Page 86 - Lanzarotto Malocello from Italy to the Canary Islands

86 from Italy to the Canary Islands

the second wave with the Lombards and the Muslim Saracens, up to the
final, third wave with the Avars, the Hungarians and other Slavs. In these
five hundred years, the only salvation (for one’s own life, the lives of one’s
family members and for one’s assets) was brought by emigrating from the
cities to the countryside, far away from the thoroughfares of the Barbarian
hordes, if possible on the top of those promontories and thin necks of land
of which Liguria is so rich: a safe shelter from those nomadic attackers
who the Greek called the “Barbaroi”, because they were unable to articu-
late a language, uttering instead only guttural sounds.
This shelter was guaranteed and protected by the armies of the feuda-
tory of the area (whether Vassallo, Valvassino or Valvassore), but in ex-
change it demanded heavy tolls (duties), as well as road toll charges, toll
charges for pastures and for woods (both wood and tree fruits), the right to
request the ploughmen to work one’s own land “sine precio” (not against
payment), and especially the right to inherit the goods of one’s own de-
ceased people, without heirs and the notorious “ius primae noctis”. This
system therefore carries within the seed of its own self-destruction: once
the epoch of the great Barbarian invasions was over, the serfs wanted to be
emancipated from the feudal rule by going to the cities to become salaried
workers, craftsmen, shopkeepers and small-scale merchants.
That saw the rebirth of the city after the year 1000.
The “Rebirth” in the 11 century naturally concerned Genoa, too,
th
which, from 1056, established itself as an autonomous entity.
Here – after this long but necessary foreword – we come back to what
we said about the Genoese geopolitical realpolitik.
The free Commune, precisely as such, could spur the serfs to free them-
selves from their lords, just like, on the other hand, it could tempt the
lords to sell their large estates to the Commune; we should not forget that
expanding markets resulted in increased wealth, an increase which encour-
aged the same noblemen to abandon their large rural estates to move to the
cities, in order to take part in business trading, including by contributing
with their own capital; this created an ever greater continual upwards spiral
of economic expansion.
It is essential to know about the characteristic structure of the Genoese
family of the time, the albergo, a private body, but one which was ac-
knowledged by Genoese legislation; if we did not know this, it would be
hard to understand most of the political and institutional changes occurring
between the 1200s and 1400s.