England and Northern Italy in the Early Fourteenth Century: the Economic Contrasts

1989 ◽  
Vol 39 ◽  
pp. 167-183 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. H. Britnell
Keyword(s):  
Fourteenth Century ◽  
Northern Italy ◽  
Early Years ◽  
Modern World ◽  
Advanced Economy ◽  
Underdeveloped Countries ◽  
Medieval Italy ◽  
International Lending ◽  
Kingdom Of Naples ◽  
Credit Worthiness

We know almost as much about the operations of big Italian companies in England as about those in Italy itself during the early fourteenth century. Tuscan trade here engaged some of Europe's most celebrated businesses, attracted by the kingdom's fine wool and the credit-worthiness of her crown and nobility. Historians have some-times drawn an analogy with international lending from richer to poorer countries in the modern world, both to create a point of contact with their readers and to meet the need for deep-lying explanations. The analogy usually carries the implication that Italy had a more advanced economy than England, and there are authors who say so explicitly. Some use terms designed to describe international economic growth during the last two hundred years, and represent medieval Italy as a pole of development, or a core economy. Others, borrowing the language of power, describe Italy as a dominant economy. Professor Cipolla uses a number of these ideas at once in his observation that ‘in the early years of the fourteenth century Florence represented a dominant and developed economy, while England and the kingdom of Naples were two decidedly underdeveloped countries: the periphery, to use Wallerstein's expression’.

Exeter Cathedral: A Conjectural Restoration of the Fourteenth-Century Altar-Screen, Part I

1943 ◽  
Vol 23 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 122-147 ◽  
Author(s):  
Percy Morris
Keyword(s):  
Fourteenth Century ◽  
Early Years ◽  
Expert Advice ◽  
Advanced Stage ◽  
New Work ◽  
History Of ◽  
To Receive

The early years of the fourteenth century were memorable ones in the history of Exeter Cathedral, for work on the new presbytery, or novum opus as it is called in the Fabric Rolls, was in progress. When Bishop Bytton died, in 1307, building operations had reached an advanced stage, and the task of completing the work devolved upon his successor, Walter de Stapledon, a Devon man and at the time of his election precentor of the cathedral. At that date the presbytery vaulting was finished, with the exception of its colouring, and the windows were glazed. The transformed chancel of the Norman church was nearly ready to receive the stalls, but the Norman apse still separated the old and new parts of the building. In 1309–10 ‘John of Glastonbury’ was engaged in removing the stalls to the new quire, but we find no record of the date when the linking-up of the Norman building with the new work took place. The Fabric Roll of the following year records a visit of ‘Master William de Schoverwille’, master mason of Salisbury, to inspect the new work: from this we may infer that a stage had been reached when important decisions were pending—the furnishing of the chancel, the building of the altar-screen, and the addition of a triforium arcade and clerestory gallery to the newly built presbytery—and it may have been these undertakings which prompted the chapter to seek expert advice.

scholarly journals LIVING LIKE THE LAITY? THE NEGOTIATION OF RELIGIOUS STATUS IN THE CITIES OF LATE MEDIEVAL ITALY

2010 ◽  
Vol 20 ◽  
pp. 27-55 ◽  
Author(s):  
Frances Andrews
Keyword(s):  
Thirteenth Century ◽  
Power Relations ◽  
Northern Italy ◽  
The Other ◽  
Late Medieval ◽  
Medieval Italy ◽  
Important Object

ABSTRACTFramed by consideration of images of treasurers on the books of the treasury in thirteenth-century Siena, this article uses evidence for the employment of men of religion in city offices in central and northern Italy to show how religious status (treated as a subset of ‘clerical culture’) could become an important object of negotiation between city and churchmen, a tool in the repertoire of power relations. It focuses on the employment of men of religion as urban treasurers and takes Florence in the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries as a principal case study, but also touches on the other tasks assigned to men of religion and, very briefly, on evidence from other cities (Bologna, Brescia, Como, Milan, Padua, Perugia and Siena). It outlines some of the possible arguments deployed for this use of men of religion in order to demonstrate that religious status was, like gender, more contingent and fluid than the norm-based models often relied on as a shorthand by historians. Despite the powerful rhetoric of lay–clerical separation in this period, the engagement of men of religion in paid, term-bound urban offices inevitably brought them closer to living like the laity.

scholarly journals A Cell of Their Own: The Incarceration of Women in Late Medieval Italy

