Margini di libertà. Iniziativa economica e visibilità documentaria di servi e semiliberi nell'Italia altomedievale (alcune note)

Abstract. In the Laws of the Lombards, unfree and half-free are among the most represented social categories. Their obligations towards their lords are always carefully detailed; precise limits are placed on their geographical mobility and strict rules are established to punish runaway servants; the conditions of their possible marriages are minutely prescribed and, with notable differences between the Edict of Rotari to the laws of King Liutprand, the forms and rituals of their manumission are determined with equal clarity. What remains shrouded in shadow is their capacity for legal action, which instead, to some extent, leaks out from contemporary (and especially later) archival documentation. The essay offers some quick reflections on such evidence, showing its peculiarities and differences from the documentary traces left by the socio-economic initiatives of fully free individuals.