• 3 Archivio di Stato di Parma (hereafter ASPR), Supremo Consiglio di Giustizia e di Grazia e Consiglio (...)

1Late in October, 1637, one Alessandro Mariano wrote a petition to the duke of Parma, Odoardo Farnese (1622-1646). Mariano complained that, earlier in August, he was investigated by the Parman chief criminal judge, the Auditore Criminale, because “he might have killed Gironimo di Pastori in the village of Borghetto […] and because [Mariano] wishes to prove his innocence in this crime of which [he] was impugned, he has decided to turn himself in.” However, Mariano’s petition went on to explain, “he doubts that some evil will not be ordered against him when he will be in prison.” Therefore, his petition requested that “[Mariano] may not be interrogated for any other matter than for the abovementioned homicide”3. What these other matters were, the petition did not say. However, Mariano’s chief concern was the possibility of being punished for the murder which he apparently did not commit, and Mariano opted to surrender to the authorities rather than risk a sentence in absentia. The duke ratified the petition, and added that Mariano would be granted a safe conduct on condition that he spent ten days in jail in Parma upon his surrender.

• 4 An early, and very astute, analysis of the ways in which petitions (in this case, for homicide pard (...)
• 5 Gauvard (1997, p. 281).
• 6 Muchembled (1989, p. 17)

2This article is about petitioning and violence, and their intersection in seventeenth-century Parma. Why did Mariano surrender to the authorities for a violent crime he did not commit, and why was he incarcerated regardless ? What purpose did his petition serve in this case ? Here, petitioning refers to the process by which subjects appealed to authorities for assistance in resolving a wide range of issues ; in Italy, this constituted a system of supplications written by notaries, working within judicial structures. Historians have done much work on petitions in the last decade, noting the ability of petitions to increase the personal power of a ruler, often at the expense of bureaucratic processes or even in prejudice to the rights of higher authorities4. Petitioning in France also served to strengthen the institutions of royalty and government, if the royal body’s presence produced a lasting effect of obedience through the passage of a royal tour5. Muchembled used French petitions explicitly to study violence in Artois, and argued that while adhering to a standard of truth and being revealing of people’s habits and customs, they do not provide historians with direct access to a history of criminality6. Early modern Europeans used petitions to place their behaviour into ordinary, or even banal, circumstances, and thus petitions reveal much about the role of violence in social life in the early modern world.

• 7 Chambers, Dean (1997, pp. 113-146 & 179-232) ; Terpstra (2001) ; Waquet (1992, p. 153).
• 8 Smail (2003, pp. 89-132).
• 9 Mantecón (2006).

3At the same time, recent scholarship into the ducal states of early modern Italy has revealed the ways in which aspiring rulers meddled in the affairs of their magistracies, subverted their own orders, or ignored official corruption in order to pursue a more expansive supreme authority situated in the ducal persona7. Subjects and supplicants themselves were also inclined to strategic use of court systems. From the medieval period, a time associated with the rationalization of courts, citizens and residents of cities used litigation to damage their enemies, by staining their reputations or instigating an endless series of judicial processes against them8. Early modern courts were thus arenas of negotiation, between individuals, and between individuals and institutions, in which the subjects of absolutist governments both propagated and resolved their social conflicts9.

• 10 These rates of violence are usually expressed in homicide rates, as a measure of violent deaths per (...)
• 11 Eisner (2003, pp. 95-99). Eisner›s data for Italy are not as complete as for other areas ; more arc (...)
• 12 Beattie (1974) ; Cockburn (1991) ; Given (1977) ; Hammer (1978).

4Europeans’ use of courts to settle conflicts expanded at the same time as historical rates of violence declined in a long-term process10. Violence in this article is primarily empirical : it refers to physical aggression between individuals or groups with the aim of inflicting wounds or humiliation. This could be either reciprocal or one-sided victimization. Manuel Eisner’s 2003 database of historical data on violent crime throws its empirical decline into sharp relief, revealing that from England to Finland, in the Netherlands as in Switzerland and Germany, rates of interpersonal violence fell dramatically, with Italy experiencing a decline later, in the mid-nineteenth century11. Eisner’s synthesis demonstrates the strength of a comparative, quantitative method in this field : in order to assess properly the behavioural changes that Europeans seemingly underwent, a longue durée analysis of statistical trends, with consideration of source quality and the roles played by specific social groups in any findings, is necessary to document the incidence of violence itself. This was done for the British Isles in the 1970s, but has not been done for specific regions of Italy and much of the continent12.

• 13 Gallant (2000) ; Muir (1993, p. xxix) ; Spierenburg (1994, 1996, 1998).
• 14 Spierenburg (2001, 2008).
• 15 Spierenburg (2001).

