1 Kent's, Francis W.Household and lineage in renaissance Florence (Princeton, 1977)Google Scholar is clearly the pivotal work in this process of convergence and it acknowledges the influence of anthropological studies by Meyer Fortes and Jack Goody. See Kent, F. W., Household and lineage, 1, 39.Google Scholar Interestingly, Jack Goody has argued that these lignages or houses of Tuscany are very different from the corporate descent groups of classical African systems. The matter is still far from being settled and the material I set out below is intended to contribute towards an eventual resolution. See Goody, Jack, The development of the family and marriage in Europe (Cambridge, 1983), 232.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2 See, for example, Lansing, Carol, The Florentine magnates: lineage and faction in a medieval commune (Princeton, 1991), 36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

3 ‘Agnatic’ kin are those who have the same surname and who belong to the same house. On Florence see Kuehn, Thomas, ‘Women, marriage, and “patria potestas” in late medieval Florence’, Tijdschrift voor Rechtsgeschiedensis 49 (1981)Google Scholar; Kuehn, Thomas, ‘Some ambiguities of female inheritance ideology in the renaissance’, Continuity and Change 2 (1987)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Klapisch-Zuber, Christiane, Women, family, and ritual in renaissance Italy (Chicago, 1985).Google Scholar For Venice see the following by Stanley Chojnacki: ‘Patrician women in early renaissance Venice’, Studies in the Renaissance 21 (1974)Google Scholar; ‘Kinship ties and young patricians in fifteenth-century Venice’, Renaissance Quarterly 38 (1985)Google Scholar; ‘Marriage legislation and patrician society in fifteenth-century Venice’, in Bachrach, Bernard S. and Nicholas, David eds., Law, custom and the social fabric in medieval Europe: essays in honor of Bryce Lyon (Kalamazoo, 1990).Google Scholar

4 Kent, Dale, The rise of the Medici: faction in Florence 1426–1434 (Oxford, 1978), 27.Google Scholar

5 ibid., 28.

6 Bourdieu, Pierre, ‘Marriage strategies as strategies of social reproduction’, in Forster, Robert and Ranum, Orest eds., Family and society: selections from the Annales: Economies, Sociétés, Civilisations (Baltimore and London, 1976), 120–1.Google Scholar

7 See, for example, the discussion of wills and kin relatinships in Cressy, David, ‘Kinship and kin interaction in early modern England’, Past and Present 113 (1986).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

8 See, for example, Kertzer, David I., Hogan, Dennis P., and Karweit, Nancy, ‘Kinship beyond the household in a nineteenth-century Italian town’, Continuity and Change 7 (1992).CrossRefGoogle Scholar Dale Kent's outline of the Medici patronage network was not ‘reconstructed’ by computer. Rather, apparently, she took all those who could be presumed to be Medici partisans, about 90 persons in all, and ‘reconstructed’ their relationships to the Medici principals (and to one another in some cases) from information contained in the letters they wrote and from other sources of information. The method is not discussed by Kent. On the letters and the numbers of Medici partisans, see Kent, Dale, The rise of the Medici, 34–7.Google Scholar

9 Kapferer, Bruce, ‘Introduction’, in Kapferer, Bruce ed., Transaction and meaning (Philadelphia, 1976)Google Scholar; Bourdieu, Pierre, The logic of practice (Oxford, 1990).Google Scholar

10 In Bourdieu's terms, these are systems of dispositions ‘which generate and organize practices and representations’. See his discussion of structures, habitus, and practices, ibid. p. 53. See also Giddens, Anthony, The constitution of society (Cambridge, 1984).Google Scholar

11 The minimum was 255 in 1455 and the maximum was 415 in 1481. Manuscript sources consulted for this study are from the Historijski arhiv u Dubrovniku (Historical Archives in Dubrovnik), hereafter referred to as HAD.

