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The focus of this essay is a category which included armed men on horseback of humble origins but clearly separated from the simple rustici through military practice, closeness to the local lord as well as through their lifestyle. Carrying out armed activities, whether or not within a feudal tie, was the primary and the busiest way for upward social mobility within the rural lordships. The economic growth in the 12th century Tuscany also began to offer new possibilities for economic accumulation and investment and ever faster social mobility in the countryside. From the 13th century onwards the consolidation of the communal power over wider areas of the ‘contado’ opened up to the members of the rural elites a further and more direct channel to access military status.
