The story that comes from the Documents. The Middle Ages of Pariana
The first mention of a settlement in the locality of Parriana dates back to 913, the Early Middle Ages, when the Bishop of Lucca, Pietro, granted by emphyteusis to Leone, son of the late Ilprando, the properties present there. It is worth pausing on those properties to understand what existed in Pariana in the 10th century.
The emphyteusis concerned a “casalino” and “fundamento,” a vast piece of land where there was a “casa massaricia.” This term is very important because we are dealing with a “corte,” that is, an agricultural estate which, according to the manorial system widespread everywhere during feudalism, was divided into two parts: one consisting of the “terre dominiche,” meaning lands whose produce belonged to the lord (the dominus), as he was the owner of those lands, and the other part consisting of the “terre massaricie,” like the mentioned house, that is, lands whose produce went to the peasants because they had worked and cultivated them.
The “casalino” was composed of the “corte” itself, the vegetable garden, the vineyards, the olive groves, and the chestnut woods. Leone had to repair the house within two years, enclose it, cover the roof, and go to live there. Therefore, we are in a place already inhabited.
It must be said that the territory around Pariana is well documented in the Early Middle Ages: already in 760, during the Lombard era, probably (but not certainly) the Church of San Michele Arcangelo of Colognora is mentioned, and in 757 a house in Buellio (Boveglio) is mentioned. However, the “first” Pariana must have been quite different from the current one and was probably located on the little hill slightly distant from the settlement that hosts the Church of San Martino (later Lorenzo and Bartolomeo), with a fortification tower and probably a walled enclosure surrounding it. A fine erratic capital, relocated at the base of the tower, probably testifies to the first early medieval period of the Church.
That Church was located in an agricultural territory that was rich, as it was coveted by probably Lucchese figures who requested it under emphyteusis (lease for a fee). In the phase around the year 1000, during which the Diocese of Lucca widely granted its properties to laymen, in 1014, the bishop of Lucca Grimizzo granted under emphyteusis many properties of the Church and the Diocese with the related tithes, including half of the Pieve of Villa Basilica, half of the Church of Boveglio and half of the Church of San Martino of Pariana, to Sigefredo, son of the late Teudigrimo (it is noted that, later, the Tegrimi were an important Lucchese merchant family) of Maona. Three years later, in 1017, he granted under emphyteusis the remaining half of the Church of Pariana, Pieve of Villa Basilica and Boveglio to Giò Arciprete, son of Milone. It is the first mention of the Church of San Martino, which appears firmly in the hands of the Bishop of Lucca. But the interest of the leading figures of Lucca in the lands of that mountain and in Pariana also appears.
In 1086 the archpriest of Lucca Lamberto (after the death of Bishop St. Anselmo and the rise to the bishopric of the one indicated as a usurper, Pietro), from Pescia where he was in exile, granted to Bonaldo, also a Canon of San Martino, half of the Pieve of Santa Maria and Giovanni Battista of Villa and half of the Pieve of San Ginese of Boveglio (against an annual rent in money). In this case, only the pievi are mentioned, and thus the simple churches of Pariana and Colognora are involved indirectly as part of the Plebanate of Villa. It is peculiar that here Boveglio is mentioned as a “Pieve.” It is a phase of considerable disorder and conflict within the Diocese of Lucca, which St. Anselmo tried to reform. The Plebanate of Villa Basilica remained faithful to St. Anselmo the reformer, along with Pescia, Montecatini, and the Valleariana. In this fidelity also lay the bond that these lands maintained with Matilda of Canossa, through St. Anselmo, who was very closely connected to her, whose fall led to the expulsion of Matilda from Lucca. It is also unclear under what title – a sign of overall disorder – Lamberto the archpriest could continue to have a role concerning the territories and churches in Montecatini, Pescia, Villa Basilica, and Valleariana.
