Page 35 - Changing Living Spaces

The Privatization of the Common Real Estate in Lombard Alpine Valleys

for cattle and sheep; (c) low quality arable land and outbuildings such as
barns, haystacks, stables, etc.; and (d) smelting furnaces, mills, sawmills.
Thus, they were economically important for the village and the surviv-
al of its inhabitants, especially the poorest families. If the yields of fruits
for human consumption such as cereals were low, the yields of forage and
wood were good, both in quality and quantity. Common pastures and for-
ests usually made it possible to feed local livestock and secure firewood
for family needs. Common buildings obviously enabled inhabitants to
better conserve their fruits. In some villages, they also enabled local arti-
sans to + and sell high-quality handmade goods.
The Assembly also had to decide on all periods of working time con-
cerning free services for the maintenance of roads and the eventual re-
construction of dams, bridges, etc. In the villages having furnaces and
forges, it also decided on the division of wood for domestic use (heating
and cooking) or for local handicrafts. Regarding the common real estate,
the assembly also determined: (a) fines for damages caused by unattend-
ed cattle or for people who picked fruits prematurely; (b) the rent for local
and foreign cattle breeders who used the common meadows from June to
September (when they went back to the plain with their cattle); and (c)
the taxes paid by all families for the co-ownership share. Finally, the as-
sembly voted on how the fruits of the common property, i.e. both the har-
vest and the rent, should be divided among the families.
The management of the common property was especially difficult when
the economic and weather trends were negative. In these cases the poor-
est families tried to harvest more fruits than they were entitled to, which
led to disputes with other inhabitants and especially with the manag-
ers of the common property, who usually had high professional qualifi-
cations and were able to ensure a good income for their families. Thus,
sometimes fierce disputes arose over the distribution of the fruits of the
common real estate. This explains why it was absolutely forbidden to par-
ticipate at assemblies with weapons, sticks, or other offensive objects and
why the use of the commons was regulated in every detail by statutes.
In the Alpine valleys of Lombardy, the common real estate belonged to
communities because: (a) it was impossible to find a private owner; (b) the
communities received the real estate by legacy (a rare case, since legacies
were usually reserved for ecclesiastical institutions); (c) the communities
acquired the real estate from people who were unable to pay their debts
(an uncommon case, since family networks that controlled the local cred-
it system gave borrowers long payment terms to avoid protests that dis-

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