The term factory was much more common in Europe in the high and late Middle Ages than in the early modern period. The Italian word fattoria, the etymon of the loanword, first appears in connection with the great Tuscan trading companies of the high Middle Ages; it denoted a fortified outpost or “branch” of a trading company in a foreign commercial center, headed by a factor (Italian fattore) [6]. The network of factories of the great South German companies (Fugger family; Welser) with permanent offices in the major Europ…