5However, a statistical picture of levels of violence can simply demonstrate the phenomenon, not explain it. Here, agreement among historians falters, and explanations derive from two streams of thought. The first stream follows Elias’ theory of the civilizing process. Scholars in this vein argue that changes to socio-cultural forces, notably concepts of male honour, reduced the violent tendencies of European males. The argument, simplified for brevity, goes as follows. As Europeans defined male honour less by lineage and physical strength, and more so by personal comportment, fashion and good manners, deadly elite violence gave way to stylized duels ; the lower classes responded by developing their own honour codes and ritualizing their own violence13. Historians have modified the civilizing process to pertain to violence, and have confirmed its applicability to observable declines in violence14. The increasing criminalization of violence by state authorities, according to these authors, did more than just cause people to consider the costs of their actions : Spierenburg argues that demonstrable changes in levels of human aggression and its typologies are the manifestations of genuine changes to human emotional make-up, as a result of which humans are not only less inclined to violence, but less capable of the inclination itself15.

• 16 Blok (2003, p. 103).
• 17 Carroll (2006, p. 25).
• 18 Hanlon (2007, p. 9).
• 19 Hyams (2003, p. 71).
• 20 Carroll (2006, pp. 7-8) ; Hyams (2003, pp. 14, 34, 83, 92 & 108).

6A counter-school of thought sees violence as a social strategy available to all people at all times, who employ it among other tools, such as the law, to advance what they see as their interests and thus give it some kind of communicative meaning. Anton Blok takes this view in his anthropological work, noting that “people have developed strong feelings about […] violence. They are inclined to consider[…] [it] as the antithesis of civilization,” before arguing for violence’s strong communicative power16. For historians, this has meant a reconsideration of the decline of violence and its place in early modern society. Thus, Stuart Carroll argues against the civilizing process and the expansion of the French monarchy as determining factors in the decline of elite violence in sixteenth-century France. French nobility retained the prerogative to use violence strategically to advance their own interests ; if they chose not to do so, it was because they recognized better opportunities for social and personal advancement in their local social milieus and within the royal house’s expansion, while in fact the duel did not constitute a ritualized violence, but an amplified and more bloody violence indeed17. Gregory Hanlon and Paul Hyams take views similar to Carroll’s in their works on conflict in seventeenth-century Italy and late-medieval England. Hanlon brings forth the many arenas of minor and deadly conflict between Tuscan villagers and illuminates the fact that “there was a variety of individual responses to different problems”18. Hyams looks at attempts by medieval English kings to extend a “king’s peace” and dampen the incidence of feud, and finds that even if monarchy wished to centralize, and to impose a standard of behaviour on nobles, feuding remained a basic category of social interaction for medieval English elites19. Common among these cases is the idea that cycles of retributive violence tend to be self-limiting, because the costs of endless violence are not practically bearable20.

• 21 For the study of violence in particular, historians must not avoid confronting the psychological an (...)

7This article seeks to unify these two views by proposing that while early modern Europeans continued to consider, and to exercise, violence as a functional strategy of social competition, this functionalism was curbed by the evolution of institutional structures encouraging conflict resolution through negotiation and participation in legal systems21. People retained the propensity for violence in many situations, as they do today. However, processes of centralization and absolute expansion had real effects on the choices made by ordinary people. When presented with options that offered non-violent solutions to conflicts, subjects tended to pursue these routes, and over time these options became first the best and then the only functional options within the bounds of society. We should therefore look for practical explanations of how European peoples managed the control of violence throughout the early modern period. Historians need to consider how populations seized the opportunity for active participation in the control of community violence. This study assesses how the process of petitioning the ducal court constituted one such mechanism in seventeenth-century Parma, Italy.

• 22 I here use « absolute » as a signifier, while recognizing that the reality of early modern monarchi (...)

8The duchy of Parma in the seventeenth century is an appropriate focus for such a study for two reasons. First, the seventeenth century may be considered a period of governmental stability in Italy. The absolute states that formed in the sixteenth century had, for the most part, established themselves under firm dynastic control by the early seventeenth century22. The Farnese overcame local opposition to their rule in 1612, and reigned in an unbroken line until 1731. They are a paradigmatic absolute dynasty. Thus, the duchy of Parma provides a stable background against which we may isolate violence and petitioning to determine their interaction. Second, seventeenth-century Italy has not received the attention paid to the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries in English scholarship, particularly with regards to the interactions between absolute states and their populations. One goal is thus to encourage scholars to look beyond traditional “renaissance” periodization to find continuities and disruptions between these centuries.

• 23 The roles of the maternal regents who governed during the minority of these two dukes begs investig (...)

