Continuity and change in Norman Italy: the Campania during the eleventh and twelfth centuries

The Campania was a fertile area, with a growing population during the eleventh and twelfth centuries, and was economically more advanced than most of the rest of southern Italy. This essay examines the impact of the Norman conquest of the south upon this region, with special reference to the settlement pattern and the aristocracy. It concludes that the role of incastellamento in changing the pattern of settlement was relatively limited, and the extensive incastellamento of the Montecassino lands (a product of Norman pressure upon the abbey) cannot be taken as typical. Furthermore, while the Norman conquest led to colonisation by French aristocrats, this did not entirely displace existing Lombard families, and widespread intermarriage led to a blurring of the distinction between Lombards and Normans. The impact of political crises during the twelfth century was also more limited than might be supposed, and continuity rather than change characterised the nobility of the Norman period.     

ZONE PRICING*

ABSTRACT. Our purpose is to study a spatial price policy often encountered in the real world, known as zone pricing. This price policy consists in determining simultaneously several delivered prices together with the geographical zones in which they apply. It is shown that zone pricing approximates perfect spatial price discrimination and that the firm's profit increases with the number of zones. Furthermore, the number of markets supplied by the firm rises with the number of zones. Finally, zone pricing is compared to other standard spatial price policies and possible extensions are discussed.     

AN ASSESSMENT OF BACK-SCATTERED ELECTRON PETROGRAPHY AS A METHOD FOR DISTINGUISHING MEDITERRANEAN OBSIDIANS

The recent application by Burton and Krinsley (1987) of back-scattered electron (BSE) petrography to obsidians from sources located in the south-western United States established that this method can effectively resolve and characterize included micro-crystalline phases that have proven difficult to analyse by optical thin-section microscopy. In the first extension of their original study, we have examined, using BSE petrography, obsidians from island sources located in the Mediterranean, including sources known to have been exploited in prehistory. Because of the kinetic contrasts on their crystallization, these microcrystalline phases reflect the magmatic history of the obsidian, providing information about superheating, supercooling, sub-solidus processes, and other phenomena. This information is of significance for the chemical analysis of Mediterranean obsidians and also as the basis for a powerful alternative to existing non-destructive analytical methods for the sourcing of archaeological and art-historical obsidian.     

Brown-Séquard's theory of recovery

Charles Edouard Brown-Séquard used observation of recovered patients and experimental animals to support his theory of cerebral localization. Recovery theories assume that the nervous system is composed of one organ or many, and that each organ has one function or many. From his own studies as well as others, Brown-Séquard concluded that the brain contained at least nine separate organs, each with a single distinct function, and that each organ is organized, not as a geographically isolated cluster of neurons, but as a widely disseminated network. According to his view, function is not uniformly distributed in an organ. Focal necrosis of part of an organ temporarily inhibits the action of distant, undamaged parts; resolution of this inhibition results in recovery. Using this theory of cerebral localization and recovery, Brown-Séquard practiced an early form of scientific neurology.     

“He hath not dealt so with any. nation”: Three Recent Books on Religion,Economy, and Society in Colonial Mexico

The Wages of Conquest: The Mexican Aristocracy in the Context of Western Aristocracies. By HUGO G. NUTINI. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1994. Pp. xviii, 444.

Our Lady of Guadalupe: The Origins and Sources of a Mexican National Symbol, 1531–1797. By STAFFORD POOLE. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1995. Pp. 325.

The History of Capitalism in Mexico: Its Origins, 1521–1763. By ENRIQUE SEMO. Trans. LIDIA LOZANO. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1993. Pp. 231.