The primacy of patrimony: kinship strategies of the political elite of Turin in the late Middle Ages (1340–1490)

Abstract

Combining family history and the analysis of political elites, this article explores the development of the urban elite of Turin (Piedmont) in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, through an analysis of the transformations in the kinships forming the ruling class, with particular regard to their structures and strategies for social and economic reproduction. The deep changes that affected this group and eventually led to its extinction and replacement by a new elite are addressed. It is argued that, alongside institutional rearrangements determined by the Dukes of Savoy, the inheritance strategies pursued by the kinships in order to preserve their economic and political role played a crucial part in their demise.

Family, lineage and dynasty in the late medieval city: re-thinking the English evidence

“…In her research on Turin, Marta Gravela juxtaposed 'the lineage as a line of descendants, and kinship as a complex association of different lineages (or branches) linked by a common surname and common ancestors, no matter how distant in time'. 103 This distinction between 'lineage' and 'kinship' was deliberate; in Turin, kinship groups were able to endure, sometimes at the expense of lineages, through creative strategies of artificial reproduction, such as the conveyance of estates to a designated rather than 'natural' heir and the transfer of the family surname through a daughter. 104 This kinship group was the 'open lineage family' or Verwandtschaftsfamilie, which encompassed, beside the nuclear family of parents and children, not only direct but collateral relations and individuals related by marriage.…”