9The duchy of Parma was located in north-central Italy, south of the Po and west of Bologna. In the seventeenth century, its population was approximately 300,000 between the cities of Parma and Piacenza, and the outlying towns and settlements. The dukes referred to here, Odoardo I (1622-1646) and Ranuccio II (1646-1694) were ducal monarchs who received petitions from their subjects through a body known as the Council of Sentencing (Consiglio della Dettatura)23. These petitions constituted an important element of the judicial system. Parmans could write petitions addressing civil and criminal issues. They divide loosely into six categories : Judicial (asking for pardon for a crime), Protection (requesting help solving private conflicts), Favour (seeking employment at the court, for instance), Charity (often from widows or young women), Tax Reduction or Extension, and Debt Relief or Collection. Petitions thus drew a range of issues under the authority of the Farnese judiciary. The Farnese dukes entrusted the administration of the Dettatura to a series of officers and Presidents, whose powers and responsibilities expanded over time as the Farnese saw opportunities to increase the reach and efficiency of government.

• 24 Di Noto (1980, pp. 91-105).
• 25 Di Noto (1980, p. 75).
• 26 Ibid.

10The Dettatura was the appeals court of a judicial system that combined central courts with a network of councils and officials that brought information and people into Parma from the countryside. In the city, a chief criminal judge (Uditore Criminale) relied upon a rudimentary system of police (sbirri) to apprehend criminals, and he had independent responsibility for urban cases as well as for those from the many fiefs in Farnese land. He judged from three criminal benches in Parma. This judge also decided cases involving feudal, military and poaching laws. His membership on the Supreme Council of Justice and Mercy, which vetted all sentences of death, mutilation or long-term galley service, gave him jurisdiction over the entire Farnese territory. At the same time, the judge needed the approval of this Supreme Council to approve his sentences of execution, mutilation, or long-term galley service. Investigations in the countryside were carried out by municipal governors (Podestà) who reported their conclusions to the Supreme Council in Parma24. The Dettatura functioned as an appeal court in this system. Plaintiffs and defendants could request pardon from the Dettatura, while the criminal judge and his counterpart, the civil judge, could each request a decision, taken by vote, from the council’s members25. The Dettatura’s decisions were confirmed by the President of the Supreme Council, who was also a member of the Council of Sentencing. The membership of the Dettatura included the presidents of the Fiscal Camera, which governed tax and budgetary matters, and the Congregation of the Communes, which governed the widespread operations of rural village councils26. Thus, the Dettatura brought a range of competencies under one jurisdiction, and this efficient centralization of the appeals process is characteristic of the relatively simple judiciary of the Farnese state.

• 27 The council was originally established by Ranuccio I in 1594. At that time, it possessed jurisdicti (...)
• 28 Other programs were aimed at noble pacification as described by Angelozzi (2003) ; Di Simplicio (19 (...)

11Two key elements of the Farnese judiciary provide the “official” view of the petitioning process. These are the magistracy responsible for the system’s operation (Consiglio della Dettatura), and a book of prescriptions (the Rituale) that regulated the fees and other administrative business arising from petitioning. The Consiglio della Dettatura was one of the most powerful bodies in the administration of the Parman state throughout the seventeenth century and until the end of the Farnese dynasty in 173127. It possessed ultimate jurisdiction over most criminal and civil matters, arbitrating disputes and determining penalties for crimes. The dukes of Parma found in this council a means of entry into the daily affairs of subjects. Its role as such helped to effect a shift that would see the population turn first to the courts and the state for assistance in solving conflicts, before violence overcame them28.

• 29 Biblioteca Palatina di Parma (hereafter BP), MS Parmeggiane, Miscellanea Farnesiana, #554. This doc (...)

12However, the dukes imposed limits on the ability of the Dettatura to act on its own authority. The council had the right to decide whether to grant or to reject a petition, but it had to draft the response (rescritto) according to certain rules laid out in the Rituale, a book compiled with the duke’s approval29. This book regulated the taxes on criminal petitions (suppliche), ascribing certain fees for a pardon for crimes depending on their severity and the likelihood of the petition being granted. Thus, although given a certain amount of responsibility, the Dettatura was nevertheless always under the thumb of the dukes.

• 30 BP, MS Parmeggiane, Miscellanea Farnesiana, #554, p. 3. The granting of a peace accord from the vic (...)
• 31 Hyams (2003).
• 32 BP, MS Parmeggiane, Miscellanea Farnesiana, #554, p. 2.
• 33 Ibid., I-IV ; Repetti (2000, pp. 301-305).

