Gregory Milton's Market Power is a rigorous and nuanced study of the emergence of a dynamic rural market in northeastern Spain in the final decades of the thirteenth century. In Milton's account, it is in some ways the very modesty of Santa Coloma de Queralt's market that makes it worth our attention. Historians of the period have tended to focus on cosmopolitan trading centers such as Genoa, Marseilles, and Barcelona, and on the sophisticated financial practices that fueled their growth. Places like Santa Coloma de Queralt, with a population of around 1,500, tend to be overlooked. Milton bases his study on more than 4,000 records drawn from notarial registers that began to swell in the late thirteenth century. Through scrutiny of these, Milton makes a compelling case for the importance of trade in small rural markets.

In chapter 1, “Town, Country, and Lordship,” Milton describes Santa Coloma's broader political, economic, and geographic context. Geography made Santa Coloma a convenient place to trade for the inhabitants of surrounding communities, but the growth of the market depended on political and administrative structures. Santa Coloma was subject to a local dynasty of the minor nobility, the lords of Queralt, who sat above a passle of lesser nobles and castellans. The wealth and power of the lords of Queralt was based on land, but Milton shows how local lords were intimately involved in the regulation of the market. These minor aristocrats did not hold themselves aloof from trade, but eagerly sought to promote the market and to profit from it.

Notaries (the subject of chapter 2) also contributed to commercial growth and created the evidence that allows us to understand it. The scribania, an office of notaries, was both an institution and a physical place near Santa Coloma's market square. The handful of notaries who worked in the scribania during these decades recorded thousands of diverse transactions and, in so doing, played a key role in regulating Santa Coloma's market. Debt transactions, usually credit sales or loans, were the most common type of transaction in the registers.

In chapter 3, “Developing a Market Town,” Milton describes Santa Coloma's market both as a space and as a weekly event. The number of transactions grew steadily. Local elites, including the lords of Queralt and the castellans of Santa Coloma, fostered the development of the market. They profited by collecting fees from merchants who traded at the market and by farming out the office of baiulus (bailiff). Notaries were, unsurprisingly, busiest on market days. So, for example, of all transactions recorded in May 1304, nearly 90 percent took place on a Monday. Santa Coloma's Jewish population also grew in this period and played an important role in the market.

In chapter 4, “A Financial Market,” Milton delves into the gritty logic of the debt transactions that feature so prominently in the registers. The task is especially challenging because lendors recorded some transactions in currency and others in measures of wheat. The choice had both financial and cultural implications.

The fluctuating price of wheat added uncertainty—and opportunity—to transactions denominated in wheat. Christian lenders were more likely to denominate loans in wheat since the practice masked profits that might otherwise be considered usurious. The chapter concludes with illuminating case studies tracing the careers of two particularly well-documented merchants.

In chapter 5, “Commercial Crossroads,” Milton describes the traders who came to the market and what they traded. Most merchants were from nearby villages and the surrounding countryside, although a few came from farther afield. Labor animals and cloth were the most frequently traded goods. Some traders were very active. Jaume Moxo, for example, appears 272 times between 1293 and 1305.

In the final chapter, “Power, Status, and Economy,” the author returns to broader questions about the contours of power in the growing town. In addition to local nobles, Milton describes the collective activities of Santa Coloma's leading residents, at times formally constituted as a town council (curia). Here too, Milton adds flesh to bones by offering case studies of the civic and commercial careers of three prominent citizens. Giner Clerezo served as bailiff for many years and frequently witnessed transactions. En Cresques also served as bailiff, was party to many financial transactions, and was a leader of the Jewish community.

In a brief epilogue, Milton describes a royal charter issued in 1312 by Jaume II allowing the village to hold an annual two-week fair. Such a charter is a sure sign of optimism regarding Santa Coloma's economic future. There is less evidence that the village fulfilled the promise hinted at by the king's grant. Such a failing is not especially surprising, since Santa Coloma faced the same stiff headwinds encountered by other communities in northern Spain and throughout Europe in the fourteenth century.

An appendix of twenty-six records from Santa Coloma, including Latin transcriptions and English translations, affords a vivid sense of the complex evidence upon which Milton has drawn.

Market Power reflects Milton's command of Santa Coloma's records and a keen ability to wring insights from notarial registers. On a broader level, Milton argues convincingly that economic historians of the premodern world should not focus their attention exclusively on cities and long-distrance trade. Milton paints a nuanced portrait of a small place and, in doing so, offers a useful corrective to accounts of the period that represent cities as the sole engines of economic growth. Commercial capitalism of some form was not a uniquely urban phenomenon. In Market Power, Milton offers clear and convincing evidence that rural villages like Santa Coloma have their own rich economic histories.