From Ethnic Law to Town Law: The Customs of the Kingdom of Sicily from the Twelfth to the Fifteenth Century

Abstract

The history of Sicily, the largest island of the Mediterranean, is notably distinct from the history of the rest of Italy. It is because of this distinctiveness that Sicily can serve as a paradigmatic example of a pluralist legal system, one with a mix of both personal-law and territorial-law rules. In the time period that I examine in this essay, customary law took several different forms. What legislation, private records, and judicial decisions all call »custom« plays three different roles: law of specific ethnic groups, rights and customary practices concerning real property, and the law of towns.