13The rules of that ducal thumb were found in the Rituale noted above, which exhaustively lists the gamut of appealable issues – specifically pardonable crimes – and the fines that attended a petition. The Rituale lists the prescribed fees for supplications in a section entitled ‘Regulæ Generales Dictaturæ’. The preamble continues with some basic guidelines for supplication. For instance, no homicide committed in anger could be supplicated without a three-year interval and the prior concession of a pax from the victim’s family, thus encouraging the killer to make his primary amends with the victims30. This requirement has medieval antecedents based on the notion that homicide was primarily an offense against a victim’s kin, and secondarily against the king’s law. In medieval England, the king’s attempts to act against homicide were thwarted by the determination of the nobility to demand their own satisfaction and peace-making processes31. By the early modern period, however, Italian governments freely prosecuted homicides using inquisitorial process, so no complaint from family was required to initiate an investigation. The requirement for a peace accord in Parma is thus a functional continuity reflecting structural change. While prosecuting homicides as crimes, the Farnese also allowed the victims’ families a modicum of input. This not only legitimized the duke’s pardon, by ensuring its acceptance among the victims of crime, but also ensured that potential retributive violence was foresworn by those likely to take vengeance. The manual also dictates a general rule for the taxation of supplications, that the fee for a granted petition be set at 1/5 the potential judicial fine for the pardoned crime32. Finally, before listing the prescribed fees, the guide describes how to craft a rescritto, the different types of which are examined in Paola Repetti’s analysis of the crafting of Parman suppliche33. The Rituale amounted to a formalization of the means of petitioning : if they wished to access ducal mercy, Parmans were required to follow a defined series of legal actions, beginning with the drafting of a petition, that emphasized the unequal power relationships between ruler and ruled. Moreover, the Council’s development over time allowed the Farnese to continue drawing private dispute settlement into the legal framework of the state. This association of private and public justice afforded the dukes a concrete identification with the social problems and needs of their subjects, while at the same time pacifying the behavioural responses of Parmans to threatening situations.

• 34 On the general pardon in England, see Kesselring (2003, pp. 56-90).
• 35 ASPR, Gride, #184.
• 36 ASPR, Gride, #202 ; Ibid., #229, unnumbered decrees of 2 and 5 March 1629.
• 37 ASPR, Gride, #229.

15Like the Tudor monarchs of England, Farnese dukes publicised special decrees of general pardon, called decreti gratiosi, which celebrated a momentous occasion in the dynastic household such as a royal birth or the ascendancy of a new duke34. In 1628, Odoardo declared one such decree to celebrate his marriage to Margherita de’Medici, the daughter of Cosimo II35. Margherita’s signature on the decree was her formal entry into the role of Duchess (Duchessa), and the general pardon that accompanied the ducal marriage was an attempt to affiliate the subject population, and its welfare, with the Farnese dynasty and its future as represented by the young duke and his new bride. A new general pardon was decreed in 1629 to celebrate the Duchess’ pregnancy with Odoardo’s son Ranuccio, the future Ranuccio II ; this decree was extended and renewed repeatedly36. The last renewal came in February 1631 and noted specifically the duke’s awareness that his previous decrees had not served “those who are far away, or truly for diverse reasons have been prevented from being able to enjoy the benefits of the said decree”37. To remedy this, the decree commanded senior officials in Parma, Piacenza, Borgo san Donnino and the Congregation of the Communes (Congregazione sopra Comuni) to publicize the month-long extension as widely as possible to ensure that all subjects had effective access to the general pardon. Public demonstrations of the strength of the Farnese dynasty were accompanied by royal grace to cement their subjects’ identification of well-being with the stability of the Farnese.

• 38 ASPR, Gride, V40 :94, unnumbered decree of 29 June 1661.

16The dukes also used irregular decrees to transform judicial offices. In a 1661 decree addressed to both the officers and notaries of the Dettatura, Duke Ranuccio II laid out the grounds on which his councillors would best fulfil his “personal patronage no less than [their] public service”38. This decree was a comprehensive rendering of the necessary security of the Dettatura’s physical offices and of the document archive it governed. The offices had two keys, kept by the chancellor and vice-chancellor. Only the chancellor or vice-chancellor were authorised to write and sign rescritti in the name of the duke, and if supplicants requested copies, they were required to do so of the Dettatura’s staff notaries and the copy itself had to be made within the Dettatura’s offices. The decree ordered that originals of all supplications be kept under lock and key. Responsibility for the maintenance of security and the inviolability of the Dettatura’s physical edifice, and hence their political and moral authority, was given to the two chancellors already tasked with responding to supplicants. In this way, the duke drew a direct line of authority from himself, through the chancellor and vice-chancellor, to those subjects who abased themselves at the feet of his magistrates and begged his assistance in their social conflicts.

• 39 Forclaz (2006, pp. 76-77 & 166-181) ; Cancila (2009, p. 323).
• 40 Meredith (2008,pp. 92-103).

17The decline in violence, the growth of ducal authority in the princely states of the Italian peninsula, and the formalisation and regulation of the means for subjects to appeal to and petition the state authorities are intimately related. As Italian states crystallised in the seventeenth century, systems of petitioning became more expansive, encompassing a broader range of issues from criminal pardon to social assistance and tax relief39. Like their counterparts in other major and minor cities, the Farnese consistently prescribed harsh penalties and mediated their application in practice. Additionally, after a brief spike in numbers in 1636, capital punishment in Parma declined to a level averaging about one a year by 1700, and one every three years thereafter40. No longer inclined to demonstrate their power through the public gallows, the Farnese exploited the potential of suppliche. The Farnese income from petitions constituted approximately one percent of annual revenue in the late seventeenth century, and cannot be considered a significant windfall. The Farnese dukes instead recognised that petitioning could help to stabilise a population that was increasingly dependent upon the ability of a single dynastic house to maintain order in the cities and villages of the state. As a reliable means to solve problems without the risks of violence, petitioning drew Farnese subjects away from private justice and into the expanding judiciary.

