Where Notaries Provided Legal Services to Medieval Townspeople

2018 ◽  
Vol 43 (3) ◽  
pp. 270-280 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susan Mosher Stuard

If notarial offices in medieval Italian towns had not offered their dual services of commercial law contracts and family law documents on the same premises and in the homes of their clients, perhaps the cross-fertilization of ideas that created the instruments of trade sustaining Europe’s emerging market economy would not have followed. Italian traders carried the contracts that undergirded long-distance trade across Europe and the Mediterranean Sea leaving a singular mark on economic development. Corresponding effects on families who were involved in trade were dramatic, if unintended.

2020 ◽  
Vol 41 (1) ◽  
pp. 49-62
Author(s):  
Josep Francesc Bisbal-Chinesta ◽  
Karin Tamar ◽  
Ángel Gálvez ◽  
Luís Albero ◽  
Pablo Vicent-Castelló ◽  
...  

Abstract Human movements in the regions surrounding the Mediterranean Sea have caused a great impact in the composition of terrestrial fauna due to the introductions of several allochthonous species, intentionally or not. Reptiles are one of the groups where this anthropic impact is most evident, owing to the extensive intra-Mediterranean dispersals of recent chronologies. Chalcides ocellatus is a widespread skink with a natural distribution that covers almost the entire Mediterranean Basin. Two hypotheses have been proposed to explain its origin: natural dispersions and human translocations. Previous molecular data suggest the occurrence of a recent dispersal phenomenon across the Mediterranean Sea. In this study we present the first record of this species in the Iberian Peninsula, in Serra del Molar (South-east Spain). We combined molecular analyses and archaeological records to study the origin of this population. The molecular results indicate that the population is phylogenetically closely related to specimens from north-eastern Egypt and southern Red Sea. We suggest that the species arrived at the Iberian Peninsula most likely through human-mediated dispersal by using the trade routes. Between the Iron to Middle Ages, even now, the region surrounding Serra del Molar has been the destination of human groups and commercial goods of Egyptian origins, in which Chalcides ocellatus could have arrived as stowaways. The regional geomorphological evolution would have restricted its expansion out of Serra del Molar. These findings provide new data about the impact of human movements on faunal introductions and present new information relating to mechanisms of long-distance translocations.


2017 ◽  
Vol 98 (5) ◽  
pp. 1003-1009 ◽  
Author(s):  
Luca Bittau ◽  
Mattia Leone ◽  
Adrien Gannier ◽  
Alexandre Gannier ◽  
Renata Manconi

Sowerby's beaked whale (Mesoplodon bidens) was previously known in the Mediterranean Sea from a single live stranding of two individuals in the French Riviera. We report here on two live sightings in the western Mediterranean, central-western Tyrrhenian Sea off eastern Corsica (Montecristo Trough) and off eastern Sardinia (Caprera Canyon) in 2010 and 2012, respectively. In both cases single individuals, possibly the same individual, occurred within groups of Cuvier's beaked whales (Ziphius cavirostris) suggesting inter-specific interactions. Based on our close observations of mixed-species groups of Sowerby's and Cuvier's beaked whales, we hypothesize that some previous long-distance sightings of beaked whales in the Mediterranean may not be reliably attributed to Z. cavirostris. The present sightings and previous live stranding indicate that the western Mediterranean Sea is the easternmost marginal area of M. bidens within the North Atlantic geographic range. Notes on behaviour are also provided.


2016 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. 766 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. ARAGAY ◽  
D. VITALES ◽  
A. GÓMEZ GARRETA ◽  
M. A. RIBERA SIGUAN ◽  
F. STEEN ◽  
...  

Dictyota cyanoloma, a distinctive brown algal species characterized by a blue-iridescent margin, was recently reported as an introduced species in the Mediterranean Sea (Steen et al., 2016) but little is known about its distribution dynamics, morphological plasticity and genetic structure. In the present integrative study, we evaluate its past and present occurrence along the Mediterranean Iberian coast, assess the species’ phenology in Palamós (Girona, Spain) and analyze the haplotype diversity by sequencing 49 individuals from nine sampling sites for different chloroplast and mitochondrial DNA regions. Although D. cyanoloma currently occurs along the Mediterranean Iberian coast (in 19 of 36 localities sampled between Algeciras and Llançà, mostly in marinas and harbour environments), we were not able to find any herbarium material of this species (at BCN-Phyc and MA) predating the year 1987. In Palamós, D. cyanoloma is present all through the year, with a maximum development in winter and a minimum in summer. Fertile specimens are absent during summer (July and August). Sporophytes are dominant from January to June and dioecious gametophytes were found only in February, March and June. Information about the antheridia, which has never been described before, is provided. Two chloroplast and three mitochondrial haplotypes were observed, indicating that multiple introductions of D. cyanoloma occurred in the study area. Additionally, the genetic structure suggests that spread did not occur through simple advancing wave fronts but by several long-distance dispersal events. Further studies employing microsatellite markers could potentially offer a better resolution to unravel expansion and colonisation dynamics of D. cyanoloma in the Mediterranean Sea.


