Garden Cities in Early Medieval Italy

Abstract

It is a commonplace assumption that the medieval cities were ‘ruralized’ by the presence of vegetable patches, fields, and livestock. Historians and archaeologists have often taken evidence for agricultural cultivation in urban spaces as indicators of the breakdown of medieval urban fabric and economies, but urban gardens were not simply by-products of decline or devolution. They were created because people living in the city wanted fresh fruits and vegetables and dedicated space to grow them. The evidence from Italy makes clear that residential properties with access to cultivated spaces were controlled by urban elites, both private and ecclesiastical. The study of these urban vineyards, vegetable patches, and fields, through their textual and archaeological records, provides us a small window on to shifting social structures within medieval cities, the rises and falls in small-scale markets, and emerging ideals of charity. The combination of property documents with letters, narrative chronicles, and a considerable amount of recent urban archaeology make it possible to observe urban food provisioning in early medieval Italy and to relate the phenomenon of urban gardening with shifting power structures in the city.

Admirable and delectable gardens: uiridaria in early medieval Italy

“…Possession of cultivated or cultivatable spaces within the city was a key tool in the workings of urban power in early medieval Italy. 81 This was true in part because there were very few markets of foodstuffs in early medieval cities, at least in the evidence available to us, and there was very little market specialization of crops in Italy before the eleventh century. 82 Unbuilt areaswhether or not they were cultivatedwere valuable also for the potential they offered for the forging of social relationships.…”

The Archaeology of Emptiness? Understanding Open Urban Spaces in the Medieval World

“…This is well demonstrated in early medieval Italy, where urban gardens were common features. These are often interpreted as indicative of decay, of a process of 'ruralization', but Caroline Goodson (2018) proposes that they played an important role in the performance of urban life, particularly in the negotiation of power, social cohesion, and devotion, by being a means for landowners to secure foodstuffs, engage in the charitable donation of foodstuffs to the church, and display wealth through the visibility of these holdings within the urban landscape. As such these spaces are important, adaptive features of the urban landscape in regard to food security, and it is dangerous to assume that open spaces support a simple narrative of urban decay.…”