• 41 The records of the Consiglio della Dettatura are conserved in the font Supremo Consiglio di Giustiz (...)

181,440 petitions drawn from six bundles at approximate fifteen-year intervals from Parma demonstrate how Farnese subjects approached the apparatus of government and attempted to influence the decisions of high-level officials41. Additionally, a series of administrative materials and correspondence reveal the ‘official’ workings of the Council, and how the Farnese dukes involved themselves personally in the appeals by subjects and influenced the decisions of senior magistrates. Those cases in which the dukes, particularly Ranuccio II, took a personal interest illuminate clearly the configuration of princely politics that is also visible in the workings of the Medici regime. The combination of judicial correspondence and petitions allows for a qualitative assessment of the ways in which petitioning constituted a reciprocal process.

• 42 CR= criminal reprieve ; P = protection ; F= Favour ; C= Charity ; TR= Tax Relief ; DR= Debt Relief. (...)

Table 1 : Number of petitions per category per year in Parma.42

• 43 On the inquisitorial system of continental Europe generally, see Spierenburg (1984, pp. 8-9).
• 44 Di Noto (1980, p. 71).

20However, this program of intensely personalised power relied fundamentally on the active participation of both the dukes and their subjects in the system of petitioning. Parman citizens knew the system, and used it well. The Farnese judiciary operated under the inquisitorial system, and subjects progressed through it as follows : The complaint of a plaintiff was not required to initiate procedure. Upon the report of a crime, either by denunciation or because it was discovered some other way, a police force (sbirri) attempted to apprehend the criminal. If they were successful, the suspect faced inquisitorial trial behind closed doors by the Uditore Criminale or one of his assistant judges, and was subjected to torture in order to ensure full and truthful disclosure43. Once interrogation was complete, the judge compiled reports of questions and answers, and provided this evidence to the defence, who then had the opportunity to review it with the accused. The defence then compiled his own report and gave it to the judge, who pronounced sentence. This concluded the initial phase of the judicial process. The Dettatura could become involved in two ways. First, the judge himself could request input from the Dettatura into his decision, and the council would vote on the issue and return their answer44. This was done in cases where the outcome was unclear, in cases of disputes where the parties were of sufficiently high status to challenge the decision by a single judge, or where the judge felt that the additional input of the Dettatura would give the sentence more gravity, especially in capital cases where ordinary judges did not have the competency to declare a death sentence unilaterally. Alternatively, if the defendant was declared guilty and sentenced, he or she could appeal the sentence directly to the council, by having a notary draft a petition to the council that outlined the reasons why the defendant believed him- or herself worthy of pardon. If convinced, the judges of the council drafted the rescritto according to the established rules.

• 46 This is much in line with Davis’ analysis of petitions, in which particular features of a pardon le (...)
• 47 Margarita Spadania, for instance, submitted two petitions in 1631, progressively lowering the fine (...)
• 48 ASPR, Supremo Consiglio di Giustizia e di Grazia e Consiglio della Dettatura, Supplica e Memoriali (...)

24The familiarity of subjects with these requirements indicates an almost scripted regularity to Parman petitions, whose literary form is remarkably consistent across the bundles examined here46. Parmans identified themselves as “humble and devoted servants” of the duke while at the same time submitting repeated supplications designed to steadily decrease their taxes owed to the crown47. Indeed, petitioners understood well the benefit of repeated supplication, and strategised their petitions to address first the legal issue they faced, and secondarily, to evade the fees on petitions themselves. Criminal petitions, particularly, took a typical form. The petitioner, who committed crime x, petitioned the Dettatura for the free grace and remission of guilt (ogni gratia e libero dono). These petitions seem overly ambitious, for the magistrates were unlikely to grant such a request for even minor delicts. Common procedure was thus to grant a pardon with certain conditions attached. Gioseffo di Costa, called Fallopieno, received one such pardon in 1637 for insolence to a public official48. Attendant to his pardon was a fine of six gold scudi, which di Costa had no intention of paying. He promptly submitted a second petition that emphasised his poverty and previous service in the ducal militia to justify his request to have the fine eliminated, or reduced significantly. Petitioners such as di Costa were prepared to invest a considerable amount of time and effort into pursuing their needs through the Dettatura, even recognising long-term strategies that would reduce the burden of the legal system on their finances and social capital.

• 49 Parrott (2001, p. 118). While the siege was broken by the aid of a French army which initiated batt (...)
• 50 On the psychology of soldiers and the training required to inculcate the capacity for violence, see (...)

