La pauvreté et la citoyenneté dans les suppliques du xive siècle

The petitions to Taddeo Pepoli lord of Bologna (1337-1347) represents the most important corpus of supplications addressed to lay authority in 14th century Italian state, both for number of deeds and quality. Under Pepoli’s regime a true system of “government by grace” is attempted. Among different typologies of supplications, we have examined petitions to obtain summary procedure in order to settle private conflicts with “powerful” litigants. Ritual formula of supplication seems to oblige the petitioner to present himself as a “poor“. Nevertheless the sense of term “poor” is complex: it does reveal less a real economic scarcity, then a social and juridical vulnerability deserving protection by public authority. As an old roman-Christian tradition preserved, the poor was people who failed to obtain justice in public courts. Taddeo Pepoli, tank to his Mercy, helped the weak people to stay in justice; on the other hand, the petitioners were able to restate their disputes by summary procedure without formalities.