In the 15th century, the Italian city of Bologna employed police officers from as far away as Scotland, Tunisia and the Black Sea region. Why did medieval authorities prefer foreigners to enforce the law, and what drew these men to such an unusual occupation?
In the year 1404, the records of the Italian city of Bologna noted that one of its police officers was “Pierus Johannis de Schocia”, meaning that he was from Scotland. This might seem strange on its own, but when we look further into these records, we find that many of his fellow policemen were from Germany, the Low Countries, England, and even Africa and Greece. In fact, the records from the fifteenth century show that, in some years, nearly all of the men working as policemen in Bologna were not even Italians.
The story of Peter, son of John, of Scotland and these other men is told by Trevor Dean in his article, “Police forces in late medieval Italy: Bologna, 1340–1480.” Dean, a professor at the University of Roehampton and historian of crime in the late Middle Ages, examined Bologna’s archives for details about its podestà, the city’s chief magistrate, who was responsible for dealing with crime and legal matters.
Policing a Medieval City
The marketplace at Porta Ravegnana in medieval Bologna, depicted in a cloth merchants’ guild register from 1411. Museo Civico Medievale, Bologna, MS 641, fol. 1r. Image via Wikimedia Commons.
This was a particularly important position, and it came with a large staff: judges, notaries, servants and berrovieri. The members of this last group, known as birri, were responsible, according to Dean, for “guarding the city and suburbs, performing expeditions, distraints and arrests, and capturing bandits and condemned criminals – in other words, all the functions of policing, both preventative (guarding, patrolling) and executive (sequestering, pursuing and apprehending).” Therefore, while they might not have been called police officers, that is essentially what they were.
The records from the thirteenth century show that there were 20 berrovieri in Bologna in 1288, but this number doubled seven years later. The reason given for this increase was “in order that the podestà can better pursue malefactors in the city and suburbs, and more diligently inquire into arms-carrying.”
In 1335, their numbers were increased again to 60. Although the force initially remained at this size following the Black Death, it was reduced to 50 in the latter decades of the fourteenth century. The berrovieri also had eight “boys” to assist them, although their number was reduced to four in 1454.
Some of these men had specific roles, including two who were constables, serving as leaders of the police squads. By the middle of the fifteenth century, Bologna also employed an official bandit-catcher (bargello), while some of the berrovieri were employed as executioners. These included a man named James from Albania and another named John, who may have come from Tunis.
There were also regulations governing the appearance and behaviour of the police officers. From 1335, they were required to wear clothing of a different colour from that of the other officials in the podestà’s entourage. They were prohibited from visiting taverns and brothels unless on duty, and from eating or drinking in private homes in the city or countryside. Regulations introduced in 1295 also required the officers to attend inspections every fortnight, although these inspections later became less frequent.
Keeping Records of Medieval Police Officers
The berrovieri, along with the other officials hired by the podestà, were housed together, and the records show that a number of servants were also employed, including cooks, stablemasters and stablehands. The officers were typically employed on six-month contracts, meaning that the police forces of medieval Italian cities were continually changing.
The details of all these people were recorded by the Bolognese government, and Dean notes that its officials were very meticulous in describing them. For instance, the notaries identified not only the fathers of the men who were hired but also their mothers, a very unusual practice in the medieval world. Dean also explains that they recorded any interesting physical traits of these people:
The recording notary for podestà Rogerio da Perugia, count of Antignalle, in 1406 started to make notes on the physique of the birri, getting as far as noting that Parigino da Perugia, the son of Magio and Bartola, was ‘of common build, elderly, with joined eyebrows’, and that Giovanni da Volterra, the son of Matteo and Lapa, was ‘a small man with a scar on his forehead’. Much more focused was the recording of features in the later lists of podestà Carlo de’ Muti from Rome in July 1459 and Angelo Vitelloni from Corneto in July 1460.
