On the Process of the Fiscalization of Space in Lombard Italy: A Historical-Semantic Analysis of the Terms Cafagium and Sundrium
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.6093/1593-2214/12861Keywords:
Middle Ages, 6th-8th Centuries, Lombard Kingdom, Fisc, Land, cafagium, sundriumAbstract
This article aims to offer a new interpretative paradigm for observing the numerous and varied occurrences of the terms cafagium (gaggio-gazzo, caggio, cafaggio) and sundrium (sundrio-sondrio), of Lombard linguistic origin, found both in early and high medieval documentary sources and in the present and past toponymic fabric. Through an etymological-semantic analysis and historical contextualization of the documentary uses of these words, the central role of the public curtis (royal and/or ducal) in defining a new geography of power at the transition between the sixth and seventh centuries is highlighted. It is a process comparable in importance and scope to centuriation. Indeed, the two terms mark the process of fiscalization of space in the different regions of Lombard Italy, that is, the making of the first post-Roman state in the West, no longer economically based on taxes but on land rent.
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Copyright (c) 2025 Paolo Tomei
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