26In 1636, Duke Odoardo led a Parman army to counter the threat of a Spanish invasion of Piacenza49. The high numbers of soldiers and militiamen present in the Duchy around the time of Duke Odoardo’s experiment with military glory overloaded the records in 1637 with petitions from quarrelsome soldiers. Their petitions show how these men interacted with each other and with the local citizenry. Due to their training, soldiers typically were more inured to interpersonal violence than shopkeepers ; these petitions, therefore, are not representative of the violent behaviour of all Parman subjects, but nevertheless display the careful attitude taken towards illicit violence by soldiers50. Of course, these men went too far on occasion. There are fifteen extant petitions for homicide in this entire series of petitions, fourteen of which date from the years 1631 and 1637, and all these cases involved soldiers either as aggressors or victims, and frequently both. In these instances, the Dettatura refused to reintegrate violent offenders into the legal strictures of the state ; soldiers who did not resort to fatal violence could expect a much more favourable treatment by the judges.

• 51 Hanlon (1985, pp. 244-268). Hanlon notes similar behaviours among Aquitainians, who were more likel (...)
• 52 ASPR, Supremo Consiglio di Giustizia e di Grazia e Consiglio della Dettatura, Suppliche e Memoriali(...)
• 53 Ibid., #1017.

27Soldiers seem actively to have avoided homicidal violence, in order to decrease the difficulty of any potential encounter with the judicial apparatus. That said, they calculated displays of status and strength that minimized the danger of a judicial burden. The least risky display strategy was the public flaunting of a weapon in areas associated with authority, sanctity or safety51. Churches fit the bill. On 12 September 1637, Giovanni Domenico Scacalea petitioned the Dettatura to review his sentence for carrying his schioppo, a type of early shotgun, to church in his native village of Torchiana, and to eliminate the fine entirely, based on the record of his militia service to Odoardo52. In what must have been a shock to the petitioner given the relatively minor offence, his fine of four gold scudi was confirmed by the Dettatura, who rejected his petition outright. In contrast, Cesare Stachi’s petition appealing the outstanding funds of the twelve scudi, that he was fined for twice bringing his gun to church and once pointing it at an adversary during a quarrel, was granted on the basis that he had already paid a fair portion of the balance53. The difference accorded to these two petitions indicates that the duke was not wont to give free absolution to misbehaving soldiers ; rather, the bonds of fealty and submission created by the payment of even a small amount of money allowed for the advancement of mutual interests. The petitioner avoided more serious punishment and was still able to threaten and intimidate, while the duke drew power to himself by deciding the fate of even minor miscreants.

• 54 ASPR, Supremo Consiglio di Giustizia e di Grazia e Consiglio della Dettatura, Suppliche e Memoriali(...)
• 55 Ibid., bb43, #626.

28Churches were not the only public places where soldiers committed this type of firearms infraction. Local festival celebrations were another excellent field on which to demonstrate virility in a public setting without the need to engage in actual violence against an adversary in order to prove dominance. Thus, Diminio Pintio, a musketeer in the ducal militia, was condemned to the regular four gold scudi fine for bringing his loaded weapon to a dance. His petition was rejected because he also pointed the weapon at an officialof the local church54. The ducal court was also a firearms-free zone. The soldier Giovanni Antonio Gonzi brought his loaded weapon to the court in December 1637 and was assessed a low fine of one scudo, which was repealed subsequently by libero dono55. All of these were public areas in which soldiers could take advantage of the judicial structure provided by the regime to display their status in competition with social rivals. They were also places with strict regulations prohibiting public violence. The willingness of soldiers to replace physical violence with aggressive posturing in the public space defined by authority indicates the effectiveness of systems of petitioning in communicating the goals and ambitions of both subjects and the regime, helping to drive any behavioural changes that seventeenth-century Parmans may have undergone.

• 56 Ibid., bb40, #1086.

29Gun infractions were not limited to soldiers. On 12 July 1631, Giacinto Bigolli submitted a petition to have the payment on his judicial fine of four gold scudi delayed and broken into instalments56. Giacinto was guilty of the public display of his schioppo at the church in Colorno. His petition received the brief rescritto characteristic of petitions arising from minor infractions of no terrible concern to the duke or his magistrates : a brief affirmation of the grace given. However, most firearms infractions were committed by soldiers.

• 57 Ibid., unnumbered petition of Nicolo Orti.

30Farnese soldiers and subjects also developed a much more vivid form of postural violence as they moved away from the physical resolution of social conflict to more restrained social relations. As mentioned above, the judicial fines for both the crime and the pardon were increased significantly when a culprit drew blood from his adversary or his victim. Parmans thus adapted a form of non-lethal display violence that required no physical mark like a scar on a cheek to demonstrate the victor’s superior status. Numerous petitioners related how, when threatened by adversaries, or desiring to threaten adversaries in turn, they produced their weapon, either from a carrying “holster” or from its storage in their house, and began to load it in front of the man or woman they wished to intimidate and dominate. Thus, Nicolo Orti, a town official from Lizzano di Belvedere, belatedly reported in 1631 that Pietro Rufaldi and two others from Campia di Langhirano “loaded an archebus in front of Lorenzo del Casino, of the said town of Campia”57. Orti’s petition in fact asked for forgiveness for neglecting to denounce this infraction.