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Guy Geltner
Keyword(s):  
Fourteenth Century ◽  
Diverse Group ◽  
Female Inmates ◽  
Late Medieval ◽  
Medieval Italy ◽  
A Cell

This article examines the earliest evidence from Florence's municipal prison (Le Stinche) in the fourteenth century concerning female inmates, who were locked in their own ward. Alongside sketching a social profile of this rather diverse group, it stresses that their undifferentiated treatment was both demeaning and yet ostensibly inconsequential.

scholarly journals On the Origins of the Shrine of ‘Abd al-Samad in Natanz: The Case for a Revised Chronology

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-34
Author(s):  
RICHARD McCLARY ◽  
ANA MARIJA GRBANOVIC
Keyword(s):  
Fourteenth Century ◽  
Major Change ◽  
Early Years ◽  
The Core

Abstract This article proposes a re-examination of the phases of construction and decoration at the shrine of ‘Abd al-Samad in Natanz and demonstrates that the core fabric and elements of architectural revetments of the shrine are datable to the Seljuq period (431-590/1040-1194), or slightly later. The structure was repurposed and redecorated, including the addition of extensive lustre tiles and stucco, for ‘Abd al-Samad by Zayn al-Din al-Mastari in the early years of the fourteenth century in a series of separate phases. Particular attention is focused on the nature of the original decoration of the shrine, revealed beneath the mortar which held the, now largely removed, Ilkhanid tilework in place. Scrutiny of the decorative interventions illustrates that the application of lustre revetments in the shrine also determined a major change of the function of the monument, from a simple burial structure into a pilgrimage centre in its own right.

Conclusions

Dear China ◽  
2018 ◽  
pp. 176-184
Author(s):  
Gregor Benton ◽  
Hong Liu
Keyword(s):  
Urban Growth ◽  
Gold Rush ◽  
Early Years ◽  
Modern World ◽  
Social Dimensions ◽  
The South ◽  
International Networks ◽  
Coastal Cities ◽  
Key Driver ◽  
The One

This concluding chapter argues that the qiaopi trade was the basis for one of China’s earliest excursions into the modern world economy. The trade quickly progressed from the one-man operations of the early years to the piju formed by qiaopi entrepreneurs to take advantage of the opportunities offered by the swift growth of Chinese emigration and remittance. It eventually matured into a stable industry with its own perfected mechanisms, patched onto China’s other modern institutions like banks and the post office and linked to modern forms of communication and transport. The trade gave an impetus to other forms of transnational and domestic industry and to urban growth in coastal cities adjacent to the qiaoxiang. Initially based on networks of blood, place, and tongue, it later joined or created national, transnational, and international networks based on trade, finance, and general migration, mainly in territories around the South China Sea but also in the gold-rush Pacific—the Americas, Australia, and the South Pacific. These networks, maritime and terrestrial, were not just economic but also had deep cultural and social dimensions. Along them ran not just cash, capital, and goods but also people, ideas, and information. The flow of capital, ideas, and population between Chinese in diaspora and their families and communities in China was a key driver in the remaking of China along modern and transnational lines.

Banks and Bankers

1996 ◽  
pp. 234-254
Author(s):  
Ariel Toaff
Keyword(s):  
Thirteenth Century ◽  
Northern Italy ◽  
Money Market ◽  
Local Economy ◽  
Economic Interests ◽  
Late Medieval ◽  
Jewish Communities ◽  
Medieval Italy ◽  
The Alps ◽  
Official Status

This chapter assesses the Jewish banks and bankers in late medieval Italy, particularly in Umbria. From the end of the thirteenth century, the communes of central and northern Italy held a powerful attraction for Jewish financiers from Rome and beyond the Alps, and the origins of many Italian Jewish communities are linked to the migrations of these first Jewish merchants and bankers. Umbria received one of the earliest, and largest, waves of migrating Jewish bankers from Rome: here, introduced and supported by the circles of the Roman Curia, whose political and economic interests they often represented, these bankers were invited by the communes to invest their capital in the local economy. The priors gave them official status in the money-market, binding them to the strict observance of charters laying down permitted charges and other regulations protecting prospective borrowers, but also granting them the rights of citizenship and numerous privileges of a legal and religious kind. The chapter then studies the structure and functioning of the great Jewish banking and trading companies. It also looks at the major banking families in Umbria, as well as the bankers' servants.

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