This volume aims to bring together, discuss and further develop the findings and perspectives of two relevant debates in medieval and economic history – the fourteenth-century conjuncture and pre-industrial inequality – through nineteen original and state-of-the-art contributions in English and Italian by established scholars and promising young researchers.

Focusing on Central-Northern Italy and Western Europe between c. 1270 and c. 1350, the volume aims to understand why, how and to what extent medieval society was unequal in the seventy years before the Great Plague of 1347-52, presenting a wide range of sources and methods, exploring and discussing the causal mechanisms of socio-economic inequalities, and examining how these differences were perceived, represented and dealt with in the late Middle Ages, extending the investigation in some cases to the post-Black Death period.

Table des matières :

Davide Cristoferi, Socio-Economic Inequalities during the Conjuncture of the Fourteenth Century. Sources an d Methods, Dynamics and Representations (Italy and Europe, c. 1270 – c. 1350)

I. Sources, proxies and methods

Material inequalities in England, c. 1290 – c. 1340, by Chris Briggs

Financing a rebellious city. Social change, revolts, and inequality among the fiscal elite in fourteenth-century Bruges, by Sam Geens

Economic inequality in early fourteenth-century Siena and in its countryside: evidence from the Tavola delle Possessioni (1316-20), by Davide Cristoferi

Economic inequalities in an Iberian urban society: Tortosa before and after the Black Death by Laura Miquel Milian, Jordi Morelló Bage

Diseguaglianze sociali e indicatori archeologici: quali fonti per la lettura del Trecento? di Paola Orecchioni

Wealth inequality and land ownership before and after the Black Death. A quantitative analysis of peasant probate inventories from the Kingdom of Valencia (1283-1400), by Luis Almenar Fernández

II. Contexts, dynamics and causalities

Disuguaglianza, impoverimento e pauperismo nell’Occidente latino (secoli XI-XIV), di Laurent Feller

Social Inequalities and the Great Famine in the County of Flanders (1315-7), by Mathijs Speecke, Thijs Lambrecht

Carestie e disuguaglianze. Roma nella crisi economica basso medievale, di Luciano Palermo

Inequalities in access to the food market: the city as a producer of norms in the fourteenth century (Low Countries), by Alexis Wilkin

Mobilità sociale, ricambio politico e disuguaglianza economica a Firenze nei primi decenni del Trecento. Qualche spunto di riflessione, di Alma Poloni

Economic inequalities and transformations of the rural world in the Iberian Peninsula before and after the Black Death, by Antoni Furió

Crisi demografica e rapporti di lavoro: la modificazione dei contratti agrari e della vita contadina nella Romagna dei secoli XIV-XV, di Massimo Montanari

Informations pratiques :

Socio-Economic Inequalities during the Conjuncture of the Fourteenth Century. Sources and Methods, Dynamics and Representations (Italy and Europe, c. 1270 – c. 1350), éd. Davide Cristoferi, Florence, Firenze University Press, 2025 ; 1 vol., 458 p. (Reti Medievali E-Book). ISBN : 979-12-215-0699-0. Open-access.

Source : Firenze University Press