Popular texts typically assert that guilds of craftsmen `̀ monopolized’ ’ markets in medieval England. Norman Cantor’s Medieval Reader declares `̀ craft guilds’ . . . main purpose and activity was narrow regulation of industrial productivity in order to restrain competition’ ’ (Cantor 1994, p. 278). Douglass North’s Structure and Change in Economic History asserts `̀ . . . guilds organized to prot...

The Ottoman conquest of Constantinople not only destroyed the Byzantine Empire as a political entity but caused collapse patronage networks vital to all aspects cultural life, including literary production. After 1453 authors had seek sources support under new lords and divergent imperatives: Constantinople, Crete, humanist Italy became major centres Greek poetic production intellectual life. T...