Tra libertà e sottomissione: il lavoro contrattualizzato negli schemi giuridici e istituzionali della dottrina medievale

In the current debate around the freedom and dignity of work, the essay offers a reflection on the historical roots of the contractual nature of work. The starting point is represented by the process of liberation of the rural masses in the late Middle Ages, as framed first by the school of glossators and then by commentators within the contractual scheme of leasing. This scheme, which rediscovers the freedom of the individual, considers the medieval corporate order and therefore profiles of hierarchical submission. The worker’s freedom is thus consolidated in the context of fourteenth-century legal anthropology, around the profile of the temporary nature of the work performance.