IMC 2020: Sessions
Session 143: Reassessing the Boundaries of Kinship in the Late Middle Ages, I: Genoa, a Peculiar Case Study
Monday 6 July 2020, 11.15-12.45
| Sponsor: | EU Marie Skłodowska-Curie Project (MSCA), 'Kinship, Alliance & Urban Space: The Genoese alberghi in the Late Middle Ages (c. 1150-c. 1450)' (GenALMA) |
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| Organiser: | Denise Bezzina, Centro interuniversitario di ricerca di storia del notariato (NOTARIORUM ITINERA), Università degli Studi di Genova |
| Moderator/Chair: | Aysu Dinçer, Department of History, University of Warwick |
| Paper 143-a | Is Blood Thicker than Water?: Reconsidering the Late Medieval Genoese Alberghi (Language: English) Index terms: Daily Life, Social History |
| Paper 143-b | The Lords of the Hill: Three Urban Levels of Analysis of the Fieschi Family in Genoa - Blood Kinship, Political Faction, and Territorial Identity, 1378-1400 (Language: English) Index terms: Genealogy and Prosopography, Social History |
| Paper 143-c | From Father to Son: Family Strategies among Notaries in 13th-Century Genoa (Language: English) Index terms: Daily Life, Social History |
| Abstract | When it comes to assessing the development of kinship structures and their boundaries, Genoa presents peculiar characteristics. This session aims at considering key developments in the city from three main perspectives. First, by considering the 'alberghi' - confederacies gathering several aristocratic families who decided to adopt a common surname and reside in closed districts - which had profound repercussions on society and on the urban fabric, establishing new limits to how kinship was understood. Secondly by focusing on one of these families, the Fieschi, and on their intra- and inter-familial relationships, their political and territorial strategies. Thirdly by looking at how family strategies worked among notaries, key figures in Genoese society, who showed a certain proclivity for keeping their profession within their families' confines. |