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The Lion's Share
This is the most in-depth analysis of inequality and social polarization ever attempted for a preindustrial society. Using data from the archives of the Venetian Terraferma, and compared with information available for elsewhere in Europe, Guido Alfani and Matteo Di Tullio demonstrate that the rise of the fiscal-military state served to increase economic inequality in the early modern period. Preindustrial fiscal systems tended to be regressive in nature, and increased post-tax inequality compared to pre-tax - in contrast to what we would assume is the case in contemporary societies. This led to greater and greater disparities in wealth, which were made worse still as taxes were collected almost entirely to fund war and defence rather than social welfare. Though focused on Old Regime Europe, Alfani and Di Tullio's findings speak to contemporary debates about the roots of inequality and social stratification.
Fathers and Godfathers
In medieval Europe baptism did not merely represent a solemn and public recognition of the 'natural' birth of a child, but was regarded as a second, 'spiritual birth', within a social group often different from the child's blood relations: a spiritual family, composed of godfathers and godmothers. By analyzing the changing theological and social nature of spiritual kinship and godparenthood between 1450 and 1650, this book explores how these medieval concepts were developed and utilised by the Catholic Church in an era of reform and challenge. It demonstrates how such ties continued to be of major social importance throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, but were often used in wa...
Calamities and the Economy in Renaissance Italy
Italy faced a number of catastrophes in the long sixteenth century. This economic and demographic history follows the consequences of these catastrophes - the action of the Horsemen of the Apocalypse - War, Famine and Plague, all followed by Death.
As Gods Among Men
How the rich and the super-rich throughout Western history accumulated their wealth, behaved (or misbehaved) and helped (or didn’t help) their communities in times of crisis The rich have always fascinated, sometimes in problematic ways. Medieval thinkers feared that the super-rich would act 'as gods among men’; much more recently Thomas Piketty made wealth central to discussions of inequality. In this book, Guido Alfani offers a history of the rich and super-rich in the West, examining who they were, how they accumulated their wealth and what role they played in society. Covering the last thousand years, with frequent incursions into antiquity, and integrating recent research on economi...
Famine in European History
The first systematic study of famine in all parts of Europe from the Middle Ages to present. It compares the characteristics, consequences and causes of famine in regional case studies by leading experts to form a comprehensive picture of when and why food security across the continent became a critical issue.
Spiritual Kinship in Europe, 1500-1900
The authors in this volume analyze spiritual kinship in Europe from the end of the Middle Ages to the Industrial Age. Uniquely comparing Catholic, Protestant and Orthodox views and practices, the chapters look at changes in theological thought over time as well as in social customs related to spiritual kinship, including godparenthood.
Quantitative Studies of the Renaissance Florentine Economy and Society
Quantitative Studies of the Renaissance Florentine Economy and Society is a collection of nine quantitative studies probing aspects of Renaissance Florentine economy and society. The collection, organized by topic, source material and analysis methods, discusses risk and return, specifically the population’s responses to the plague and also the measurement of interest rates. The work analyzes the population’s wealth distribution, the impact of taxes and subsidies on art and architecture, the level of neighborhood segregation and the accumulation of wealth. Additionally, this study assesses the competitiveness of Florentine markets and the level of monopoly power, the nature of women’s work and the impact of business risk on the organization of industrial production.
Famines During the ʻLittle Ice Ageʼ (1300-1800)
This highly interdisciplinary book studies historical famines as an interface of nature and culture. It will bring together researchers from the natural and social sciences as well as the humanities. With reference to recent interdisciplinary concepts (disaster studies, vulnerability studies, environmental history) it will examine, how the dominant opposition of natural and cultural factors can be overcome. Such an integrated approach includes the "archives of nature" as well as "archives of man". It challenges deterministic models of human-environment interaction and replaces them with a dynamic, historicising approach. As a result it provides a fresh perspective on the entanglement of climate and culture in past societies.
New Directions in Spiritual Kinship
This volume examines the significance of spiritual kinship—or kinship reckoned in relation to the divine—in creating myriad forms of affiliations among Christians, Jews, and Muslims. Rather than confining the study of spiritual kinship to Christian godparenthood or presuming its disappearance in light of secularism, the authors investigate how religious practitioners create and contest sacred solidarities through ritual, discursive, and ethical practices across social domains, networks, and transnational collectives. This book’s theoretical conversations and rich case studies hold value for scholars of anthropology, kinship, and religion.
