of a prayer, stressing the asymmetrical nature of the grant. Medieval precariae were different from the ancient Roman precarium grant in that the latter was granted indefinitely, revocably, and free of charge.
Praescriptio prescription, the extinction of a right that is not exercised for a time determined by law, usually thirty years. Conversely, the acquisition of a right over a moveable or immoveable property by undisturbed possession for a determined lapse of time, usually thirty years (acquisitive prescription).
Religio besides the more obvious meaning of ‘religion’, in the LF (1.10) the term has the unusual meaning of ‘individual oath’, as opposed to oaths supported by twelve oath-helpers. This utilisation might reveal, as perhaps with the term ‘clientulus’, also appearing only in tract B, the author’s acquaintance with notions derived from Roman law, in this case the oath described as ‘religio sacramenti’ (e.g., C. 2.56.4, concerning the function of oaths in arbitrations; C. 2.42.3, concerning oaths of minors). The same expression was used in a theological treatise produced in northern Italy in 1086: Wido Episcopus Ferrariensis, De scismate Hildebrandi. Pro illo et contra illum, ed. Georgius Heinricus Pertz (MGH, Scriptorum, t. xii; Hannover, 1856), 148–179, at 159 and 179.
Usus curialis (Lit. the usage of a curia, or the usage of curiales). This expression occurs only in two of the Capitula extraordinaria (App. 1, ch. 27; App. 2, ch. 7) to describe a privileged usage in respect to the content of those chapters. The adjective curialis derives from the polysemic word curia (see above, curia), of which it retains the ambiguities. In high medieval Italy, e.g. Guastalla, Luni, and Massa, curiales were knights who held ‘honourable’ fiefs inclusive of jurisdictional rights—one might say petty lordships: Andrea Castagnetti, Regno, signoria vescovile, arimanni e vassalli nella Saccisica dalla tarda età longobarda all’età comunale (Verona: Libreria universitaria editrice, 1997), 199–203; Mario Nobili, ‘Per lo studio della “società feudale” lunigianese: “milites”, “castellani” e vassalli nei secoli XI–XIII’, Archivio Storico Italiano, 165 (2007/3), 423–448, at 433 and footnote 34. In Verona, where Ardizone collected the capitula extraordinaria, curiales were noble fief-holders of local churches who resided in the area of the city’s castle: A. Castagnetti, ‘Da Verona a Ravenna per Vicenza, Padova, Trento e Ferrara’, in La vassallità maggiore, 347–491, at 369–371. It is worth noting that curialis might be a learned quotation referring to the Roman magistrates called decuriones (DuCange, ii, col. 670a–b), to whom Ardizone devoted a summa published in: Azo, Summa super Codice (Papiae: per Bernardino et Ambrosius de Rovellis, 1506; repr. Turin, 1966), 412–455.
Utiliter (Lit. ‘usefully’): an adverb referring to a category of legal actions termed utiles. In Roman law, actiones utiles were actions used in situations that were not covered by existing law and, therefore, they had to be devised by analogy (i.e., ‘usefully’) with the actions defined and recognised by the law, which were called actiones directae. In the LF utiliter appears in 2.43 with regard to the legal position of fief-holders, for whom the Corpus Iuris Civilis did not provide any rule; therefore, a fief-holder was allowed to ‘vindicate’ (see vindicare), that is to say, to bring a legal action called rei vindicatio utilis to recover possession of the fief, as if he were its owner—who on the other hand could bring a rei vindicatio directa. For an insightful overview of these issues in the LF, see: J. Chorus, ‘Investitura proprie dicitur possessio. Some remarks on possession in the Libri Feudorum’, in Le situazioni possessorie, ed. Letizia Vacca (Naples: Jovene, 2018), 87–116.
Valvasor (prob. from vassus vassorum = ‘vassal of vassals’) (see capitaneus, also for the different uses of the term). In several regions of high medieval Italy, a title for the second tier of the military aristocracy, below capitanei. In the LF it is often stated or implied that Lombard valvasores held fiefs from capitanei.
Vindicare (1) to enforce, to avenge; (2) to claim. With regard to this second meaning, the term may acquire a more precise legal connotation, referring to the Roman law action called rei vindicatio, available to owners to claim their property. This technical meaning emerges in 2.8.1, where a distinction is implied between this rei vindicatio and a quasi rei vindicatio (the text is quasi vindicare), which is available to those who were not, in the strictest sense, owners.