132 LaCitadeSancta
university for their spiritual needs.^207 All other societies of the Bolognese
Popolo were created for military, political, or craft purposes; they were vol-
untary, local, and temporary.^208 The use of religious forms to organize the
corporations, through which a much increased percentage of the adult male
population found a role in city government, reflects the Popolo’s understand-
ing of itself.^209 In the period of these societies’ foundation, the early 1200 s,
the communes cultivated an ever more pronounced religious ethos. They
sacralized their offices and functions as these became distinct from the
Mother Church. New patron saints gave legitimacy as the cities broke away
from the authority of the empire. The societies’ mass political base is sugges-
tive: the popular communes were not merely a new political order; rather,
they were a reconception of the city as a new organism—permeated with
religious flavor from the ground up. The Bologna societies were grassroots
organizations. Analysis of the Bolognese matricula for 1274 shows approxi-
mately 7 , 025 men enrolled; in 1310 the figure was 8 , 032.^210 Bologna’s popula-
tion in 1290 was about fifty thousand.^211 If we cut that figure in half and so
exclude women, we have twenty-five thousand; eliminating roughly half of
that figure, as foreign students and minor children, leaves a native adult
male population of perhaps twelve thousand. Dividing this by the average
matricula figure yields 60 percent of adult males as society members. This
may be a bit high, since a man might belong to more than one society, but
membership of more than 50 percent is not at all unlikely. The suggestion
that one third of Bolognese citizens held some city office in a given year is
reasonable.^212 They held such office by membership in theirsocieta`. This does
not, of course, mean they were democratic in the modern sense: certainly
some members counted more than others, and the less wealthy certainly had
less leisure for political involvement. Nevertheless, Albertano of Brescia, the
thirteenth-century lay theologian, considered these associations the back-
bone of the citizens’ liberty.^213
Like that of Saint Eustace, each society of the Bolognese Popolo met for
- Bol. Pop. Stat., 1 (Lombardi, 1255 ,c. 36 ), 1 : 15. See Meersseman,Ordo, 1 : 190 , remarking on
Gaudenzi’s analysis of statutes 14 – 16 of the Societa`della Armi. They alone among the Bologna societies
had specific moral requirements, expelling those who kept prostitutes at home: Bol. Pop. Stat., 1 (Lom-
bardi, 1255 ,c. 50 ), 1 : 18. - Some societies preserved their ancient temporary character: see, e.g., Bol. Pop. Stat., 1 (Aquila,
1255 ,c. 28 ), 1 : 246 (oaths binding for ten years); (Chiavi, 1255 ,c. 1 ), 1 : 181 (oaths binding for five years). - Meersseman,Ordo, 1 : 8.
- Pini, ‘‘Problemi di demografia,’’ 189.
- Ibid., 216 – 18.
- Pini,Citta
, comuni e corporazioni, 152 , quoting Waley: ‘‘si puocalcolare a circa^1 / 3 i cittadini ogni
anno impegnati nel governo e nell’amministrazione.’’ Pini considers this estimate low. Jones,Italian City-
State, 589 , and esp. 573 n. 541 , is much more pessimistic ( 5 – 10 percent). - Powell,Albertanus, 32. Antonio Ivan Pini, ‘‘Le arti in processione: Professioni, prestigio e potere
nelle citta-stato dell’Italia padana medievale,’’Lavorare nel Medio Evo: Rappresentazioni ed esempi dall’Italia dei sec.x–xvi, 12 – 15 ottobre 1980 ,Convegni del Centro di studi sulla spiritualitamedievale, 21 (Todi: Accade-
mia Tudertina, 1983 ), 91 – 95 , notes that popular involvement in government reached a peak in the com-
munal period and fell to nearly nothing under the signorie.