• 58 Burke (1998) ; Hanks (2010, Ch.1-3).
• 59 Connell, Zorzi (2000, pp. 165-183 & 207-224).

31This case has two particularly tantalizing aspects which throw the motivations of both criminals and authorities into clear relief. First loading a gun was an infraction warranting a denunciation by a public official in an outlying town to a central authority. The importance of interaction between centre and periphery towns in contexts of strong government is clear, as historians have noted in colonial contexts but equally germane to the discussion here58. Previously, central control of local governance in outlying towns was haphazard and hampered by systemic and structural difficulties59. By the seventeenth century, however, the Farnese dukes were demanding – and enforcing – involvement in the most minor conflicts in rural villages, regardless of feudal borders. Clearly, the Farnese dukes were not interested solely in social conflicts that featured physical violence. Rather, the judicial apparatus of the Farnese state encouraged officials to involve themselves actively in their villages’ social fabric and quell tensions before or as they arose, referring all cases of potential violence to the central courts.

• 60 Astarita (1999) ; Hanlon (2007) ; Smail (2003).

32Secondly, the three malefactors noted in Orti’s petition apparently had no intention of carrying their threat further at the time. Loading an archebus in front of his enemy was Pietro Rufaldi’s particularly illustrative technique to demonstrate his superior male status. This was a very effective means to communicate hostility, because the cost, in terms of investment and involvement in a legal process, was relatively low compared to both the cost of physical violence and the benefit of restraint. Of course, had Pietro fired the gun, either injuring or killing Lorenzo, he may not have escaped incarceration, exile or galley service. In addition, he would have lost the social capital associated with status and dominance in rural areas. Local towns too were thoroughly hierarchical, and villagers were well aware of the relationships and status of many of their covivants60. The simple solution was to load, but not fire, the weapon, thus counteracting both these costs of violence. As we have seen, the local official, Nicolo Orti, did not even bother to report this infraction to the central authorities, at least not in a timely manner. When he did report it and was punished for tardiness, his fine was promptly rescinded by the Dettatura. There are no further instructions to Orti for prosecuting the case. Thus, the legal cost of non-violent status display was effectively nil, compared to a steep judicial fine or the prospect of hard labour in the galleys and mines. By restraining personal violence in status displays and choosing non-violent aggression, Farnese subjects could avoid the judiciary entirely, or face a significantly reduced punishment for firearms infractions that the Dettatura, in all likelihood, would review favourably.

• 61 ASPR, Supremo consiglio di giustizia e consiglio della dettatura, suppliche e memoriali, bb. 40, 43 (...)

33The years when soldiers were concentrated in the city and petitioned in unusually high numbers also provide the most reliable data on the success or failure of these petitions. For 1631, 1637 and 1687-1689, the bundles contain petitions that have the rescritto written directly on the document ; in other years, common practice was to attach a small writ with a blot of wax, and these have not survived61. In 1631, of 83 total petitions included in the bundles, 62 received an affirmative rescritto while 21 did not, for a success rate of 74.6 percent. In 1637, the success rate is lower, at 61.1 percent (129/211), which could be related to the aftermath of Odoardo’s 1636 campaign and the need to recuperate funds and restore order. Fifty years later, the picture is remarkably similar to that in 1631. In 1687-1689, of 456 petitions submitted, 346 were granted, for a success rate of 75.9 percent, practically indistinguishable from the 1631 rate. What these numbers tentatively indicate is the regularity with which ducal grace was dispensed, and the calculated use of mercy to promote the ducal persona without denigrating his authority and the judicial force that backed it.

• 62 ASPR, Atti Giudiziali, Lettere di Giustizia, bb32, 1675 Agosto-Dicembre, letter of 26 December.

35Attached to letters between the duke, his councillors and his judges, the petitions of ordinary Farnese subjects expressed their fear of the violence, retaliatory or provocative, of their cohabitants in the city or outlying towns. In 1675 one of these vividly relayed the instability caused by the violence of roving men in the countryside. An unidentified cleric of Castellazzo begged the duke to provide his town with “some provisions that I think are necessary, so that in this and other states, no one will say that Your Highness does not commend himself highly to God, and to His honour”62. This petition followed a horrific raid carried out by “twelve or more armed men, to assassinate my household” and to “rob the women of their honour.” In what seems at first an unrelated aside, the anonymous cleric emphasized the relationship upon which he based this request, a particularly interesting formulation from a churchman : the duke knew well the troubles of the church of Castellazzo (flooded, the cleric noted incidentally), where the petitioner “assisted for 35 and more years,” and which was now about to collapse. The local bishop refused to fortify either the church or the town, and so the petitioner appealed to the duke for aid in protecting his household, because the duke did not have “[his] hand in anybody’s purse.” The petition requested town walls and guards to protect the church, such that Holy Mass could proceed without the fear of raid and rape on the town. Although the duke’s response to this petition is not indicated, the present issues of authority, personality and protection make clear the function of petitioning in the context of violence : tools such as petitions enabled a population to turn to the ducal government for aid rather than pursue a private vendetta or live in perpetual fear. Conversely, the petitioners emphasized the grand authority of the duke, drawn directly from God and more useful, even to clergy, than the ecclesiastical hierarchy in securing the physical safety of Farnese subjects.