In 1459 the notary was exclusively focused on the faces and hands of the birri: this one was ‘marked’ under the right eye, that one ‘between the eyebrows’, a third ‘on the thumb of his right hand’, and so on. He was evidently careful to find marks on different parts of the body for each birro, noting marks above, on or under the eyes, eyebrows, cheeks, nose, chin, lip and forehead, as well as on the hands.
By 1460, the descriptions included scars, broken teeth, moles and warts. For example, Federico, son of Federico, from Germany had a scar on the little finger of his left hand, Giovanni, son of Giuliano, from France was pockmarked, and Lorenzo from Nivelles in Brabant had a broken front tooth.
Where Did Bologna’s Police Officers Come From?
Depiction of a 14th C. fight between the militias of the Guelf and Ghibelline factions in the Italian commune of Bologna, from the Croniche of Giovanni Sercambi of Lucca.
Another detail recorded about these men was their place of origin. Between 1345 and 1478, the surviving documents contain the names of 3,772 birri and their constables. Dean was able to identify the place names of 3,149 (84%) of these men, with the rest having either unclear or unidentifiable place names (10%) or no recorded place of origin (6%).
The first fact to emerge is that the men who served as berrovieri were not from Bologna itself. The city authorities did not want local men serving as law enforcement officers, fearing that they would be biased or susceptible to local influence. Instead, the men being hired as birri in the fourteenth century were usually from other parts of Italy, such as Florence and Milan.
What is even more interesting is that we have hundreds of men working as berrovieri who came from outside Italy, and during the first half of the fifteenth century, this number was increasing. While in the previous century there were typically only one or two men from outside Italy serving in the police force, by the 1410s and 1420s there were roughly equal numbers of Italians and foreigners. In some years, however, foreigners made up the overwhelming majority of the force. In 1447, for example, 42 out of 50 were from outside Italy.
Where were these men coming from? According to Dean’s calculations, 515 came from Germany, another 114 from the Low Countries, 113 from Hungary and another 90 from the Croatian city of Zagreb. Large numbers of people also came from other Balkan towns, including 58 from Zadar, as well as 85 from France. We can also find men who were from Greece, Spain, England, Scotland, Corsica, Crete, Cyprus and even the Black Sea region.
Even though the Bolognese officials went to a lot of effort to track the identities of the various birri, it seems that in some cases the men or their employers were not being forthcoming about who they really were. Dean notes, for example, that John, the son of John and of Johanna, from “Blagaria,” seems very much to be a false identity.
Dean also found 18 instances in the fifteenth-century records in which two men with the same name appeared in the same group of police officers. While some of these may have been coincidences, others could have been instances of corruption, with the podestà receiving payment for more police officers than he actually employed.
Why Did Foreigners Become Medieval Police Officers?
Bologna depicted in the Nuremberg Chronicle
A number of questions can be asked, beginning with how all these foreigners came to be in Bologna. We know from other records that people from across Europe could be found in the city, including university students and their servants. There were also merchants and various skilled and unskilled workers. Some may have arrived in Italy looking for work with the mercenary companies, and some could simply have been vagabonds who arrived in Bologna.
There were also larger movements of people taking place in the late Middle Ages. The expansion of the Ottoman Empire was driving many people from Greece and the Balkans to Italy, while Germans had a long tradition of serving as mercenary soldiers in the Italian peninsula. It seems that a sizeable population of foreigners could be found in Bologna, and many of them needed work.
Dean suggests that the constables were probably responsible for recruiting many of these men. Some of the constables had remarkably long careers in Bologna. Andrea di Marino from Ascoli appears in the records 11 times between 1406 and 1435, while Milanino di Antonio from Milan appears ten times between 1419 and 1434. Between them, these two men served under nearly 20 different magistrates. Rather than hiring their own police officers, incoming magistrates could rely on these experienced constables to recruit men in and around Bologna.
