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Cover -- Contents -- List of Illustrations -- Acknowledgements -- Introduction -- Studying the History of the Rich So Far: A Brief Overview -- The Structure of the Book and Its Main Arguments -- Part I. In the Hands of the Few -- 1. What Is Wealth, and How Much Is Needed to Be Rich? -- Defining Wealth across the Ages -- Who Can Be Considered 'Rich'? -- The Historical Sources for Studying Wealth and the Rich: An Overview -- 2. Wealth Concentration and the Prevalence of the Rich across History: An Overview -- From the Black Death (and Earlier) to the American Revolution -- Wealth Concentration in the Modern Age -- Why Does Wealth Concentration (Almost) Always Grow? -- How Many Were Rich across Time? -- Part II. The Paths to Affluence -- 3. On Aristocracy, New and Past -- What's in a Noble? Some Initial Definitions -- The Enrooting of the Feudal Nobility in Medieval Europe -- Becoming a Noble, from the Early Modern Period to Napoleon's Time and Beyond -- The Survival of the Nobility in the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries and the Emergence of New Aristocracies -- Nobility and Wealth: Some Further Reflections -- Has a 'Global Aristocracy' Arisen Today? -- 4. On Innovation and Technology -- Brilliant Sinners: Traders and Merchant-Entrepreneurs in the Middle Ages (and Before) -- A New World of Opportunities -- New Opportunities in the Old World -- The Boon of Technology: Becoming Rich in the Industrial Age -- The Problem of Entrepreneurial Dynasties: From Merit to Privilege? -- Achieving Great Wealth in the Age of Information: Opportunities for All? -- 5. On Finance -- Usurers or Bankers? The Commerce of Money in Medieval and Early Modern Times -- Tax Farming, a Necessary Evil -- On Investors, from Preindustrial to Industrial Times -- Bankers of the Modern Era: Continuity and Change -- Women in Finance: An Overview.

"All human societies, from prehistory through to today, have been characterized by some degree of economic inequality. Arguably, complex societies would not have thrived if they had been unable to concentrate and redistribute resources effectively. We frequently talk about the top 5% or 1% today but, as Guido Alfani explains in this book, concerns about the rich and super-rich and their potential to influence contemporary politics and society are nothing new - just take the Medici family and Renaissance Tuscany as one example. The medieval theologian Nicole Oresme's fear of the super-rich individual acting "as God among men" resonates with much of what present-day economist Thomas Piketty cautioned against in his landmark Capital in the Twentieth Century. As Gods Among Men represents the first scholarly attempt to provide a general overview of role and significance of the rich and the super-rich in the long run of history. With a focus on the West, particularly Europe and North America, Alfani's research spans a thousand years of history. He draws from a wealth of comparative data, as well as insights gleaned from the latest research in economic history, sociology, and anthropology, to show how society's problematic relationship with the super-rich cannot be fully understood without a careful analysis of the ways in which they have built their enormous wealth, and how they have used that wealth to gain influence. Alfani highlights important aspects of their behavior, such as their attitudes toward saving and consumption, or their propensity to act as patrons of the arts and of the sciences or as benefactors of the weakest part of society, to build up a profile of the richest members of our society and to trace patterns throughout history, underlining elements of both continuity and change over the period"--

Godparenthood and spiritual kinship: the origins of a distinctive social institution -- Godparents and comparison between the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries: a wide variety of local customs -- Godparenthood, literature, and family records from perception to interpretation -- Godparenthood in the 16th century from the Reformation to the Council of Trent -- The application of the decrees of the Council: resistance and compromise: three lines of enquiry -- The social impact of the reform -- Newborn babies and spiritual kinship: equal opportunities or discrimination -- Godfathers and godmothers: the case of Ivrea -- Godparenthood as an instrument of social alliance -- Godparenthood from the seventeenth century to the present day: a history of decline

This article provides a picture of economic inequality in northwestern Italy (Piedmont), 1300–1800. Regional studies of this kind are rare, and none has as long a timescale. The new data proposed illuminate little-known aspects of wealth distribution and general economic inequality in preindustrial times, supporting the idea that during the Early Modern period, inequality grew everywhere, independently from whether the economy was growing or stagnating. This challenges earlier views that explained inequality growth as the consequence of economic development. The importance of demographic processes is underlined, and the impact of the Black Death and other mortality crises is analyzed.

Résumé Cet article propose une reconstruction, sur le long terme, des relations entre population et ressources en Italie du Nord, qui prend aussi pleinement en compte la question du climat. L'analyse concerne soit le lent changement des conditions climatiques (dans le cadre théorique du « petit âge glaciaire »), soit les conséquences des périodes transitoires d'intense instabilité climatique. On montre que les famines les plus sévères sont dues à des facteurs climatiques et environnementaux intervenant dans une conjoncture difficile, puisque la charge supportable maximale du système était atteinte ou, du moins que la population était en train d'exercer une pression considérable sur le potentiel de production alimentaire. C'est le cas de la famine des années 1590, la plus grande catastrophe de nature non épidémique à frapper le nord de l'Italie depuis la peste noire. On analyse aussi dans cet article les processus d'innovation agricole, sur le long terme, suggérant que la plus grande partie d'entre eux (mais pas tous) s'accordent avec l'idée, développée par Boserup, selon laquelle une réaction en chaîne d'innovations est induite par la pression démographique. Ces processus, toutefois, étaient trop lents pour compenser l'augmentation d'une population en croissance rapide. Finalement, une nouvelle périodisation est proposée, dans laquelle la période allant de la famine des années 1590 à la grande pandémie de peste de 1630 apparaît comme un tournant crucial en termes d'interactions entre dynamiques démographiques, climat et innovation agraire.