The brief text of Simon Longo on documents in the history of St. John Teatino distinctly demonstrates how you can steal a territory through its history, and through archival research, that contribute to it riapproprino those who inhabit this area, live there and live. In the long
countries such places are left for me to silence ed'assenza. Points of departure for distant shores, cool - to me - next to a death. The work of Simon Longo, and attachment that it manifests a kind of homeland of the heart, show me what was wrong. Let me explain
evoking my own experience. In the eighties I was offered by Alexander Clements, a professor at the University of L'Aquila, to take care of the archaeological section of a research group that he was directing the City of Carapelle Calvisio. Archaeological research conducted by me in this circumstance made me discover Carapelle the reality of the abandonment of a country. The inhabitants had left, some in the forties, to the north of France, others, more recently, Canada. Now marriages were celebrated only by proxy, as a prelude to the start of wives at a time in Canada. This demographic situation made me aware of what it meant to the agony of a country, showing how events unfolded. With the help of the university, the local tourist office then began to recall that this country had a history of more than a thousand years and even in its own way, glorious (1).
During the early Middle Ages (IX century) Carapelle was the star of one of the very few episodes that we know of struggle and peasant revolt against aristocratic oppression even more pressing. His past was lit up by flashes of light, flashes to show us that this country had its own story. It was not timeless entity in time and appeared destined for a repetition of the same years and centuries, but it was set up on a given date and its people had been aware of their status and dignity, were not of mere passive objects, but the real actors in their history.
No doubt this also applies to St. John and Teatino Sambuceto, which subtracts Simon Longo darkness and silence, bringing to the attention of their medieval origins. These are military and feudal origins.
In fact, the information we received on these two small towns is sparse. Just some lyrics that speak not of the history of the men who worked there and the local area, but that of those who dominated and ruled: Count Robert of Loritello, the bishop of Chieti Ranulf, finally, the grandson of this' they became masters of the last places to their uncle a considerable sum of money. We are not in this case in the documentary record that gives access to the level of labor and peasant life, but rather in that of the government of a territory, the establishment and maintenance of noble heritage, as well as that of the feudal relationships of vassalage. The castrum of Furka, which must remain available to its seizure by his superior, the Earl of Loritello, is part of a military device, to ensure control of the northern frontier of the Norman possessions, recently established at the time of the writing of Acts (2). Commenting on those documents
Simon Longo does certainly an act of filial gratitude. It is mainly the work of the teacher to say and show that there is a society without history, that understanding the past is essential to understanding the present.
This is the function of our profession's history, and yet the social justification of its existence. Moreover, we are well aware that the events most humble occurred during the Middle Ages, often invisible and weakly documented, still have an impact on our lives today. It so happens that the decision taken by this or that man, to build a country and put his residence is at the root of our current picture of life, although it fades and vanishes in the face of social changes occurring in the second half of the twentieth century. The Lord is gone, often his name is now unknown. The town instead persists and with it a landscape of which it is worth remembering that it existed and that, even as amended, continues to be the horizon of our primary and most immediate perception of space. The community of the country, sometimes still very much alive, this is more in the distant past, that wise men such as Simon Longo revive.
For these reasons, as I greet with pleasure the publication of this volume, I support the work of this kind are important because they do not extinguish the memory of social things and people.
Laurent Feller
professor
of Medieval History, University of Paris I pantheon Sorbonne
Laboratory medieval studies west Paris
1) see A. Clementi, F. Justice, L. Feller, homines de Carapellas. History and Archaeology of the barony of Carapelle , Japadre, L'Aquila 1988 [Deputation Abruzzese di Storia Patria, Studies and texts, fasc. 10].
2) L. Feller, The Northern Frontier of Norman Italy in The Society of Norman Italy , edited by GA Loud, A. Metcalfe, Leiden-Boston-Köln 2002, pp. 47-74.
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