12 Marlines, Lauro, Power and imagination: city-states in renaissance Italy (Harmonds worth, 1979), 202.Google Scholar

13 Terms like ‘open’ and ‘closed’ must be used with caution. While Florence would be regarded as ‘open’ since virtually any citizen of Florence might be eligible to be included in one of the purses from which the names of nominees to office were drawn, the practice was considerably more restrictive. See Kent, Dale V., ‘The Florentine Reggimento in the fifteenth century’, Renaissance Quarterly 28 (1975).CrossRefGoogle Scholar Similarly, Venice's ‘closed’ patriciate had some permeability. See Stanley Chojnacki, ‘In search of the Venetian patriciate: families and factions in the fourteenth century’, in Hale, John R. ed., Renaissance Venice (London, 1973).Google Scholar

14 Chojnacki, Stanley, ‘Political adulthood in fifteenth-century Venice’, American Historical Review 91 (1986) 796CrossRefGoogle Scholar, citing the diarist Marino Sanudo.

15 I use the term ‘house’ as a fairly literal translation. The larger question of whether the casada is a ‘house’, ‘lineage’, or something else I leave to another occasion.

16 Krekić, Bariša, ‘O problemu koncentracije vlasti u Dubrovniku u XIV i XV vijeku’, Zbornika Radova Vizantotoskog Instituta 24–25 (1986), 398.Google Scholar

17 Rheubottom, David, ‘Hierarchy of office in fifteenth-century Ragusa’, Bulletin of the John Rylands University Library of Manchester 72 (1990)Google Scholar; Rešeter, Milan, ‘Dubrovačko Veliko Vijeće’, Dubrovnik 1 (1929).Google Scholar

18 My spelling of these surnames differs in some respects from those found in Krekić, , ‘O problemu koncentracije vlasti’, 399.Google Scholar

19 Kent, F. W., Household and lineage, 225, 272–3.Google Scholar

20 Kent, , ‘The Florentine Reggimento’ 592Google Scholar; Finlay, Robert G., Politics in renaissance Venice (London, 1980), 110, 134.Google Scholar

21 Statues are found in HAD, Manuali practici del Cancelliere, 11: Liber Viridis (hereafter Lib. Vir.), Caps. 123, 352, 360.

22 These are the men known to have held office from 1440 to 1490 and who were alive in the particular year, as well as all males who may not have held office but were known to have entered the Council by that year. Not all of these would have been present and voting. Some, for example, were absent from Ragusa for considerable periods.

23 Petrovich, Miodrag P., ‘A Mediterranean city-state: a study of Dubrovnik elites, 1592–1667’ (unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University of Chicago, 1974).Google Scholar

24 Chojnacki, , ‘In search’, 62–7.Google Scholar He uses the term ‘families’.

25 ibid., 67.

26 ibid., 70.

27 Petrovich, , ‘Mediterranean city-state’, 717–36.Google Scholar

28 HAD, Lib. Vir., Cap. 212. Much information concerning offices and office-holders is recorded in the Chancellor's Handbooks. HAD, Manuali practici del Cancelliere, 1 (hereafter referred to as Specchio), s.v. Conte de Canate and Officiali dell'arte della lana. The hyperperus was a money of account. The salaries of office-holders can be compared with the standard patrician dowry of the period, 2,600 hyperperi.

29 HAD, Lib. Vir., Caps. 394, 395.

30 The ordinance is found in HAD, Manuali pratici del Cancelliere, 12, Liber Croceus, fos. 60–9. On the case of Nicola de Bona, see HAD, Specchio, s.v. Camerlengi del comune. Three years later he was properly elected to the same post. On the scandals see Šundrica, Zdravko, ‘Šetjna kroz arhiv (2)’, Dubrovnik 3 (1973), 7.Google Scholar

