Accounts of the English Crown with Italian merchant societies, 1272-1345

The credit arrangements between the three Edwards and Italian merchants were crucial for financing England’s ambitious foreign policies and ensuring the smooth running of governmental administration. The functioning of this credit system can be followed in detail through the well-kept but mostly unpublished records of the English Exchequer. This volume combines a transcription of the most important surviving accounts between the merchants and the Crown, with a parallel abstract presenting the core data in a double-entry format as credits to or debits from the king's account. This dual format was chosen to facilitate the interpretation of the source while still retaining the language and, as far as possible, the structure of the original documents. The wealth of evidence presented here has much value to add to our understanding of the financing of medieval government and the early development of banking services provided by Italian merchant societies. In particular, although the relationship between king and banker was, for the most part, mutually profitable, the English kings also acquired a reputation for defaulting on their debts and thus 'breaking' a succession of merchant societies. These documents provide an essential basis for a re-examination of the 'credit rating' of the medieval English Crown.

New evidence from Southern Jordan: rethinking the role of architecture in changing societies at the beginning of the Neolithic process

The development of architecture and the settlement is central to discussions concerning the Neolithic transformation asthe very visible evidence for the changes in society that run parallel to the domestication of plants and animals. Architecture hasbeen used as an important aspect of models of how the transformation occurred, and as evidence for the sharp difference betweenhunter-gatherer and farming societies. We suggest that the emerging evidence for considerable architectural complexity from theearly Neolithic indicates that some of our interpretations depend too much on a very basic understanding of structures which arenormally seen as being primarily for residential purposes and containing households, which become the organising principle for thenew communities which are often seen as fully sedentary and described as villages. Recent work in southern Jordan suggests that inthis region at least there is little evidence for a standard house, and that structures are constructed for a range of diverse primary purposes other than simple domestic shelters.

Caste in the swarming wasps: 'queenless' societies in highly social insects

Morphometric data for 30 species of swarming wasps (Vespidae: Polistinae: Epiponini) are presented, representing all currently recognized genera. Data are coded according to whether females that were shown by dissection to be egglayers are larger, similar, or smaller for each dimension than non-egglayers. These data are analysed in a phylogenetic framework with primitively social Polistes and Mischocyttarus as outgroups. Representative measurements are illustrated to show that most genera of Epiponini appear to have ancestry in a lineage that has no queen caste comparable with either the primitively social outgroups, or the more derived species of the tribe. This analysis indicates that a conspiracy of workers that operates without a queen characterizes the societies of many Epiponini, or their recent ancestors. (c) 2008 The Linnean Society of London.

Information societies in Latin America and the Caribbean: development of techonologies and technologies for development

Includes bibliography

Monitoring eLAC2007: progress and current state of development of Latin American and Caribbean information societies

Includes bibliography

Monitoring Caribbean information societies

Includes bibliography

Social policies in transitional societies: is the Latin American experience useful?

Includes bibliography