The capitoli or pacts of submission referred to here were of a type found widely in late medieval Italy, and throughout the rest of Europe. They were composed of a series of requests (‘capitula’) presented by a community (more rarely by individuals, families, ecclesiastical bodies) at the moment of submission to a lord (or to a more powerful community, such as a civic commune or a dominant city) to ask for or to agree to the conditions of surrender and subjection.1