If these foreigners had arrived in the Italian city looking for work, why did they take up this job? Dean explains:
Policing as a form of labour did provide wages, lodgings, food, clothing and comradeship: a lifestyle and mentality that perhaps suited men at certain stages in their life cycle. If the foreign birri were young men, which is likely given the historical connections between young adulthood and life-cycle migration/mobility, service in police forces may have provided them with a structure that allowed ‘good migration’ to occur, enabling the successful adaptation to new surroundings and the incorporation of new experiences.
The Advantages and Disadvantages of Foreign Police Officers
Finally, why would the city want these men to work there? There would have been some serious disadvantages to hiring foreigners who did not know the local language or even the local area. The police officers themselves came from many different countries, which could have made communication and coordination difficult.
Perhaps it was mainly a desire to have berrovieri who had little or no connection with the residents of the city and who could provide the “muscle” for the judiciary in dealing with a sometimes violent citizenry. Dean also notes that the increasing employment of foreign police officers coincided with the expansion of the powers of Bologna’s judicial authorities, including greater powers of arrest and prosecution and fewer restrictions on the use of torture.
Being a police officer could also be a dangerous occupation. Bologna’s bandit-catcher, Raffaele da Pistoia, was the target of an assassination attempt, and his son was killed during a night-time confrontation with a group of armed men. In another incident, in 1469, the brother of a man who had been arrested fatally shot one of the police officers with a crossbow.
Interestingly, the international character of Bologna’s police force did not last. During the second half of the fifteenth century, the number of foreign officers declined considerably. By 1471, 26 of the 36 police officers recorded were Italians. Dean cautions that fewer records survive from this period but suggests that the decline could have been related to changes in Bologna’s political leadership or to Venice’s recruitment of thousands of soldiers for its war against the Ottoman Empire.
The experience of Bologna reveals some of the difficulties of policing a medieval city. While locals might have been better at certain aspects of police work, foreigners with few connections to the local population could be more trusted to act on behalf of the city government. For the migrants themselves, policing offered employment, accommodation and companionship, but also came with the risks of violence and an uncertain future.
In the 15th century, the Italian city of Bologna employed police officers from as far away as Scotland, Tunisia and the Black Sea region. Why did medieval authorities prefer foreigners to enforce the law, and what drew these men to such an unusual occupation?
In the year 1404, the records of the Italian city of Bologna noted that one of its police officers was “Pierus Johannis de Schocia”, meaning that he was from Scotland. This might seem strange on its own, but when we look further into these records, we find that many of his fellow policemen were from Germany, the Low Countries, England, and even Africa and Greece. In fact, the records from the fifteenth century show that, in some years, nearly all of the men working as policemen in Bologna were not even Italians.
The story of Peter, son of John, of Scotland and these other men is told by Trevor Dean in his article, “Police forces in late medieval Italy: Bologna, 1340–1480.” Dean, a professor at the University of Roehampton and historian of crime in the late Middle Ages, examined Bologna’s archives for details about its podestà, the city’s chief magistrate, who was responsible for dealing with crime and legal matters.
Policing a Medieval City
This was a particularly important position, and it came with a large staff: judges, notaries, servants and berrovieri. The members of this last group, known as birri, were responsible, according to Dean, for “guarding the city and suburbs, performing expeditions, distraints and arrests, and capturing bandits and condemned criminals – in other words, all the functions of policing, both preventative (guarding, patrolling) and executive (sequestering, pursuing and apprehending).” Therefore, while they might not have been called police officers, that is essentially what they were.
The records from the thirteenth century show that there were 20 berrovieri in Bologna in 1288, but this number doubled seven years later. The reason given for this increase was “in order that the podestà can better pursue malefactors in the city and suburbs, and more diligently inquire into arms-carrying.”
In 1335, their numbers were increased again to 60. Although the force initially remained at this size following the Black Death, it was reduced to 50 in the latter decades of the fourteenth century. The berrovieri also had eight “boys” to assist them, although their number was reduced to four in 1454.
