Feudal Institutions and Rural Markets in North-Western Italy (Seventeenth-Eighteenth Centuries)

The role of feudal lords in the development of trade and manufacturing in their fiefdoms is part of the debate on feudalism and its economic policies, as well as on market areas in rural communities in the early modern age. In this article, we want to present how some feudal lords were particularly dynamic and supported economic development. This occurred when certain favourable conditions existed, such as the location of the fiefdom within a wide road network, the availability of commercial products on site or in nearby areas, and the entrepreneurial initiative of the feudal landowners themselves. The case study is significant because it concerns a vast rural area of North-western Italy, characterised by the presence of several fiefdoms, located at the crossroads between the bordering pre-unification regional states: the Republic of Genoa, the Duchies of Savoy, Parma, and Milan. In general, we show that the feudal lord’s intention was not to create the conditions to sell his annuities in kind but to develop markets that could generate other incomes. The success of this initiative stemmed from his ability to catalyse people from other areas. In this way, the lord could increase feudal income with the consequent positive externality of improving economic conditions.