This revisionist account of the economic, literary and social history of Florence in the immediate aftermath of the Black Death connects warfare with the plague narrative. Organised around Petrarch's 'war' against the Ubaldini clan of 1349-1350, which formed the prelude to his meeting and friendship with Boccaccio, William Caferro's work examines the institutional and economic effects of the war, alongside literary and historical patterns. Caferro pays close attention to the meaning of wages in context, including those of soldiers, thereby revising our understanding of wage data in the distant past and highlighting the consequences of a constricted workforce that resulted in the use of cooks and servants on important embassies. Drawing on rigorous archival research, this book will stimulate discussion among academics and offers a new contribution to our understanding of Renaissance Florence. It stresses the importance of short-termism and contradiction as subjects of historical inquiry.

As a pervasive occurrence in the contemporary world, wars and their economic sources are defining social and political processes in a variety of national and transnational contexts. Rebel Economies: Warlords, Insurgents, Humanitarians explores historical, anthropological and political dimensions of war economies by non-state actors across different periods and regions, while presenting their multiple manifestations as a unified, congruent phenomenon. Through a variety of conceptual and disciplinary approaches, the authors investigate, in the past and present and across three continents, the nexuses between economy, war, social transformation and state-building, revealing in the process differences and similarities that would otherwise remain hidden. Through this broad-gauge approach, the book aims, first, to rethink much of the debate around "non-state war economies," and, secondly, to expand the conversation by consciously treating this theme as a conspicuous and distinct aspect of both economy and war. This is not just a different approach but a fundamental departure from the ways in which current discussions over the economy of wars, civil conflicts, and revolutions, have informed research orientations over several decades.

Drawing together the latest research in the field, The Routledge History of the Renaissance treats the Renaissance not as a static concept, but as one of ongoing change within an international framework. It takes as its unifying theme the idea of exchange and interchange through the movement of goods, ideas, disease and people, across social, religious, political and physical boundaries. Covering a broad range of temporal periods and geographic regions, the chapters discuss topics such as the material cultures of Renaissance societies; the increased popularity of shopping as a pastime in fourteenth-century Italy; military entrepreneurs and their networks across Europe; the emergence and development of the Ottoman empire from the early fourteenth to the late sixteenth century; and women and humanism in Renaissance Europe. The volume is interdisciplinary in nature, combining historical methodology with techniques from the fields of anthropology, sociology, psychology and literary criticism. It allows for juxtapositions of approaches that are usually segregated into traditional subfields, such as intellectual, political, gender, military and economic history. Capturing dynamic new approaches to the study of this fascinating period and illustrated throughout with images, figures and tables, this comprehensive volume is a valuable resource for all students and scholars of the Renaissance.

Among the most dramatic problems faced on the Italian peninsula in the fourteenth century were the raids of marauding mercenary companies. These companies, known locally as Companies of Adventure and more generally as Free Companies, were private armies, composed of professional soldiers and adventurers from throughout Europe. They sold their services to the highest bidder in times of war, and staged ruinous raids in times of peace. The city of Siena, visually opulent and wedged between Florence and the lands of the pope--two frequent employers of mercenaries--was an especial target.

In this groundbreaking volume, William Caferro explores the social, economic and administrative impact of the companies on Siena from the arrival of Werner of Urslingen and the Great Company in 1342 until the fall of the Sienese republic in 1399. During this time, Caferro explains, Siena endured some thirty-seven raids, characterized by arson, pillage, and looting in the countryside and extortion of enormous bribes from the city government. He shows that the raids constituted a persistent and significant drain on both the human and financial resources of Siena. Payments to the companies siphoned off valuable (and limited) funds, damaging an already circumscribed economy, while the government was forced to borrow money on an unprecedented scale from its citizens. Sienese officials pressed money out of every available resource, including the Church (which had previously been taxed only sporadically) and Jews (who were belatedly granted the "right" to lend money to the state). Other desperate measures included pawning land, forcing purchases of salt, and readmitting exiles for a fee. The stresses caused by the mercenaries were greatly exacerbated by plague and famine, which often coincided precisely with the raids--each disaster serving to intensify the effects of the other.

Caferro concludes that the stress of the companies acted as an agent of change on the machinery of state, bringing both decentralization and confusion. If, as some historians have argued, military expenditure led to more streamlined bureaucracies and helped "make" states elsewhere, it is nonetheless clear that the same phenomenon helped "unmake" Siena. The raids, therefore, were more than an exotic nuisance, but a key factor in Siena's decision to abandon independence in 1399.

