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The transformations in crafts from antiquity to the late Middle Ages concerned the laws, first with imperial edicts and later with municipal Briefs or with their own rules.
The various arts, for example that of wool, were able to access positions of power, giving life to a very rich "bourgeoisie" with a network of commerce extended throughout the Mediterranean. We are interested in the relations between Pisa, its colonies and its allies as fundamental to the development of trade and consequently of craftsmanship.
Take for example the Tunisian colony, which offered a strategic and fundamental safe harbor for trade to the East.
In the Tuscan hinterland, trade took place by river along the course of the Arno which connected several important markets such as Florence which allowed a market route also with Siena.
By land, trade and war extended beyond the borders, also reaching the Empire of which Pisa was an ally and from which it obtained wealth and territories.
The sources, from which the scholars cited by me have drawn, are the Briefs, the statutes, the imperial diplomas, the papers and anonymous and non-anonymous writings, dating back to that era.
I focused my thesis on craftsmanship considering it the fulcrum of trade and socio-economic growth of the city of Pisa. I focused on its path through history to include the economy, toponymy, trade and politics of the city in the late Middle Ages. From the study of these points one can understand the life and culture of those centuries, and gradually the work from shops to industries developed. My goal is to clarify the role of craftsmanship in Pisa by introducing the history of the city with its trade, its domains and its wars, concluding by illustrating the role of craftsmanship in Pisan history. One of the reasons that led me to choose this theme is the lack of an in-depth study on these topics, as to date there is no historical study on this theme. The social and political structures of craftsmanship influenced, as can be seen from the historiography of Pisa in the late Middle Ages, the population, its politics and its countryside. Between the eleventh and twelfth centuries we find clearly the function of Tuscan craftsmanship we find how some cities had a similar organization.
This is because the trade had now expanded throughout the peninsula, and even abroad, favoring intertwining of cultures and development of working methods that led to a wider collaboration between different cultures.
Through these commercial routes we therefore find roots that still concern our history.