Small Landlords: Land Transactions in and around Bozen (South Tirol) in the Mid-Thirteenth Century

Abstract

The notarial registers (imbreviatura) of Jakob Haas are used in this paper to describe the land market in Bozen and its hinterland in the middle of the thirteenth century. The analysis of the transactions documented by the notary demonstrates that this property market was both complex and dynamic. Several social groups ranging from nobility to urban population and peasants were engaged in the trade of a great variety of plots (urban, agrarian, with and without farmsteads) applying different kinds of legal transaction forms (fief, sale, pledge, etc.). To further profile the mid-thirteenth-century land market in and around Bozen, a comparison is made with the conditions in the same region at the end of the same century and with Montpellier in the first half of the fourteenth century. The general picture that emerges from the study is that of a dynamically unfolding land market used by people of varying social backgrounds to further their individual purposes – the main aim being the enlargement of one’s own property or securing a short-term or long-term credit.