University Library of Pavia

Collection of Gride

The collection consists of about 4,500 Gride, several proclamations and edicts that occur usually as loose sheets, except in cases of general proclamations in multiple pages. The collection preserves the resolutions divided by magistrates, and, within individual magistrates, ordered chronologically. The period of enactment goes from 1560 to 1786; the area is Lombardy, with prevalence of Milan. The collection appears as quite organic and it is probably the result of private collectors, but currently any provenance is documented. The conservation status is excellent.

The language

The “gride” were the laws back in time, just shout and then affixed to the walls of the streets. It seems obvious that, so that they were understandable to all the people, the language choice was not Latin but Italian vernacular instead, and that the language was not almost never legal technicality, but simple and easy to understand description of situations and events, busy commands and prohibitions that were closely related to the events described.
Partially different is the case of general shouts acts that were not issued to resolve circumstances but for general organizational functions, such as disease prevention. Their language was more technical, with detailed list of categories regarding the recipients of the ordres, specification of criminal responsibility, the enunciation of rules to manage the city life.

The type

Even within this unplanned legislation there was a hierarchy: The cries issued by the Governor were higher than the one disseminated by the local government.
A judiciary also could enact different rules: yells, edicts, proclamations, prohibitions, orders, instructions and rules, names that seem to correspond to different types of documents.
The most used measure is the screams, which did not differ in anything from the edict if not in the strength of the latter psychologically compelling. Both they contained mostly orders or concessions, established sanctions and appealed to a number of people quite generic, such as those exercising a trade, or they wanted to pass from one state to another, or belonged to a category as hosts or beggars. Sometimes the screams, called in this case statement was issued to interpret or clarify previous proclamations.
The general shouts, as mentioned above, were those with the widest range of recipients, and were laws designed to reorder the field of competence of the magistrate.

The notice contains essentially bans, and appears to have been used primarily for specific subjects such as the free circulation of people.
The governor, however, often emanates notices in the sense of "proclamations". The order contains a specific command, and sometimes instructions, directed to individuals or specific categories of people, while the prohibition contains prohibitions. Education and rule are acts which did not provide sanctions and indicated how to behave in certain situations. Suspension (or bans) are acts which avoided transit in the state of people or goods from infected or suspicious areas.
Then there are the withdrawals or revocations, liberations, refunds which abrogated the previous edicts and proclamations regarding restrictions of individual or collective liberties, trade bans, bans, segregation at home.
The frequent renovations, finally, were used in the event of a change of members of a judiciary which reiterated orders already given, or because the rules were disregarded and needed to be republished. In these documents it was expressed the renovation and all the previous text was reproduced, often in full, without modification.

The sheets are divided by topic and collected in 38 volumes, of which 34 recently restored: