Quantitative Studies of the Renaissance Florentine Economy and Society
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Quantitative Studies of the Renaissance Florentine Economy and Society
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Overview
The book is a collection of nine quantitative studies – each probing one aspect of Renaissance Florentine economy and society. These are organized into three parts by topic, source material and analysis methods. Part one, on risk and return, contains two chapters. Chapter 1 studies Florentine plague outbreaks. Recent work has highlighted the incompatibility of evidence from written records with medical evidence. The chapter reconciles these approaches by using financial market evidence to interpret the written records. The next chapter examines a commonly used interest rate time series for Renaissance Florence. Significant literature has evolved during the past quarter century that measures interest rates to assess state formation trends in late medieval and early modern Europe. This chapter links financial theory and medieval law to better measure the Florentine interest rate, showing that the interest rate evidence used to date must be reconsidered.
The second part examines Florentine society. This part shows how Florentine occupations can be separated into two categories by comparing wealth levels and distributions; demonstrates that the architectural and artistic explosion during the mid-fifteenth century was the result of a subsidy – a tax loophole that exempted the home and its furnishings from an significant new tax, leading to a transfer of assets into art and architecture; finds that Florentine neighbourhoods remained integrated between the mid-fourteenth and late fifteenth centuries; and provides evidence that the modern life-cycle curve of wealth accumulation might not have held true in Renaissance Florence.
The final part looks at work – focusing specifically on the wool industry. It examines the historical structure of Florentine firms and offers a wide range of evidence to demonstrate that the industry’s firms were small and perfectly competitive with little monopoly power. It also demonstrates the value of dynamic data in understanding women’s work during the late medieval and early modern periods. Finally, it shows that the foundation of the Florentine cloth industry reduced the risk facing the individual company by relying on a combination of a guild organization and the putting-out production system – both systems that are rejected by economic theory as hopelessly inefficient.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781783086382 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Anthem Press |
| Publication date: | 01/02/2017 |
| Series: | Anthem Other Canon Economics , #1 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 350 |
| File size: | 4 MB |
About the Author
Richard T. Lindholm received a doctorate in history and in economics from the University of Chicago. He taught in the Department of Finance, Lundquist College of Business, University of Oregon.
Read an Excerpt
Quantitative Studies of the Renaissance Florentine Economy and Society
By Richard T. Lindholm
Wimbledon Publishing Company
Copyright © 2017 Richard T. LindholmAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-78308-638-2
CHAPTER 1
THE COSTS AND BENEFITS OF RUNNING AWAY: LATE MEDIEVAL FLORENTINE PLAGUE MORTALITY AND BEHAVIOR
Introduction
The Black Death that ravaged Europe and arrived in Florence, Italy, in 1348 is one of the best-known events in the history of medieval Europe. It is widely considered a transformational event that produced fundamental changes in both the economy and the society. However, there is more to the story. That plague was only the first in a long series that periodically revisited Europe for centuries. Plague outbreaks became a fundamental characteristic of the society. In the case of Florence during the following century alone the plague returned 11 times: 4 times later in the Trecento and 7 times during the first half of the Quattrocento. It returned as late as the seventeenth century. Despite its importance, critical aspects of the disease are unknown and have been debated for decades among medical and social historians. The plague's societal impact is also unclear. For example, its impact on certain segments of society, such as the poor or children, and whether it led to greater social controls are all open questions.
