Fuoco e acqua negli ordinamenti normativi della Sardegna bassomedievale

Water and fire were fundamental to the life of pre-industrial societies. The paper analyses the discipline applied to the use of these elements in the Sardinian legislative provisions of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. Legislative measures concerning the use and control of fire and water are here examined, paying attention also to the role magistrates played in enforcing the rules. The text, with its marked survey connotation, aims to offer a broad overview at the regional level. It highlights the common features and peculiarities of the various dispositive writings, in the awareness of their complex layers of drafting, in turn connected to the characteristics of the institutional bodies deeply indebted to continental legislation – particularly Pisan and Genoese –, and to the different economic and social realities present on the island during the Late Middle Ages.