31 Mahnken, Irmgard, Dubrovački patricijat u XIV Veku (Belgrade, 1960).Google Scholar

32 At the end of 1993, the database contained over 22,000 primary records. A brief description of its structure is to be found in Rheubottom, David, ‘Computers and the political structure of a fifteenth-century city-state (Ragusa)’, in Denley, Peter and Hopkin, Deian eds., History and computing (Manchester, 1987).Google Scholar

33 The abbreviations follow standard anthropological convention where z = sister and s = son.

34 This procedure, and some of the problems associated with it, are discussed in Rheubottom, , ‘Hierarchy of office’, 160–3.Google Scholar

35 The lone exception is those holding higher offices who have served between fifteen and twenty years in the Great Council. This exception might be an artifact of the small number of cases in this category.

36 These, for example, are the categories of senior agnates (of the first ascending generation) who are most likely to appear as tutors in dowry contracts. This evidence, as well as material drawn from wills, suggests that they were regarded as ‘close’ kin.

37 Philippus de Diversis de Quartgianis de Lucca, ‘Situs ædificiorum, politiæ et laudabilium consuetudinum inclytæ civitatis Ragusii’ (written in 1440, edited and with notes by Y. Brunelli), Programma dell'I.R. Ginnasio Superiore in Zara 23 (1880), 24 (1881), 25 (1882).Google Scholar

38 Stuard, Susan Mosher, ‘Dowry increase and increments in wealth in medieval Ragusa (Dubrovnik)’, Journal of Economic History 41 (1981), 798.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

39 Rheubottom, David, ‘“Sisters first”: betrothal order and age at marriage in fifteenth-century Ragusa’, Journal of Family History 13 (1988), 363.Google Scholar

40 HAD, Pacta Matrimonialia, 2, fos. 21–21v.

41 The procedures for determining ages are discussed more fully in Rheubottom, ,‘“Sisters first”’, 363.Google Scholar

42 For Florence see Herlihy, David and Klapisch-Zuber, Christiane, Tuscans and their families (New Haven and London, 1985), 205Google Scholar, fig. 7.1. The Venetian figures are found in Chojnacki, Stanley, ‘Measuring adulthood: adolescence and gender in renaissance Venice’, Journal of Family History 17 (1992), 379.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

43 Herlihy, David, ‘The generation in medieval history’, Viator 5 (1972), 350.Google Scholar

44 ibid., 360–2.

45 Fortes, Meyer, ‘Age, generation, and social structure’, in Kertzer, David and Keith, Jennie eds., Age and anthropological theory (Ithaca, N.Y., 1984).Google Scholar See also Chojnacki, , ‘Measuring adulthood’, and Guido Ruggiero, The boundaries of eros: sex crime and sexuality in renaissance Venice (New York and Oxford, 1985).Google Scholar

46 Fortes's anecdote about two Tallensi in Northern Ghana of the 1930s, Nyaangzum (aged about 50) and his ‘son’ Teezeen (aged about 70) is typical. See ‘Age, generation, and social structure’, 102.Google Scholar

47 Martin, John F., ‘Genealogical structures and consanguineous marriage’, Current Anthropology 22 (1981)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Needham, Rodney, ‘Age, category, and descent’, Bijdragen tot de Taal-, land- en Volkenkunde 122 (1966)Google Scholar; Rose, Frederick G. G., Classification of kin, age structure, and marriage amongst the Groote Eylandt Aborigines (Berlin, 1960)Google Scholar; Hammel, Eugene A., ‘The matrilateral implications of structural cross-cousin marriage’, in Zubrow, Ezra B. W. ed., Demographic anthropology: quantitative approaches (Albuquerque, 1976)Google Scholar; and Denham, Woodrow W., McDaniel, Chad K., and Atkins, John R., ‘Aranda and Alyawara kinship: a quantitative argument for a double helix model’, American Ethnologist 6 (1979).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

48 Rheubottom, , ‘“Sisters first”’.Google Scholar

49 HAD, Specchio, fos. 386v–394.