These repeated outbreaks allow a researcher to assemble multiple observations of the same phenomenon and to better test his or her theories. The plague's seasonal pattern provides clues to its nature because changing temperature and humidity affect the disease's transmission vectors. Although historians using the available aggregate death data have found a summertime peak in deaths, the implications of these findings would exclude bubonic plague, Yersinia pestis, the most likely cause identified by medical researchers. To date, researchers have concentrated on medical data or demographic records in trying to understand the disease. The study presented in this chapter uses a very different source of quantitative behavioral data — the Florentine currency exchange market — to analyze the seasonality of plague virulence. Although the market is an indirect source, it provides daily updates of actual behavior during a given plague and in the periods before and after that plague. The market data imply that flight from the plague was significant and that people sometimes stayed away from the city of Florence for long periods of time. This implies that the plague was not exclusively a summertime phenomenon and explains both the evolution in total deaths across plagues and the differences in the timing of deaths between major and minor plagues. The rest of this chapter works through the analysis. First, it outlines a model of behavior during a plague based on how people use information. It then reviews a range of evidence that uses this model to show the Florentines fled the plague. The White Death of 1400 provides a starting point for this analysis. The long market closure from July through September and the timing of plague deaths imply that many people fled Florence from the plague. Next, the market indicators for the remainder of 1400 indicate that many people continued to stay away for months afterward. Finally, the chapter presents a link between currency price shocks and the plague during the first third of the Quattrocento. Three appendices to this chapter present supplemental mathematical and statistical materials.
Florentine Plague Seasonality Research
Late medieval Florence is an important venue for plague research, which typically draws from a range of sources. Qualitative sources include chronicles that provide descriptions of the plague and general indications of behavior but little about the numbers of deaths or the mortality rates. Quantitative sources provide detailed data about the plague's seasonality. Although access to population-wide mortality rates would be ideal, these data are not available for the late medieval period. In their absence either the mortality rate aspect or the characteristic of the plague's being population wide has been sacrificed.
Studies of the plague have usually used the aggregate death totals from the death registers of specific cities. These cannot compute a mortality rate, however, because the population base is unknown. The Florentine registers, the Libri dei morti, provide running lists of burials and causes of deaths between the 1390s and 1450s in Florence. David Herlihy and Christiane Klapisch-Zuber, Ann Carmichael and Samuel Cohn base their work primarily on these documents; Cohn uses notarial records to supplement the Libri dei morti. All conclude that there was a late summer peak in plague deaths during each July, with generally high numbers in August and September and few deaths later in the year. These strong summertime plague seasonality observations present a puzzle. They clearly contradict medical research, because they would exclude Yersinia pestis. The summertime seasonality hypothesis will be closely examined in the remainder of this chapter.
Not all plagues were alike. The number of deaths varied substantially between outbreaks. Based on the estimated number of deaths registered, among the early Quattrocento plague epidemics, the 1400 plague, the Moria dei Bianchi, or White Death, was the most severe, and the 1417 plague was the second most severe. The Libri dei morti data also reveal three additional patterns. First, the plague's virulence appears to have declined over time. This was noted by contemporaries, and modern research confirms it. Second, the seasonal peak of deaths due to the plague became progressively laterin the calendar year. Third, deaths from less deadly, minor plagues began later in the calendar year than deaths from more deadly, major plagues. Taken together, these three observations present a second puzzle. The declining virulence can be explained by a growing immunity. However, neither the increasingly later seasonal peak in total deaths nor the timing of deaths by plague severity is likely to be related to acquired immunity.
Alan Morrison, Julius Kirshner and Anthony Molho exploit a different source to examine mortality rates and causes of death among young women: the records of the Monte delle doti, a fund to provide dowries for young women that was created in 1425. Morrison and his colleagues find both a less prominent summertime peak in the years 1425 through 1600 and that autumn was the second deadliest season. Unlike the Libri dei morti work, this does not contradict the work of medical researchers.
Figure 1.1 compares the two plague mortality patterns. The summertime seasonality hypothesis is supported by the aggregate death data from the Libri dei morti and rejected by the Monte delle doti mortality rate data. These conflicting results make it clear that more data are needed to resolve the issue. Cohn suggests more work with the Libri dei morti data.
The characteristics of the two types of sources help explain the different research results. On the one hand, the Monte delle doti covered only a subset of the population, but did so more accurately. Cohn questions whether the limited population covered by the Monte delle doti evidence can be generalized. However, there was a significant financial incentive to report deaths to the Monte delle doti, but not in the case of the Libri dei morti. Such an incentive would have significantly improved reliability. On the other hand, the value of the aggregate death data from the Libri dei morti is critically dependent on how many people fled the plague. The data include only burials at a single fixed location. Flight would have reduced, but not eliminated, recorded plague deaths. Some people who fled the plague and died outside the city would not be counted. This is an important limitation, as it is difficult to imagine many people carrying a body of a plague victim back to Florence in order for the victim to be buried and included in plague death records. (Appendix 1A provides more detail on this point.)
