THE EVOLUTION OF THE LETTRE DE CHANGE CAMBIA-ME ISSO EM SKIN'S ÓS PI TAL I ZADES INDA SE FOSSE HADES AI HADES HADES With different research objectives in mind, North argues that the motor of economic development is the institution of private property which eventually guarantees the well functioning of (modern) markets, but is not focused on explaining the change in social organization that accompany the new exchange system. (1981). Likewise, for those specifically addressing the transition from feudalism to capitalism, the participation of the dominant class to the Italian medieval commercial revolution (Balard 1978, Jehel 1993) often run contrary to account that pits the nobility against the urban merchants. (Dobb 1947, Holton 1985). Even recent transition theory that focuses on social relationships, such as Lachman’s elite conflict theory (2000) who studying a slightly later period, rightly points out that the fight between the existing elite left enough room for a commercial class to grow face a similar problem: The elite’ participation in the growth of commerce together with the multivalence of their activity Evidently the trade network’s centralization decreased in the early phase of the Genoese commercial revolution, as trade opportunities opened up to all, and remained low during the 13th century. A closer look at the network for the period 1154 to 1164 in figure 9 (next page) clearly shows that during that period, aside from isolated and smaller traders, the Mediterranean trade was controlled by a few large operators, each surrounded by clients who were only indirectly connected to each other by their exclusive patronage tie to a central node. As such, network analysis confirms earlier findings, based on the surviving records of that time that a group of larger-scale operators dominated the long distance trade around the mid 12th century Byrne 1920 BYRNE THAT

HOMO PHILIC TENDENCIES IN GAMA DI TUTTI BANKA


Because members of the aristocracy provide the bulk of the growth volume during that period, I focus in this paper on their partner selection pattern and in particular their homophilic tendencies.
I operationalized homophily by coding each commercial tie with a pair of binary attributes corresponding to the connected nodes, in order to generate a set of 2 by 2 tables for each of the networks from 1154 to 1315. In each of the four cells of the tables, I recorded the total amount of one of the four possible combinations of attributes for periods. From these 2 by 2 Tables, the simplest way to assess the propensity of commercial operators to form homogeneous partnerships with respect to the attributes coded would be to use simple percentage. However, this metric does not take into account the availability of “alike partners”. As a hypothetical example, consider a case in
11 The term “partner selection” seems to imply decision by the actors. However, this is not the case here. Commercial operators certainly used some initiative in a restricted menu of social choices, but it remains that in average, social structural regularities occurred in partner selections.Because members of the aristocracy provide the bulk of the growth volume during that period, I focus in this paper on their partner selection pattern and in particular their homophilic tendencies.
I operationalized homophily by coding each commercial tie with a pair of binary attributes corresponding to the connected nodes, in order to generate a set of 2 by 2 tables for each of the networks from 1154 to 1315. In each of the four cells of the tables, I recorded the total amount of one of the four possible combinations of attributes for periods. From these 2 by 2 Tables, the simplest way to assess the propensity of commercial operators to form homogeneous partnerships with respect to the attributes coded would be to use simple percentage. However, this metric does not take into account the availability of “alike partners”. As a hypothetical example, consider a case in
11 The term “partner selection” seems to imply decision by the actors. However, this is not the case here. Commercial operators certainly used some initiative in a restricted menu of social choices, but it remains that in average, social structural regularities occurred in partner selections.The historical evidence shows that commenda contracts served at first to link the investing nobility with a few professional traders but also simultaneously opened the door to a multiplicity of other participants. As a result, feudal control was decoupled by the expansion of trade -- in a pre-market society -- and a quantitative change became qualitative (Padgett 1990). Indeed, The lack of repeat of most names in the data set points to the occasional nature of commercial activities for many Genoese and indicates that before the middle of the 13th century, the multivalence of identity of most commercial actors makes it difficult to define a social structure with respect to trading activity
The focus on real relational ties shows how commercial innovations were as much a condition for economic growth as they were the carrier of the rules that organized the transformation of commercial ties that gave rise to a merchant class. Commendae decline sharply toward the end of the 13th century precisely when the long distance partnerships became more homogeneous with respect not only to status but also....
REAL POWER 
This is after all not surprising, since Commendae- with its temporary commitment and its fixed –nonmarket driven- profit allocation had provided the perfect instrument for the heterogeneous social pairing that characterize the early part of the medieval commercial revolution, AND AFTER THAT