#SALT IRON WARS TRIAL#
#SALT IRON WARS FREE#

Chester was a supply port and a convenient military base from which to gain control of North Wales with its lead and silver mines. The Roman army’s advance to the North reached Cheshire by around 60AD and established military bases at Chester and Middlewich.

At the inland sites the nearly saturated natural brine would require much less fuel and time to make salt than from the evaporation of weakly saline sea water. Salt was a vital commodity to the Roman army and this demand will have been met by establishing military salt works. The Bible compliments some men as being ‘the salt of the earth’.Īt the time of the Roman Conquest, British salt making had been long established at numerous coastal sites and at the inland brine springs of Cheshire and Worcestershire. Not to be worth one’s salt was a great insult. To sit above or below the salt identified precedence in the seating arrangements at a feast, according to one’s rank. Salt was a scarce and expensive commodity and its value was legendary. From the same source we get the word salary, ‘salarium’. It is said to be from this that we get the word soldier – ‘sal dare’, meaning to give salt. In Britain, lead salt pans were used by the Romans at Middlewich, Nantwich and Northwich and excavations at Middlewich and Nantwich have revealed extensive salt-making settlements. Rita Zappelli, Caro Viario: Un viaggio nella vecchia Perugia attraverso le sue mura, porte, vie e piazza, Guerra Edizioni, Perugia, 1999.Home > Education > The History of Salt > Roman Times Roman Times Ciliani, La Rocca Paolina nella storia e nella realtà contemporanea, Guerra Edizioni, Perugia, 2002. Recent research suggests that this is an urban legend developed after 1860. One curious note about the war is that Perugian legend holds that as part of a popular protest against the new papal tax in 1540, citizens stopped putting salt in their bread (unsalted bread is the norm to this day). Despite the fact that a later Pope, Julius III, gave the Perugians back a semblance of local rule in 1559, the city became part of the Papal States and remained so until Italian unification in 1860. Built not to protect Perugia but, in Julius III's words, 'to slow down the burning of the Perugians and get rid of the opportunity to rebel against the Holy See,' the fort was for centuries a symbol of oppressive papal rule. Shortly thereafter, an enormous fortress, the Rocca Paolina (Pauline Fortress), was constructed on the plans designed by Antonio and Aristotele da Sangallo. The Perugians decided to rebel but on 4 June 1540 papal troops, led by the pope's son Pierluigi Farnese and his condottiere Alessandro da Terni, forced a surrender. This violated treaties between Perugia and previous popes, treaties which Paul III had confirmed at the beginning of his pontificate, but Perugian protests were to no avail. In this already economically difficult situation, Pope Paul III decided to levy a new tax on salt for all his subjects. This came to a head after a disastrous harvest in 1539, which drove up prices in Perugia and its rural hinterland. Beginning in the late 15th century, successive popes attempted to rein in Perugian autonomy, despite resistance by the Perugians.

#SALT IRON WARS TRIAL#

The Perugian elite continued to enjoy a sort of semi-autonomy, including several privileges like trial by a local (not papal-appointed) judge and freedom from paying any taxes on salt, then an important product for preserving food.

#SALT IRON WARS FREE#

Perugia had been a free commune until 1370, when it was de jure incorporated into the Papal States.

Salt iron wars