Archives de catégorie : Actualités

Investment and Saving Opportunities for Different Socio-Economic Groups in Medieval and Early Modern Europe

Stephan Nicolussi-Köhler, Marco Conti and Kirsten Wandschneider

https://www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi/10.1515/jbwg-2025-0002/html

This special issue focuses on the financial behaviour of different participants in European medieval and early modern financial markets. It extends our knowledge of the financial strategies employed by households, merchants, charities, city governments and corporations by asking what investment opportunities, ways of saving money and maintaining cash flow were available to different socio-economic groups in premodern societies. Borrowing and lending activities were not limited to formal capital markets, but also included informal financial transactions within social networks. In many cases, people did not rely on a single financial institution, but used a variety of financial intermediaries and strategies, each with its own advantages and disadvantages. Medieval and early modern capital markets often involved different institutions that complemented each other. The current issue contributes to our understanding of early financial behaviour by highlighting specific historical markets and actors, ranging from institutional actors (governments, charitable institutions) to merchants, craftsmen, and peasants, including many women.

International Congress: “Fiscal Systems, Powers and Economic Development in Western Europe (14th-17th Centuries)”. Valencia, April 7th-9th, 2025

The congress aims to assess the relationship between public finance, policies, and economic performance from the beginning of the Late Middle Ages to the end of the Early Modern Period in Western Europe with the following thematic strands: 1. To analyse the impact of fiscal systems on the dynamics of market integration and economic growth, in connection with institutional developments and the consolidation of state tools for management public finances and economic policies. 2. The study of the relationship between public finances and economic growth and decline 3. To deepen our understanding of the relationships between inequality, economic structures, gender gap and political change.

Le droit de compter. Les livres de gestion et de mémoires des femmes (Florence, XVe-XVIe siècles)

Serena Galasso

La famille et la société florentines de la fin du Moyen Âge sont sans doute parmi les plus rigoureusement patrilinéaires de l’Italie du centre-nord. Les femmes, écartées de la succession paternelle et maternelle, et asservies aux stratégies matrimoniales des familles, disposent d’une capacité d’agir assez limitée. Cet ouvrage revient sur cette interprétation pour la nuancer et l’enrichir d’une perspective nouvelle grâce à l’analyse d’une documentation jusqu’à présent totalement inexplorée : les livres de gestion et de ricordanze tenus par les femmes des élites de la cité. Au cours de leur vie d’épouse et, plus souvent, durant leur veuvage, ces Florentines pouvaient en effet entreprendre la rédaction de registres personnels pour gérer non seulement des biens de famille mais également leur propre patrimoine et consigner tous les actes utiles à leur administration. Par le biais de l’écrit, elles négociaient leurs capacités de gestionnaire et leur rôle au sein de la parenté, et protégeaient leurs intérêts en déjouant les normes de la succession patrilinéaire ; enfin, elles contribuaient activement à la production de la mémoire familiale. La découverte et l’exploitation minutieuse de plus de deux cents livres de comptes révèlent que cette pratique d’enregistrement et de mise en mémoire n’était pas un monopole masculin, contribuant ainsi au renouvellement de l’historiographie sur les rapports de genre dans la famille et la société de la Renaissance.

The Florentine florin

The politics and culture of money in the Middle Ages

By Stefano Locatelli

Minted in Florence around November 1252, the florin became one of the leading gold currencies of the Middle Ages. Historians agree that its success was mainly due to the need for a stable means of payment in the networks of international trade. The Florentine Florin investigates the florin as a medium with hitherto neglected political, social, and cultural dimensions. By bringing human agents and political institutions more prominently into the history of the coin, this book enhances our understanding of money and its nature from a historical perspective, and provides an original framework for the integrated study of material culture and economic practices.

« Calculating Ethics in the Fourteenth Century », éd. Edit Anna Lukács, Monika Michałowska

https://brill.com/display/title/70134?rskey=6bQo00&result=13&contents=toc-116020

Calculating Ethics in the Fourteenth Century addresses a moment in the history of ethics, when discoveries in natural philosophy blurred the boundary between the possible and the impossible, and made the impossible a preferred territory in discussions on practical reason. The volume studies the onset and expansion of a new movement in constructing ethics, as the methods, arguments, and cases adopted from logic and natural philosophy came to be extensively applied at Oxford and swiftly disseminated among other Oxonians eventually making their way outside Oxford. It shows how the Oxford Calculators triggered a unique and durable transformation in ethics.