2020 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 353-366
Author(s):  
Leming Hu

PurposeThe relationship between government and market is the key to the economic development performance of market economy countries. Due to the limits such as the state/market dichotomy, the focus on static allocation efficiency and the ignorance of the diversity of the market economy and the relationship between government and market, economic liberalism and state interventionism can hardly position and explain the role and evolution of government and market in the real world accurately.Design/methodology/approachChina’s economic transition has always adhered to the reform direction of the socialist market economy and the development goal of a modern socialist country as well as the symbiosis and positive and progressive evolution of government and market, blazing a “third way” in handling the relationship between government and market.FindingsThe “China’s experience” shows that the key for emerging market economies to achieve good economic development performance lies in whether they can build a new relationship of the mutual integration between and common prosperity of government and market regarding target selection, production organisation, technological innovation, institutional change and regulatory adjustment.Originality/valueThe second part of this paper analyses the inherent defects of economic liberalism and state interventionism as well as the reasons why they can hardly be adopted as the theoretical guidance for emerging market economies to handle the relationship between government and market. The third part analyses how China has transcended the inherent thinking of liberalism and interventionism and shaped the new relationship between government and market through goal-oriented, active and progressive, two-way interactive exploration and practice to ensure the success of China's economic transition.


2021 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lorenzo Mari ◽  
Paco Melià ◽  
Marino Gatto ◽  
Renato Casagrandi

The seagrass Posidonia oceanica is a benthic foundation species endemic to the Mediterranean Sea. It is a key component of coastal seascapes across the Mediterranean large marine ecosystem, where it plays fundamental ecological, physical, and economic roles. Despite the importance of this iconic seagrass species, a quantitative assessment of the interplay between local dynamics and basin-wide dispersal patterns is still lacking. Here we propose a Mediterranean-scale metapopulation model for P. oceanica, accounting for both demographic processes (inter-annual survival, vegetative growth, fruit production, seed establishment) and the spatial connectivity provided by current-driven dispersal of seagrass fruits. Model simulations are used to identify hotspots of seagrass population abundance, realized connectivity, and long-distance dispersal. Our results indicate that P. oceanica multi-functional hotspots, defined as species-suitable areas that rank high in all of the considered functional roles, are unevenly distributed in the four main sub-basins of the Mediterranean Sea, and along both the European and the African coastline. Our analysis also allows us to outline a remarkable geographical gap in protection: in fact, while many of the hotspots located along European coasts occur close to protected sites, the great majority of the hotspots lying on African coasts lack any form of protection. The identification of hotspots of P. oceanica metapopulation dynamics can thus help select regions that may serve as priority candidates for focusing conservation efforts.


2020 ◽  
pp. 137-162
Author(s):  
Peter Temin

This chapter uses new data to extend the argument that there was an integrated wheat market in the late Roman Republic and early Roman Empire. I explore the meaning of randomness when data are scarce, and I investigate how we recreate the nature of ancient societies by asking new questions that stimulate the discovery of more information. The case for a prosperous Roman society extending the length of the Mediterranean Sea is strong. This chapter draws on and extends work reported in my book: The Roman Market Economy (2013).


2019 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 309 ◽  
Author(s):  
FRANCESCO COLLOCA ◽  
DANILO SCANNELLA ◽  
MICHELE LUCA GERACI ◽  
FABIO FALSONE ◽  
GIUSTO BATISTA ◽  
...  

The study reports information about the recapture of two tagged adult females of tope shark, Galeorhinus galeus (Linnaeus 1758), in the central Mediterranean Sea (south coasts of Sicily) in 2014 and 2017. The two females were tagged in North-East Atlantic, respectively in Scotland in 2009 and Ireland in 2015. The Scottish specimen was a 175 cm female increasing of about 10 kg in body weight and 37 cm in total length during its 1967 days at liberty (5.39 years). The Irish one, was a pregnant female of an estimated age of 15-17 year which spent 248 days at liberty increasing 14 cm during this period. The growth rate of the two specimens was therefore between 6.8 and 7.8 cm year-1, faster than the annual increments of adults suggested in previous studies. Previous tope recapture records in the Mediterranean Sea were limited to the Alboran Sea, coast of Valencia and the Algerian coasts. The two tope females recaptured in the Strait of Sicily provided the first evidence of long distance entrance of NE Atlantic tope in the Mediterranean Sea. The well known occurrence of mature females and juveniles in this area of the Mediterranean suggest the hypothesis of a migration of adults female from their feeding grounds in north eastern Atlantic to lower latitudes up to the Mediterranean Sea for parturition.


2010 ◽  
Vol 25 (5) ◽  
pp. 803-813 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pascual López-López ◽  
Rubén Limiñana ◽  
Ugo Mellone ◽  
Vicente Urios

2016 ◽  
pp. 63-80 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. Buzgalin ◽  
A. Kolganov

The authors, basing on a critical analysis of the experience of planning during the 20th century in a number of countries of Europe and Asia, and also on the lessons from the economics of "real socialism", set out to substantiate their conclusions on the advisability of "reloading" this institution. The aim is to create planning mechanisms, suited to the new economy, that incorporate forecasting, projections, direct and indirect selective regulation and so forth into integral programs of economic development and that set a vector of development for particular limited spheres of what remains on the whole a market economy. New planning institutions presuppose a supersession of the forms of bureaucratic centralism and a reliance on network forms of organization of the subject and process of planning.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document