In a periphery of the Empire: Tuscany between the Lombards and the Carolingians

The conquest of Lombard Tuscany by the Franks of Charlemagne was a direct consequence of the fall of Pavia, the capital of the Kingdom. Recent researches have investigated the most meaningful changes of policy that took to the establishment of the Frankish rule over the Regnum Langobardorum, especially from an institutional perspective: which were, however, during the reign of Charlemagne the major social changes that where a consequence of the conquest of local societies of central and northern Italy? Who played a key role and led those changes, making the rule of Charles possible even in local societies? The principle aim of this paper is to describe the aforementioned issues through the perspective of eight and ninth century Tuscan private documents. Numerically and qualitatively relevant in comparison with the more general panorama of central and northern Italy, these documents illuminate the passage from one rule to the other. Furthermore, their investigation allows underlining novelties and changes that took place within one of the peripheries of the empire during the forty years of Charles rule (774-814). The strategies put into practice by the Frankish court were numerous: a great investment in favour of the major ecclesiastical institutions, especially of the cathedral churches and of their major representative, with the evident aim of having an effect on local societies through a series of actions that can be defined as typically Carolingian. In this process, however, protagonists who are traditionally less easily observable by historians were involved: local political lay an ecclesiastical elites, for instance, played a fundamental role in directing peripheral societies towards the requirements of the new regime. In my paper I will therefore emphasise the importance of local elites participation to obtain results in the short and medium term.