Being a Community within a Lordship. A Perspective from Luserna San Giovanni on the Emergence of Council Registers in the Western Alps (14th-15th Centuries)

This paper provides a preliminary contribution on the data emerging from a survey of Italian municipal archives in the Western Alps, especially those of Piedmont and Valle d’Aosta. After an introduction dedicated to framing the problem of the production and preservation of council registers in the rural communities of this area, I will discuss the case-study of Luserna San Giovanni, combining records from municipal and seigneurial archives. I will show that during the fifteenth century this small community was affected by processes of growth and social mobility. This fostered the consolidation of municipal institutions cooperating with the seigniorial clan and allowing for flexible and open forms of political participation.