Genoa

Who holds it

Name

not pinned for the morning of 1 January 1200 (see Genoa)

Title

The commune: podestà or consuls of the commune

Confidence

low

Lord in 1200

The commune of Genoa (Compagna Communis); the archbishop Bonifacio (since 1188) holds the cathedral, his palace and old rights in the city (a Church map record).

How things stand that morning

The commune holds the city; feuds among the families are the chief internal danger.

Charter

Consuls attested from 1099; the Compagna's oath renewed every few years; the right to coin granted by Conrad III (1138-1139); Frederick I's diploma of 1162 recognising the commune's rights over the coast from Monaco to Portovenere; Genoa was never in the Lombard League and is not a party to the Peace of Constance (1183). No written statute book survives from before 1200; the oath of the Compagna and the breve of the consuls served instead.

Council

The general assembly of citizens (parlamentum); the council of the commune (consiliatores); the consuls of the commune or the podestà; the consuls of the pleas (consules placitorum), judges chosen by district, who outlasted the old consulate; Agosto reports that from 1196 the podestà was assisted by a council of eight. Officers on 1 January 1200 not pinned.

Communities

The great families (Doria, Spinola, della Volta, de Castro, Embriaci, Grimaldi, de Mari, Usodimare, Avvocati, and the Fieschi counts who keep houses in the city); foreign merchants from Lombardy, Piacenza, Lucca and Provence; a very small Jewish presence [not pinned for 1200]; the Hospitallers' house of San Giovanni di Pré by the harbour.

Fairs and markets

No great fairs: trade runs all year round the convoy seasons to the Levant and to the west [no fair dates pinned].

Militia

The citizens serve by city district (compagna) on land and at sea; the commune hires galleys from its citizens and calls ships from the Riviera towns (Rapallo owed two galleys against Pisa). No carroccio is attested for Genoa.

Walls and castle

The walls of 1155-1163, built in haste against Frederick I, enclose the old castle hill (Castello), the cathedral of San Lorenzo, the harbour front and the newer suburbs; the archbishop's palace stands by San Lorenzo. The commune has no town hall yet: the consuls met in private houses (in 1190 in the notary Ogerio Pane's). Family towers and fortified compounds (the Embriaci tower, the Doria at San Matteo, the della Volta) dominate the streets.

Trade and crafts

Shipping and long-distance trade financed by commenda contracts; spices, alum, cotton, silk, dyes and grain from the East and from Sicily; cloth from Lombardy and the north (the Champagne fairs trade through Genoa); hides and furs (Guglielmo Grasso imported pelts in 1190-1191); shipbuilding; money-changing and banking; salt.

What the year holds

What happened next, if nothing in play changes it. Each event carries what it depends on and what would stop it.

In 1200

1. early 1200 (1 January or 2 February: not pinned)New officers of the commune take office.Depends on: The councils' choice. Stopped by: Faction fighting.

Later, on the likely course

1. 1203Genoa organises its Riviera districts into podesterie (Rapallo among the first).Depends on: Peace in the Riviera. Stopped by: Revolt of the lords.
2. 22 September 1203Archbishop Bonifacio dies (Church map).Depends on: Natural death. Stopped by: Nothing likely.

Where the sources disagree

Evidence: Institutions and walls well known; the officers that morning not pinned.

Primary sources for Genoa

Chronicles, registers, sagas and inscriptions written in or near 1200 that cover this entry. Each has its own page with editions, translations and where to read it.

• Annals of Genoa, by Caffaro and his continuators, with Ogerio Pane for 1197 to 1219, Ogerio Pane and the other official annalists of Genoa (year by year under the commune's authority; the 1197 to 1219 section by Ogerio Pane). The official record of the commune. Read online
• Annals of Pisa, by Bernardo Maragone, with continuation, Bernardo Maragone (1160s to 1175, continued to 1192). Pisa's official annals stop in 1175 and their continuation in 1192, so there is no Pisan narrative for 1200 itself. Read online
• The register of San Pietro di Silki (11th to 13th centuries). A monastic register of lands, serfs, gifts and lawsuits in the giudicato of Torres (Logudoro), written in the vernacular.
• The Registers of Pope Innocent III for 1199 to 1201, Innocent III and the papal chancery (22 February 1199 to 21 February 1201). The pope's outgoing letters for the year, in his chancery's own copy, touching nearly every realm in the atlas. Read online
• Greek Acts and Documents of the Middle Ages, Sacred and Secular (documents of the 9th to 15th centuries, edited by F. Miklosich and J. Muller, 6 vols (Vienna, 1860 to 1890)). Volume 3 (Acta et diplomata res Graecas Italasque illustrantia, 1865) prints the imperial chrysobulls to Venice, including Alexios III's of November 1198 with its list of the provinces and towns of the Empire where Venetians traded, the best single picture of the imperial provinces as they stood on 1 January 1200, together with the Pisan and Genoese privileges. Read online