This revisionist account of the economic, literary and social history of Florence in the immediate aftermath of the Black Death connects warfare with the plague narrative. Organised around Petrarch's 'war' against the Ubaldini clan of 1349-1350, which formed the prelude to his meeting and friendship with Boccaccio, William Caferro's work examines the institutional and economic effects of the war, alongside literary and historical patterns. Caferro pays close attention to the meaning of wages in context, including those of soldiers, thereby revising our understanding of wage data in the distant past and highlighting the consequences of a constricted workforce that resulted in the use of cooks and servants on important embassies. Drawing on rigorous archival research, this book will stimulate discussion among academics and offers a new contribution to our understanding of Renaissance Florence. It stresses the importance of short-termism and contradiction as subjects of historical inquiry.

This book is the winner, 2008 Otto Grundler Book Prize, The Medieval Institute Notorious for his cleverness and daring, John Hawkwood was the most feared mercenary in early Renaissance Italy. Born in England, Hawkwood began his career in France during the Hundred Years' War and crossed into Italy with the famed White Company in 1361. From that time until his death in 1394, Hawkwood fought throughout the peninsula as a captain of armies in times of war and as a commander of marauding bands during times of peace. He achieved international fame, and city-states constantly tried to outbid each other for his services, for which he received money, land, and, in the case of Florence, citizenship-a most unusual honor for an Englishman. When Hawkwood died, the Florentines buried him with great ceremony in their cathedral, an honor denied their greatest poet, Dante. William Caferro's ambitious account of Hawkwood is both a biography and a study of warfare and statecraft. Caferro has mined more than twenty archives in Britain and Italy, creating an authoritative portrait of Hawkwood as an extraordinary military leader, if not always an admirable human being.

As a pervasive occurrence in the contemporary world, wars and their economic sources are defining social and political processes in a variety of national and transnational contexts. Rebel Economies: Warlords, Insurgents, Humanitarians explores historical, anthropological and political dimensions of war economies by non-state actors across different periods and regions, while presenting their multiple manifestations as a unified, congruent phenomenon. Through a variety of conceptual and disciplinary approaches, the authors investigate, in the past and present and across three continents, the nexuses between economy, war, social transformation and state-building, revealing in the process differences and similarities that would otherwise remain hidden. Through this broad-gauge approach, the book aims, first, to rethink much of the debate around "non-state war economies," and, secondly, to expand the conversation by consciously treating this theme as a conspicuous and distinct aspect of both economy and war. This is not just a different approach but a fundamental departure from the ways in which current discussions over the economy of wars, civil conflicts, and revolutions, have informed research orientations over several decades.

The private archive of the Spinelli, acquired by Yale University's Beinecke Library in 1988, constitutes the largest fund of information about a Florentine family anywhere outside Italy. The Spinelli of Florence tells the story of these merchants and their ascent to social and economic prominence during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. This book gives an intimate portrait of daily life--the worlds of papal finance, silk and wool manufacturing, and household affairs--as recorded in letters and financial ledgers preserved for two hundred years since the extinction of the male line.

The fame of this family rests largely on the extraordinary success of one individual, Tommaso Spinelli, who broke into banking through the Alberti and Borromei organizations, later to serve as depository general under Pope Eugenius IV and financial officer to three subsequent popes. Tommaso sought to raise his status in society through ties of marriage and business rather than entering the political arena, which had led to the demise and exile of older, established Florentine families, notably the Peruzzi and Alberti. Like his contemporaries, Cosimo de'Medici, Giovanni Rucellai, and Francesco Sassetti, Tommaso poured his considerable wealth into the patronage of private palaces and villas in Rome and Florence, as well as through donations to the great Franciscan church of Santa Croce. Despite his reputation for magnificence, it was Tommaso's obeisance to the codes of religious decorum and his adherence to older artistic traditions that allowed him to commemorate himself and his family without censure.

The authors of this collaborative study, an architectural historian and economic historian, add significantly to our knowledge of private and papal banking, wool and silk manufacturing, and patronage of the arts. The Spinelli of Florence is important for scholars of history, economic history, social history, and art history.

A discussion by a broadly respected authority of the complicated relationship between theology and ordinary life in the early church. The first section of the book scrutinizes theology with a view to understanding its bearing upon Christian understandings of life (the theological "stories" of Irenaeus, Gregory of Nyssa, and Augustine). The second section examines aspects of ordinary life and explores how Christians related them to religious ideas (the family, hospitality, citizenship, monasticism, and attitudes toward the collapse of the Roman Empire in the West).

This very learned piece of work, which reflects lengthy study of original texts as well as of the current and important secondary literature, is distinctive because it does not conform to the present reigning ideology: The author writes as a convinced Christian thinker. He believes that there is no such thing as a purely detached observer and that the best way of being critical and fair is to make no secret of one's presuppositions, but to face them so as to be able to discount them when necessary. This quality makes the work interesting and suggestive. The book is of importance to scholars and theologians and to all concerned with the early church.