Suppliques des vassaux, pouvoirs du baron (États pontificaux, XVIIIème siècle)

Vassals' supplications, baron' s powers ( States of the Church, XVIIIth Century). This article proposes some considerations on the theme of supplications, intended both as a practice of communication between society and powers and as an historical source, moving from the petitions submitted to the princes Colonna by the inhabitants of their fiefs in southern Latium. The author analyses these texts considering them in the wider framework of the petitions related to other aspects of feudal power , addressed both by individuals and communities to the barons themselves or to the State's institutions. Beyond their stereotypical appearance, supplications emerge as a kind of source which can help the historian grasp the political conceptions and attitudes of early modern societies and their mutations.