Some of these men had specific roles, including two who were constables, serving as leaders of the police squads. By the middle of the fifteenth century, Bologna also employed an official bandit-catcher (bargello), while some of the berrovieri were employed as executioners. These included a man named James from Albania and another named John, who may have come from Tunis.
There were also regulations governing the appearance and behaviour of the police officers. From 1335, they were required to wear clothing of a different colour from that of the other officials in the podestà’s entourage. They were prohibited from visiting taverns and brothels unless on duty, and from eating or drinking in private homes in the city or countryside. Regulations introduced in 1295 also required the officers to attend inspections every fortnight, although these inspections later became less frequent.
Keeping Records of Medieval Police Officers
The berrovieri, along with the other officials hired by the podestà, were housed together, and the records show that a number of servants were also employed, including cooks, stablemasters and stablehands. The officers were typically employed on six-month contracts, meaning that the police forces of medieval Italian cities were continually changing.
The details of all these people were recorded by the Bolognese government, and Dean notes that its officials were very meticulous in describing them. For instance, the notaries identified not only the fathers of the men who were hired but also their mothers, a very unusual practice in the medieval world. Dean also explains that they recorded any interesting physical traits of these people:
The recording notary for podestà Rogerio da Perugia, count of Antignalle, in 1406 started to make notes on the physique of the birri, getting as far as noting that Parigino da Perugia, the son of Magio and Bartola, was ‘of common build, elderly, with joined eyebrows’, and that Giovanni da Volterra, the son of Matteo and Lapa, was ‘a small man with a scar on his forehead’. Much more focused was the recording of features in the later lists of podestà Carlo de’ Muti from Rome in July 1459 and Angelo Vitelloni from Corneto in July 1460.
In 1459 the notary was exclusively focused on the faces and hands of the birri: this one was ‘marked’ under the right eye, that one ‘between the eyebrows’, a third ‘on the thumb of his right hand’, and so on. He was evidently careful to find marks on different parts of the body for each birro, noting marks above, on or under the eyes, eyebrows, cheeks, nose, chin, lip and forehead, as well as on the hands.
By 1460, the descriptions included scars, broken teeth, moles and warts. For example, Federico, son of Federico, from Germany had a scar on the little finger of his left hand, Giovanni, son of Giuliano, from France was pockmarked, and Lorenzo from Nivelles in Brabant had a broken front tooth.
Where Did Bologna’s Police Officers Come From?
Another detail recorded about these men was their place of origin. Between 1345 and 1478, the surviving documents contain the names of 3,772 birri and their constables. Dean was able to identify the place names of 3,149 (84%) of these men, with the rest having either unclear or unidentifiable place names (10%) or no recorded place of origin (6%).
The first fact to emerge is that the men who served as berrovieri were not from Bologna itself. The city authorities did not want local men serving as law enforcement officers, fearing that they would be biased or susceptible to local influence. Instead, the men being hired as birri in the fourteenth century were usually from other parts of Italy, such as Florence and Milan.
What is even more interesting is that we have hundreds of men working as berrovieri who came from outside Italy, and during the first half of the fifteenth century, this number was increasing. While in the previous century there were typically only one or two men from outside Italy serving in the police force, by the 1410s and 1420s there were roughly equal numbers of Italians and foreigners. In some years, however, foreigners made up the overwhelming majority of the force. In 1447, for example, 42 out of 50 were from outside Italy.
Where were these men coming from? According to Dean’s calculations, 515 came from Germany, another 114 from the Low Countries, 113 from Hungary and another 90 from the Croatian city of Zagreb. Large numbers of people also came from other Balkan towns, including 58 from Zadar, as well as 85 from France. We can also find men who were from Greece, Spain, England, Scotland, Corsica, Crete, Cyprus and even the Black Sea region.
