NOBILES, CIVES ET POPOLARI: THE POPULATION OF THE FOUR TOCCO TOWNS (FOURTEENTH TO FIFTEENTH CENTURIES)Nada Zecevic (Belgrade/Budapest)
Around the mid-fourteenth century, the Neapolitan family of the Tocco established themselves on Ionian islands, ruled until then by the family Orsini and the Neapolitan Angevins. During the rule of Carlo I Tocco (b. c. 1375 - d. 1429), the family's power spread to the continental regions of Epiros, which was a Greek-oriented territory with strong claims for autonomy and independence.
The Greek Tocco possessions, although mostly of rural character and organized either according to the western feudal model or the Byzantine pronia system, also included several towns, the most significant being St. Maure (Leukas), St. George (Kefalonia), Arta, and Ioannina. All were different from each other in their geographical location, architectural organization, and functions. Also, their urban character was not as apparent as that of the nearby Adriatic towns, widely known for their institutions, concentration of power in the circle of the urban elite (automatically implying a degree of social conflict), personal freedom of the majority of population, and (relative) independence from aliens (Krekic 1987). Yet documentary identification of the four Tocco towns as civitas/polis clearly demonstrates that they cannot be perceived only as seigniorial castles (castrum/kastron). Several features further point to the differentiation of the four towns from both the town-castles of the Tocco Neapolitan background (Benaiteau 1997) and those of their new Greek-Frankish surrounding. These included elements of independent decision-making in internal and external affairs, elements of monetary economy, and remarkable heterogeneity in the towns' populations, in ethnic groups (Greeks, Franks/Italians, Slavs, Albanians, Jews, Spanish, others), religious groups (Orthodox, Catholic, Jews), socio-professional groups (tripartite division into nobiles, cives and popolari, but also into archontes, soldiers, clergy, merchants/craftsmen and indigent), and in terms of wealth (rich, middle class, poor).
Researching the political, administrative, and juridical position of the towns' populations in the light of insider relationships (among various population groups) and relationships with outsiders (the ruling family and other foreigners), this paper investigates how the processes of integration and segregation influenced the urban character of the four towns during their subjection to a magnate family of foreign origin. The results of the inquiry yielded four principal conclusions. Firstly, the relationship between the towns and the Tocco family cannot be described as a simple subjection of their inhabitants (who received certain privileges in exchange for their consent to the family's rule), and it went through several stages, from initial harmony to final feelings of conflict in some parts of the urban elites towards the ruling family. Secondly, the Tocco restrained and dismantled the existing urban elites, mostly by confronting the Greek Orthodox secular town-based nobility with their clerical and alien counterparts, and also by favoring merchants and soldiers, among whom many were foreigners. Thirdly, the de facto powers of the new Greek privileged circle were very limited, not only with respect to the ruling family, but also to the privileged Frankish/Italian military nobility. Finally, the favored Greek urban elites received particular attention from the family, mostly during the Tocco conflicts with their neighbors, which further suggests that the socio-political varieties of the four Tocco towns cannot be regarded as consequences of spontaneous urban development due to loose state organization (as demonstrated by Cirkovic 1987, for Bosnian and Serbian towns), but rather as direct consequences of Tocco regional politics.