The thirteenth century was an era of bold constitutional experiments in Europe. During this age, for the first time in history, fiscal constitutions, i.e., limits on the fiscal prerogatives of the state, emerged. In Portugal, this manifested itself as a monetary constitution that prevented the...

"The eleven articles in this volume examine controversial subjects of central importance to medieval economic historians. Topics include the relative roles played by money and credit in financing the economy, whether credit could compensate for shortages of coin, and whether it could counteract...

1 Handelsstraßen und Flüsse. Die Verkehrsverhältnisse am Niederrhein zur Hansezeit -- 1.1 Der Niederrhein als Verkehrslandschaft -- 1.2 Der Rhein als Verkehrs- und Handelsweg -- Natürliche Bedingungen -- Rheinbaumaßnahmen -- 1.3 Nebenflüsse und Kanäle als Verkehrswege -- Nebenflüsse --...

"At the end of the High Middle Ages in Europe, with buying power and economic sophistication at a high, an itinerary detailing the toll stations along a commercial artery carrying eastern goods (from China, India and Iran) towards Europe was compiled, and later incorporated in the well-known...

In this paper, we study how the birth of the first universities in Italy affected the emergence of the Italian free cities-states (the commune) in the period 1000-1300 a.d. Exploiting a panel dataset of 121 cities, we show that after the foundation of a new university the distance between each...

Property rights -- Jews in the market for land -- Lords of the land?: Jews as rentiers and cultivators -- Dowries, wills and gifts: property and the tranifer of wealth -- The link between credit and land -- The economic case for property: asset choices, risk and return -- Credit and property in...

This edited collection demonstrates how economic history can be analysed using both quantitative and qualitative methods, connecting statistical research with the social, cultural and psychological aspects of history. With their focus on the time between the end of the commercial revolution and...

For a panel of 122 cities observed over 300 years in medieval northern-central Italy, we document that the occurrence of an earthquake retarded institutional transition from the feudal regime to the commune (free city state) in cities where the political and the religious leaders were one and...

This study investigates the effect of participative political institutions (PPIs) that emerged in many central European cities from the late 13th century. The empirical analysis of the paper is based on newly compiled long-run data for the existence of different types of PPIs in 104 cities in...

This paper examines, from a linguistic perspective, the discourse of power in medieval Transylvania (11th – 14th Centuries), as evinced in the most important corpus of documents of the era (Codex diplomaticus Transsylvaniae, Documenta Romaniae Historica. C. Transilvania, Urkundenbuch zur...

Introduction: Hungarian medieval economic history : sources, research and methodology / Jozsef Laszlovszky, Balazs Nagy, Peter Szabo and Andras Vadas -- Structure -- Long-term environmental changes in medieval Hungary : changes in settlement areas and their potential drivers / Laszlo Ferenczi,...