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Palermo in the Late Middle Ages: Territory and Population (13Th–15Th Century)

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Palermo in the Late Middle Ages: Territory and Population (13Th–15Th Century) KRISTJAN TOOMASPOEG Palermo in the late Middle Ages: territory and population (13th–15th century) Writing about Palermo in the late Middle Ages can be a great challenge for the historian. Whilst there already exists a considerable body of scientific literature on Palermo for the period between the first half of the 13th and the end of the 15th centuries, an approach that combines an overarching historical, archaeolog- ical, topographical and architectural study on the evolutions of the city has yet to be realised. The situation is quite different when examining the history of Palermo in the previous centuries under the Byzantines, Arabs, Normans and, in some respects, under the Staufens. The recently published collection of essays, A Companion to Medieval Palermo, having gathered some of the best specialists in this field, not only updates and deepens the issue, but also offers a convincing summary of the history of the city.1 Among the works dedicated to Palermo in the last centuries of the Middle Ages are those of Henri Bresc. His 1986 monograph Un monde meditérranéen, alongside a long series of other books and papers, pro- vides very detailed information on Palermo and its society whilst also crediting other important scholarship on this issue.2 This begins with the very detailed monograph of Patrizia Sardina on Palermo under the rule of the Chiaramonte family in the second half of the 14th century.3 It also includes, for example, the papers of the 1989 conference Palermo medievale (published in 1998)4 and the research carried out by historians like Pietro Corrao, Franco d’Angelo, Rosario 1 Annliese NEF (Ed.), A Companion to Medieval Palermo. The History of a Mediterranean City from 600 to 1500, Leiden / Boston 2013. 2 Henri BRESC, Un monde méditerranéen. Économie et société en Sicile 1300–1450 (Biblio- thèque des Écoles françaises d’Athènes et de Rome 262), Palermo / Rome 1986. Among the works of Bresc, available also in two collected studies volumes: IDEM, Politique et société en Sicile, XIIe–XVe s. (Variorum Collected Studies 329), London 1991 and IDEM, Una stagione in Sicilia, ed. Marcello PACIFICO (Quaderni Mediterranea Ricerche Storiche 11), Palermo 2010, I quote here especially IDEM, Les jardins de Palerme (1290–1460), in: Mélanges de l’École française de Rome. Moyen Âge-Temps Modernes 84–1 (1972), pp. 55–127; IDEM, “In ruga que arabice dicitur zucac ...” : les rues de Palerme (1070–1460), in: Le paysage urbain au Moyen Âge. Actes du XIe Congrès de la Société des historiens médiévistes de l’Enseignement supérieur public, Lyon 1981, pp. 155–186. A very stimulating summary of the topic, oriented also to the non-specialists, is given in IDEM / Geneviève BRESC-BAUTIER (Ed.), Palerme 1070–1492. Mo- saïque de peuples, nation rebelle : la naissance violente de l’identité sicilienne (Mémoires 21), Paris 1993. 3 Patrizia SARDINA, Palermo e i Chiaramonte: splendore e tramonto di una signoria. Potere nobiliare, ceti dirigenti e società tra XIV e XV secolo (Medioevo mediterraneo 1), Caltanis- setta / Rome 2003. 4 Cataldo ROCCARO (Ed.), Palermo medievale. Testi dell’VIII colloquio medievale, Palermo 26– 27 aprile 1989 (Schede medievali 30–31), Palermo 1998. 208 KRISTJAN TOOMASPOEG La Duca5, Igor Mineo and Fabrizio Titone, just to mention some names among many. Yet, all the data that can be obtained from these works must still be gathered, merged and summarised in research that describes every single aspect of the history of the city. This is not the aim of my paper. Instead, I intend to approach the subject from a critical point of view that describes the evolution of the city in large lines, which shall emphasise the main problems related to the issue. Its landmarks will be the political and social structures of Palermo and it shall in- clude the minority groups of the local society, the nodes of communication and, finally, the relationship between the city and its hinterland. While collocating Palermo inside the urban framework of the late Middle Ages, it is important to keep in mind that there was a period between the 13th and the 15th centuries that was characterised by a demographic collapse. As it was noted by Karl J. Beloch6 and then by James M. Powell7, the city had bene- fited from the significant growth of its population since the Islamic domination and reached the number of some 40 to 50,000 inhabitants in the second half of the 13th century. In these times, Palermo was definitively a large city that was comparable with some metropolises of the Eastern world: bigger than Rome and almost the same size as Genoa and Bologna. Yet, as it was pointed out by Henri Bresc in the middle of the 14th century, the population of the city suffered from a fast decline. At the end of this century, the city totalled 20,000 to 25,000 in- habitants. Some historians even propose a much lower number of some 15,000 persons living in the city in these times.8 At the end of the 15th century (after the expulsion of the local Jewish community), the city population was about 22,000 inhabitants.9 Comparing Palermo with Naples, the then capital of the mainland Kingdom of Sicily, highlights that, equally, the population of Naples was strug- gling. Medieval Naples had, more or less, the same area as Palermo, but in the 1270s the density of its population was much lower with less than 30,000 in- 5 Among the works of Rosario La Duca on the topography, urban space and evolution of Pa- lermo, see for example Rosario LA DUCA, Cartografia della città di Palermo dalle origini al 1860, Palermo 1962; IDEM, Per un dizionario toponomastico del medioevo palermitano, in: Le città medievali dell’Italia meridionale e insulare. Atti del convegno, Palermo, 28–29 novembre 2002, ed. Aldo CASAMENTO / Enrico GUIDONI (Storia dell’urbanistica / Sicilia 4), Rome 2004, pp. 121–127; IDEM (Ed.), Storia di Palermo, vol. 4: Dal Vespro a Ferdinando il Cattolico, Palermo 2008. 6 Karl J. BELOCH, Bevölkerungsgeschichte Italiens, vol. 1, Berlin 1937, pp. 119–121. 7 James M. POWELL, Medieval Monarchy and Trade: the Economic Policy of Frederick II in the Kingdom of Sicily, in: Studi Medievali III ser. 3 (1962), pp. 420–524, here p. 423. 8 Pietro CORRAO, La popolazione fluttuante a Palermo fra ‘300 e ‘400: mercanti, marinai, sala- riati, in: Strutture familiari, epidemie, migrazioni nell’Italia medievale, ed. Rinaldo COMBA / Gabriella PICCINNI / Giuliano PINTO (Nuove ricerche di storia 2), Naples 1984, pp. 435–450, here p. 435, based on Carmelo TRASSELLI, Sulla popolazione di Palermo nei secoli XIII–XIV, in: Economia e Storia. Rivista italiana di storia economica e sociale 11 (1964), pp. 329–344. 9 Henri BRESC, Palermo in the 14th and 15th Century: Urban Economy and Trade, in: NEF, A Companion to Medieval Palermo (as n. 1), pp. 235–268, here p. 236. .
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