In 1119 Bishop Benedetto was elected to lead the Lucchese Diocese, who, in 1120, carried out an extensive visit to the churches of the Diocese and also reached the mountains at San Martino of Pariana; and it was precisely in Pariana that the bishop was when he was invested by Bastardo di Tedesco, envoy of the Marquis of Tuscany Corrado, with all the fiefdom, the albergaria, the fodrum of the entire Pieve of Villa Basilica. And, in order to soften the existing conflict between the bishop and the Canons of San Martino in Lucca, Corrado also granted the bishop that the royalties coming from the Pieve of Villa Basilica, belonging to the emperor or the marquis of Tuscany, should go to the same Canons of San Martino.
The act – which is from 1121, as follows – is complex. With that Diploma, the Emperor Corrado, from Volterra, invests at Villa the bishop Benedetto of Lucca with the Pieve of Villa Basilica and its plebanate, that is, Pariana, Boveglio, and Colognora, with every right, committing himself, should the bishop wish to build a castle there, to protect it from everyone.
Thus, in the same year, Corrado, Marquis of Tuscany, sends his envoy Bastardo “Teutonic” to invest, in the name of the Marquis, the bishop and the canons of Lucca with the Plebanate of Villa Basilica. The ceremony takes place in three acts. The first, in the Pieve of Villa Basilica, with an olive branch in hand, in the presence of the Emperor’s envoy Sineanima, and various notable citizens, among whom Fulcerio, consul of Lucca, and Filippo di Gaudio, priest of Villa. Then, in the church of Pariana, with a vine branch in hand, again with the imperial envoy, the Church of Lucca was invested with the district and jurisdiction (placito) of the whole Villa Pariana, with its appurtenances and inhabitants. And so it happened for the Church of Boveglio. Thus, in 1221, the emperor confirms to the Diocese of Lucca (and also to its Canons) the Plebanate of Villa Basilica and Pariana.
On March 23, 1164 (AAL, Privileges, no. 60, below) Emperor Frederick I Barbarossa grants to the Diocese of Lucca the governance of Villa Basilica and its territory, namely Pariana, Boveglio, and Colognora, with all rights and jurisdiction. It should be noted that the territory being granted is the political and administrative one, which, however, is identified with the Plebanate of Villa Basilica. Thus, the sphere of political and religious governance, at this stage, coincides, as already noted.
However, at this stage, the opinions of nineteenth-century scholars diverge, regarding an alleged reversal by the Emperor who, in 1179 or 1184 or 1185, would have revoked the concession of Villa, Pariana, Boveglio, and Colognora to the Bishop to reabsorb them among the imperial properties. It cannot be said who is right, but certainly, any imperial about-face would have had to occur after 1180 because in that year the Plebanate of Villa and its lands were still in the hands of the Bishop of Lucca.
Read below:
Surely, a reversal – from whose memory perhaps came the accusation against his father Frederick – was made by Henry VI, son of Frederick I, about ten years later, in 1194, when, within two years, he granted and denied possession of the Plebanate of Villa and its lands to Bishop Guido III.
Indeed, from 1194 is the Diploma with which – read below – he confirmed, recalling the continuity with the confirmations of his predecessors of the Holy Roman Empire, to the Church of Lucca the Pieve of Villa Basilica and its lands of Pariana, Boveglio, and Colognora.
Just two years later, in 1196, he revoked everything, taking the Pieve of Villa and its lands away from the Bishop to give them to a figure from an influential family in Lucca, whose relatives were imperial notaries, namely Grandonio Lucense. The lands mentioned were Pariana, Boveglio, and Colognora. A private individual who appears to be a member of a Lucchese bourgeois family and whom we find involved in the strong productive and commercial activity that Lucca launched at that time with the development of silk production. A Gherardino Grandoni appears as Podestà of Siena in 1217 and of Genoa in 1227; it is not known if it was the same person, but he was a member of the family, one of those that were advancing at that time following business ventures that, in the 13th century, became extremely powerful for Lucca.
ASL, DIPLOMATIC, TARPEA, 1196. GRANTING OF THE PLEBANATE OF VILLA BASILICA TO GRANDONIO
Gruppo Donatori di Sangue Fratres di Pariana
Via Regina Margherita 13, Pariana, Villa Basilica (LU), 55019
CF: 9200234046
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