Carmichael recognizes this limitation. She acknowledges that there is ample evidence that some Florentines fled, but argues that only a small number of Florentines were able to flee. She claims that poorer citizens were stuck in the city and, as a result, died disproportionately. Kirshner demonstrates that Carmichael's evidence is based on a shaky foundation. Even taking at face value the evidence that few fled, Carmichael's result is, at best, inconclusive. Disproportionate deaths among the poor do not demonstrate that large numbers stayed. Because of worse nutrition and living conditions than the rich, the poor would be expected to die in greater numbers regardless of any other factors. However, a wide range of evidence shows that flight from the plague was common. Medical and government authorities certainly acted as if it was. Contemporary medical theory held that corrupt vapors spread disease and recommended that people flee and then stay away as long as possible. This made sense, as the countryside was generally spared the plague. At the same time, cities passed laws to prevent flight, which would have been unnecessary had flight been rare, and they imposed taxes on those who fled. Literature, chronicles and letters also testify to flight. Giovanni Boccaccio's Decameron is set among a group of people who fled Florence during the 1348 Black Death and went to the countryside. And Marchionne di Coppo Stefani notes that during the 1383 plague richer citizens fled the city for the safer countryside, but the poorer popolo minuto did not. So many rich people fled that there was a fear of revolt, and armed guards were posted in response. Many people fled during the summer and returned in the autumn. Coluccio Salutati, writing letters during the plagues of August 1383 and August 1390, notes the large flight from the plague, and Scipione Ammirato states that people fled the 1400 plague.
At this stage, before introducing new source material and data, it is important to point out that already published evidence casts doubt on the summertime peak theory. This is based on data presented by Herlihy and Klapisch-Zuber that cover the years 1424 through 1430. This period includes two plagues, in 1424–25 and 1430, as well as the intervening nonplague years. The percentage of deaths due to the plague by month measures the seasonality of plague deaths compared to all other deaths among the population that remained in Florence. This percentage is an intermediate measure that has the characteristics of both the aggregate death and mortality rate measures. Flight would have reduced the total number of deaths but not the percentage of deaths in the city due to the plague. (See Appendix 1A for more information.) The percentage also indicates the plague's virulence among the population remaining in Florence at any particular time. There was no significant seasonality in aggregate deaths during nonplague years and certainly no peak during fall months. This implies that the mortality rate from all other causes is approximately constant.
The plague remained virulent into the autumn months. Although the average number of deaths dropped by nearly half (46 percent) between July and October, the plague continued to account for a nearly constant 75 percent of those deaths. (See Fig. 1.2.) Although these results are inconsistent with the summertime seasonality thesis, they are fully consistent with the Morrison, Kirshner and Molho results in combination with the thesis that there was significant flight from the city. The rest of the study in this chapter offers more evidence that flight was an important response to the plague.
Surviving Plagues, Information and the Currency Exchange Market
The behavioral response to epidemics can have a significant impact on mortality rates. Examples range from the ancient to the modern eras. Early Christian behavior showed that religion's superiority during a major plague in the third century. While the pagans fled, the Christians stayed to care for the sick. Similarly, in recent years a focus on behavior has been critical in the fight against AIDS.
A model of behavior based on a person's evolving information set can be constructed to explain the Florentine observations. The decision to flee the city or stay in the face of possible death was based on the information that was available to citizens. Typically people would hear about the plague progressing through Italy but would be uncertain whether or when it would arrive in Florence. Florentines heard about the 1400 White Death nearly a year before it arrived in the city. Flight was costly, so many people resisted fleeing until the danger was imminent. The medical advice to flee for as long as possible implies that people were reluctant to stay away from home for too long. A person's business virtually stopped while they were out of town. This was just as true for the lanaiuoli, who ran the woolen-cloth manufacturing companies, as it was for the sottoposti, the piece-rate independent contractors who worked for them. (Appendix 1B presents a more detailed derivation of this model.)
