This workshop addressed a question of concern to medieval economic history for over a generation. Frederic C. Lane called for a theory of consumption, and Carlo Cipolla and Robert Lopez have encouraged a more thorough investigation of the role of demand. Because demand is sometimes understood in terms of needs and of taste, it is often subsumed under the heading of social history, which characterizes and describes, while economic analysis has centered on studies of supply, with their more precise and quantifiable parameters.Will the largely descriptive tools at our disposal help us to understand how demand affected the early-modern economy? The workshop considered demand for goods and services and demand for money. The first three papers addressed the Mediterranean south, and the last three focused upon Europe north of the Alps.

Certain data from the familial world have value as a means for charting increments in wealth over the long term. Dowries from medieval Ragusa (Dubrovnik), 1235 to 1460, provide such evidence where other surviving records prove inadequate. Social cohesion and endogamy allowed the noble merchant citizenry to utilize dowries to redistribute personal fortunes broadly, thereby creating broad-based wealth. Comparisons with Italian towns indicate dowry increase was widespread but often served different social and economic purposes. Analyzing dotal strategies at Ragusa allows a glimpse of the means a cohesive elite could employ to promote economic growth.