Quando il nome è un dove. Chiamarsi come un luogo nella Lombardia dei secoli centrali del medioevo

The essay proposes the case of personal names that coincide with the names of villages and towns as a key to interpreting social relations and institutional changes in extra-urban areas. Names that were very sporadic or didn’t exist until around the year 1000, had their earliest diffusion in Lombardy during the 11th century in the intermediate levels of society. Between the 12th and 13th centuries, these names became more frequent, in a phase of great political dynamism in the countryside, adopted especially by those small landholders, well known among their neighbors, who assumed the leadership of village and town collectives. From the 14th century onward, however, the use of its kind of names became rare, so much so that it escaped historiography and led to errors in the very work of editing the sources. Research now recognizing the incidence of this onomastic form can help us to understand how spatial horizons and their identitarian force transformed over time. Indeed, the first growth of personal identification in the place of residence coincides with the deeper rooting of networks of solidarity and alliance, land holdings and devotional references centered in the villages and towns. The decisive processes of localization that occurred after the year 1000, therefore, seem to have anticipated and fostered, at least considering the feelings of belonging, the development of the rural commune, a sphere of participation and sharing of resources that further promoted people’s recognition in the locality of residence.