The information model can explain the seasonal differences between major and minor plagues. People would tend to flee earlier in response to a major plague, whereas minor plagues would have been less recognizable earlier on, so fewer would flee. Therefore, relatively more deaths from minor plagues would occur later in the year. Stefani writes that during the plague of 1383 many people fled the city starting in July. People had seen no indications of the coming plague in March and April of that year. This model can also explain the drop in aggregate deaths over time. Though the drop might be due to declining virulence, it might also be attributed to a more effective use of information, as the avoidance of any infection in the first place would reduce deaths. Herald waves could have been another source of information. These are early episodes from the virus of a future epidemic and appear to be a common feature of seasonal diseases. Such waves have been observed before major cholera and influenza epidemics.
The present study brings an entirely new and quantitative source to bear on this issue: currency exchange market data. Research on people's behavior during plagues has previously relied on qualitative assessments in chronicles. To date, late medieval currency exchange market studies have mainly focused on economic and financial issues. However, currency exchange markets trade on information, and therefore they provide a window on information levels and behavior during plague outbreaks. The Florentine economy was fully monetized. The city's currency exchange market was essential because of the large number of currencies in use. The market traded a gold-backed money of account for silver-backed moneys of account, and a single exchange rate was established each business day. Money changers (cambiatori) appear to have operated as independent market makers. They were members of the Arte del Cambio guild, which also included bankers. It was a small guild and in 1427 included only 22 household heads, both bankers and money changers. The market functioned throughout the late medieval period. Continuous daily data exist from January 4, 1389, n.s., through February 11, 1432, n.s.; the data cover the plague years of 1390, 1400, 1411, 1417–18, 1423–24 and 1430.
The next three sections of this chapter examine different aspects of this larger data set that provide indirect evidence that people fled the plague. The first of these sections focuses on the 1400 plague — the White Death — and specifically examines the 1400 market closure and its timing. The following section reveals the thin markets for currency that persisted for months after the market resumed normal operations in 1400. Such thin currency markets imply that people fled the city and returned only gradually. The third section focuses on the seasonality of the currency exchange rate during the first third of the Quattrocento. The price of gold in terms of silver increased when people were expected to flee, and the size of that increase was generally correlated with the observed number of total deaths.
(Continues...)
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Table of Contents
List of Illustrations; Preface; Acknowledgments; List of Abbreviations; Introduction; Part I. Risks and Returns; Chapter One The Costs and Benefits of Running Away: Late Medieval Florentine Plague Mortality and Behavior; Chapter Two When Economic Theory Meets Medieval Contracts: Calculating the Monte Comune Interest Rate; Part II. Society; Chapter Three The Chances of Getting Rich in Renaissance Florence: The Wool Industry Occupational Wealth Hierarchy; Chapter Four Palaces and Workers: Neighborhood Residential Segregation in Renaissance Florence; Chapter Five The “State” Makes a Work of Art: The Impact of the Catasto Homeowner Tax Loophole on the Quattrocento Florentine Palazzo Building Boom; Chapter Six Not Getting Ahead in Life: The Lack of Life- Cycle Wealth Accumulation in Quattrocento Tuscany; Part III. Work; Chapter Seven Just Doing Business: Testing Competition in the Renaissance Florentine Wool Industry; Chapter Eight Time for It All: Women in the Renaissance Florentine Wool Industry; Chapter Nine Why Were Renaissance Florentine Wool Industry Companies So Small?; Conclusion; Glossary; Bibliography; Index.
What People are Saying About This
“Lindholm’s Quantitative Studies illuminates the underlying dynamics of plague mortality, residential patterns, home ownership, wealth distribution and women’s work in the wool industry in Renaissance Florence. Drawing on economic theory and advanced statistical methods, yet attentive to microhistorical contexts, this important book opens up new pathways for future research.” —Julius Kirshner, Professor Emeritus of Medieval and Renaissance History, University of Chicago, USA