Public estates and economic strategies in early medieval Tuscany: towards a new interpretation

In this article, our intention is to summarise the salient findings which emerge from the previous articles about the nEU-Med project, to widen our gaze to include contexts outside the project sample area. However, in doing so, we will bear in mind two aspects which are characteristic of the history of this area: a) the presence of important public estates, often preceded by important senatorial and imperial properties. b) the end of the 9th and the 10thc as the chronological pe- riod in which some of the most important changes in the anthropic and natural landscape seem to be concentrated. These findings allow us to embark upon a series of preli- minary reflections on how the presence and administration of public property may have influenced the economic dyna- mics of territories connected to them. At the same time, the reference to the aforementioned timespan leads us to concentrate our attention on a specific historical context, which could have enabled conditions to come about which were at the foundation of changes which affected Vetricella and its territory. In the first paragraph the issues will be addressed by setting out from an analysis of documentary sources. Thereafter archaeological findings will be explained, or revised, in light of a new interpretative perspective, stimulated by the infor- mation which is emerging thanks to the nEU-Med project. Bearing in mind the series of questions and hypotheses formulated in the first article in this volume (Hodges above), in the final paragraph we will try to summarize a series of considerations, with the intention of providing the basis of discussion and reflection for future research strategy.