Gregory B. Milton. Market Power

The conclusion of this book states that it represents “only [the] beginning” of an ongoing analysis of the Catalan market town of Santa Coloma de Queralt and its economy. Indeed, it is in many respects a promising beginning, and my main quibble is that a different emphasis in the collection, analysis, and presentation of data was not undertaken before publication. Gregory B. Milton's reconstruction of Santa Coloma and its market is almost exclusively based on a data analysis of five notarial registers from the period 1276–1313. The first two registers are fragmentary and atypical; thus, most of the book's findings are based on the three later registers, from 1292, 1304–05, and 1312–13. The registers were analyzed in their entirety (all 4,261 entries) rather than sampled: this was not the most efficient course, since the limited types of instrument recorded in the volumes lend themselves to sampling. We learn only late in the book (Table 5.1) that over seventy percent of Milton's entries recorded straightforward animal sales on credit to people in the region; the other thirty percent largely consisted of loans and deposits of various types. A further analysis of the characteristics and functions of these contract types would have helped.

Art · Catalan · Database · Economics · Economy · Genealogy · Humanities · Period (music) · Power (physics) · Presentation (obstetrics) · Table (database) · Classics · Computer Science · Historical Economic and Legal Thought · History · Medieval and Early Modern Iberia · Medieval History and Crusades