Supporting trust: credit assessment and debt recovery through Trade Protection Societies in Britain and Ireland, 1776–1992

From an initial foundation in London in 1776, Trade Protection Societies grew in numbers to reach a peak of about 120 in 1910. They provided inter-business and some consumer credit assessment, debt management and recovery. From the 1850s they coordinated activities through a national association that covered Britain and Ireland. The societies were processing millions of credit assessments for thousands of members in the 1960s, reaching over 100,000 assessments per day in the 1980s. They provided a voluntary institutional base drawing on networks of mutuality, supplying information between members and societies that was judged privileged by the Courts. This offered transaction costs advantages for the high frequency, short duration activity provided, and hedged against the risks of complex Court actions. They became a large-scale mechanism to encourage honouring of commitments, thus underpinning the trust necessary across an increasingly geographically integrated economy. Their evolution demonstrates the importance of city size and regional centres, with diffusion down the city rank-size distribution. However, some smaller centres, mainly in resorts, also developed TPSs. The spatial process linked individual traders and the smallest places into a national system of credit management. By the 1920s smaller TPSs became difficult to sustain and were taken over or became branches of the larger societies; but overall membership continued to increase. True consolidation occurred after 1971 when demand exploded after the removal of credit controls, with unit costs pressed down, leading to de-mutualisation.     

‘Leger est aprendre mes fort est arendre’: wool,debt, and the dispersal of Pipewell Abbey (1280-1330)

The culturally syncretic character of medieval Southern Italy and Sicily was never so apparent as under Norman rule in the twelfth century. From the fusion of artistic styles in the Capella Palatina in Palermo to the organization of King Roger II’s Regno, the influence of Byzantine, Arab, Christian, Norman, and Lombard traditions is evident. This paper argues, however, that underlying these more obvious manifestations of cultural intersection was an enduring sense of ethnic identity. This self-conscious expression of identity is revealed through the articulation of ancestry and lineage in the eleventh- and twelfth-century charters of the aristocracy in the Principality of Salerno. The distinctions between conquerors and conquered, long considered irrelevant after decades of intermarriage, were remarkably durable throughout this period. Both Normans and Lombards employed genealogical memory as a strategy to enhance their status in the Principality: the Normans aimed to legitimize their present rule; the Lombards wished to recall their past dominance in the region. This paper suggests that the evidence for ancestral memory reveals both differences in self-perception and contemporary attitudes towards political change among the various religious and ethnic groups in the medieval Mezzogiorno. While the intersection of cultures in the South is unmistakable, this paper modifies previous theories to recognize the resistance to cultural absorption by both the new settlers and the indigenous peoples.     

Using neutron activation analysis to identify scales of interaction at Kinet Höyük,Turkey

We use NAA to characterize a relatively large archaeological ceramic sample from the Late Bronze Age to Hellenistic phases of Kinet Höyük, a coastal Turkish site in the Gulf of Iskenderun at the northeast corner of the Mediterranean Sea. The geographic extent of local Kinet wares (how local is local?) is established through comparison with sediment samples across the Kinet hinterland. Four major compositional groups are identified: local and locally imported wares, imports from Cypriot, and presumed Western Anatolian and Aegean centers, and imports that appear relatively homogenous elementally but comprise typologically diverse ceramics with attributions that range from Cyprus to the coastal mainland. Comparison with other published NAA studies for this site reinforces the elemental evidence for local production, and underlines the need for caution when assuming local production always equates with local clays particularly for coastal sites. We propose that the chronological distribution of the local and non-local groups provides a useful political economic proxy. The study indicates systemic and widespread political disruption and marginalization at the transition to the Late Iron Age in this region.     

New light on old pumice: the origins of Mediterranean volcanic material from ancient Egypt

This paper presents and discusses the Neutron Activation Analysis (NAA) results newly obtained from pumice pieces found decades ago at the Egyptian sites of Maiyana, Sedment, Kahun, and Amarna – now in the collections of the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, and the Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology, London – which could be successfully related to several volcanic eruptions in the Mediterranean. The work contributes to the constant accumulation of knowledge concerning the first appearance of pumice from the so-called Minoan eruption of the Santorini volcano. In addition, it unexpectedly sheds more light on the long-distance trade of Mediterranean volcanic material in the Bronze Age world by disclosing another connection between Lipari and the Eastern Mediterranean.     

上海展览业市场特征实证分析

本文以实地调研获得的第一手资料为基础,以上海主要展览场馆举办的展览会为研究对象,从展览业的行业类型、参展商和专业买家对展览会的认可度评价、影响展览市场的不同因素对市场影响的强度等方面,对上海展览业的市场特征进行了统计分析,并据此提出了改进和提升上海展览业的对策建议。     

上海市青浦区青龙镇遗址2010年发掘简报

青龙镇遗址位于上海市青浦区,是唐宋时期上海重要的对外贸易港口。2010年上海博物馆考古研究部首次对青龙镇遗址进行了考古调查与发掘,发现了唐宋时期的房基、瓷片堆、水井、灰坑等遗迹及大量的遗物,为今后的工作奠定了基础。     

The Unruly Buffer Zone

This article discusses the province of Ingria, part of Sweden from 1617 until 1704, and its position in the Swedish Kingdom in the late 17th century. The main purpose is to examine how Sweden implemented its centralization and unification policy in Ingria and what reactions it triggered at the local level. Court records and other administrative documents have been used as source material. Ingria was a borderland that was primarily of military importance for Sweden as a buffer zone against Russia. A strong defence was also essential in order to secure the profitable Russian transit trade, in which the Ingrian towns of Narva and Nyen played a pivotal role. Sweden’s centralization and unification policy, which peaked in the middle of the 1680s, aimed particularly at strengthening its military presence in Ingria. Resources were obtained by confiscating fiefs and later privatizing the administration of manors, to be handled by leaseholders. Tax farming resulted in peasant unrest, and eventually the Crown had to regulate the taxation. Ultimately, the Crown was not strong enough to carry out a coherent integration policy. Ingria remained a borderland province that formed a link between the core areas of Sweden and the Baltic provinces.