Coastal Communities Between Forms of Power and ‘Hostile’ Environments in Early Medieval Tuscany. A Case Study Between ‘Polarisation’ and ‘Nucleation'

Abstract

The first paragraph of the article provides a brief review of the investigations concerning the coastal landscapes of early medieval Tuscany necessary to frame the case study examined. The case study concerns the multidisciplinary analysis of the material evidence relating to a royal court identified with that of Valli, mentioned in the dowry of Hugh of Arles in 937 in favour of his future wife Berta and his daughter Adelaide. In the second, third, and fourth paragraphs, the results of the research for the case study are detailed: from the research carried out in the centre of the royal court, (i.e. on the site of Vetricella), to the multidisciplinary surveys in the surrounding area, originally within the same court. The anthropic landscape and the changes in the natural and forest landscape are reconstructed from the earliest phases of early medieval occupation to the abandonment during the 11th-12th centuries. In the last paragraph, the exposed data are compared with those inferable from the investigations carried out in the surrounding territories, to enrich the picture outlined in the well-known Tuscan model elaborated by Riccardo Francovich through the concept of polarisation, to which the pattern of articulation of these coastal communities with respect to topical and dominant places would be linked.