• 63 ASPR, Uditore Criminale di Parma, Lettere Ducali ad’Uditore Criminale, bb33., unnumbered letter and (...)
• 64 The idea that this may refer to an early modern « restraining order » is tantalising but unverifiab (...)

36The most lucid evidence for this analysis emerges directly from the words of petitioners and dukes. Did they see themselves as shifting away from a system of private violence to one in which subjects’ interests were best served by princely authority ? Did Parman subjects no longer view their immediate kin networks as the first instance of safety, protection and legitimate quarrel and violence ? A petition from one Barbara Galli, dated 1705, indicates her discomfort and fear at the prospect of her male relatives engaging in a kin war63. The feud began, in fact, between Barbara and her enemy, Giulia Zanelli, “a woman of much inferior condition to that of the petitioner,” who “solely out of ill will fomented by her husband” harassed and “many times assaulted the honour of [Barbara], all of which also threatened her very life.” Out of a desire to maintain “her proper decorum” Barbara “never wanted to cause the slightest injury[…] in all ways preventing this undertaking in which her husband and relatives will become involved,” and had in fact moved her family to another part of the city, “principally to be remedied of any vendetta.” This Parman subject demonstrates precisely the phenomenon under analysis here : by the eighteenth century, Parmans actively rejected private violence and employed the machinery of the state to prevent the outbreak of vendetta. Barbara appealed to the duke to “order your Uditore Criminale[…] to go to the house where Giulia presently lives, and command [her] to stay within the required limits” of her behaviour64.

• 65 An instance of this is clear in Parma in a letter of 1675, in which the mattinata performed by a gr (...)

37The dukes, too, made clear that they rejected the interpersonal violence of subjects, bringing their personal power to bear on even the domestic conflicts of subjects. Sexual and marital impropriety had for centuries been the jurisdiction primarily of local groups, usually comprising the town’s or quarter’s unmarried youthful males, who exercised an allegedly ritual violence against the bodies and properties of those they considered to have stepped beyond the bounds of local moral propriety65. But by the end of the seventeenth century, even this community enforcement of morality was frowned upon in Parma. Thus, in 1695, Francesco Farnese ordered his Uditore to,

• 67 Mantecón (2006, p. 268) ; Schwerhoff (2006, p. 236).
• 68 Mantecón (2006, p. 284).

42The use of petitioning in such a light can also be brought to bear on the important historiographical issue of social control. Tomás Mantecón and Gerd Schwerhoff, dealing specifically with neighbourhood conflict and violence, make clear that communal behavioural standards, common ideas of violence, and an urge to negotiate settlements to conflict were part and parcel of interactions between individuals and with the forces of state authority in early modern Europe67. In their views, the interaction of institution and neighbourhood – ‘from above’ and ‘from below’ – is the driver of ideas and practices of social control. As Mantecón states, “popular spheres, social forces, and customary institutions never ceded their right to arbitrate disputes. Increasingly, they arbitrated everyday disputes by using local courts as the arena for discussion”68. Social discipline emerged from the goals and interactions of all members of society ; petitions constitute a process by which those social goals are defined, elaborated and acted upon in legal settings.

• 69 Raggio (2001) ; Muir (1993, pp. 77-111).

44The system had its weaknesses, of course. Those with personal and professional connections to high levels of government obviously had better access to and success at the ducal court, as Barbara Preti’s case vividly demonstrates. Additionally, it is important to recall that every successful petition that emerged from a court process dealing with a violent crime left a victim, or indeed, a double-victim : not only did the petitioner commit violence against his victim, the state then abetted this victimization by choosing rehabilitation over retribution. This could not satisfy everyone. Further, we must recall that petitions had a fiscal component as well. Each successful petition was taxed according to a rubric, and many petitioners found themselves in the position of having to appeal these costs as well. In terms of official corruption, cronyism and nepotism do not seem to be behind most ordinary petitions, but other archival deposits may prove otherwise. These petitions instead provide clear glimpses of the active choices made by Parmans of an alternative to personal violence in solving their social conflicts. As seen above, this rejection of violence was visible in the petitions of both men and women who did not have the resources, material or social, to pursue the feud and vendetta that characterises much of the violence noted by historians in medieval and early modern Europe69.