Even though the Bolognese officials went to a lot of effort to track the identities of the various birri, it seems that in some cases the men or their employers were not being forthcoming about who they really were. Dean notes, for example, that John, the son of John and of Johanna, from “Blagaria,” seems very much to be a false identity.
Dean also found 18 instances in the fifteenth-century records in which two men with the same name appeared in the same group of police officers. While some of these may have been coincidences, others could have been instances of corruption, with the podestà receiving payment for more police officers than he actually employed.
Why Did Foreigners Become Medieval Police Officers?
A number of questions can be asked, beginning with how all these foreigners came to be in Bologna. We know from other records that people from across Europe could be found in the city, including university students and their servants. There were also merchants and various skilled and unskilled workers. Some may have arrived in Italy looking for work with the mercenary companies, and some could simply have been vagabonds who arrived in Bologna.
There were also larger movements of people taking place in the late Middle Ages. The expansion of the Ottoman Empire was driving many people from Greece and the Balkans to Italy, while Germans had a long tradition of serving as mercenary soldiers in the Italian peninsula. It seems that a sizeable population of foreigners could be found in Bologna, and many of them needed work.
Dean suggests that the constables were probably responsible for recruiting many of these men. Some of the constables had remarkably long careers in Bologna. Andrea di Marino from Ascoli appears in the records 11 times between 1406 and 1435, while Milanino di Antonio from Milan appears ten times between 1419 and 1434. Between them, these two men served under nearly 20 different magistrates. Rather than hiring their own police officers, incoming magistrates could rely on these experienced constables to recruit men in and around Bologna.
If these foreigners had arrived in the Italian city looking for work, why did they take up this job? Dean explains:
Policing as a form of labour did provide wages, lodgings, food, clothing and comradeship: a lifestyle and mentality that perhaps suited men at certain stages in their life cycle. If the foreign birri were young men, which is likely given the historical connections between young adulthood and life-cycle migration/mobility, service in police forces may have provided them with a structure that allowed ‘good migration’ to occur, enabling the successful adaptation to new surroundings and the incorporation of new experiences.
The Advantages and Disadvantages of Foreign Police Officers
Finally, why would the city want these men to work there? There would have been some serious disadvantages to hiring foreigners who did not know the local language or even the local area. The police officers themselves came from many different countries, which could have made communication and coordination difficult.
Perhaps it was mainly a desire to have berrovieri who had little or no connection with the residents of the city and who could provide the “muscle” for the judiciary in dealing with a sometimes violent citizenry. Dean also notes that the increasing employment of foreign police officers coincided with the expansion of the powers of Bologna’s judicial authorities, including greater powers of arrest and prosecution and fewer restrictions on the use of torture.
Being a police officer could also be a dangerous occupation. Bologna’s bandit-catcher, Raffaele da Pistoia, was the target of an assassination attempt, and his son was killed during a night-time confrontation with a group of armed men. In another incident, in 1469, the brother of a man who had been arrested fatally shot one of the police officers with a crossbow.
Interestingly, the international character of Bologna’s police force did not last. During the second half of the fifteenth century, the number of foreign officers declined considerably. By 1471, 26 of the 36 police officers recorded were Italians. Dean cautions that fewer records survive from this period but suggests that the decline could have been related to changes in Bologna’s political leadership or to Venice’s recruitment of thousands of soldiers for its war against the Ottoman Empire.
The experience of Bologna reveals some of the difficulties of policing a medieval city. While locals might have been better at certain aspects of police work, foreigners with few connections to the local population could be more trusted to act on behalf of the city government. For the migrants themselves, policing offered employment, accommodation and companionship, but also came with the risks of violence and an uncertain future.
Further Readings
Dean, Trevor. “Police Forces in Late Medieval Italy: Bologna, 1340–1480,” Social History, 44:2 (2019)
Dean, Trevor. Crime and Justice in Late Medieval Italy (Cambridge University Press, 2010).
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