Search

1. Definition and medieval background foire fiera fiesta forum feria MesseWorship Ite, missa estmarket Messe JahrmarktFair, annual Messenmerchantscurrencypayment transactionsEndorsementMarket rights[3]Trade, Long-distancetrademerchants Trade fairs usually helped to connect economic regions at different stages of development and contributed to economic accommodation between them. If both economic areas had attained similar levels of development, the trade fairs that brought them together lost their function and sign…

Trading customs (German Handelsusancen, from Italian  usanza or uso, “custom,” “usage”) are customary agreements or commercial practices between merchants that relate to various segments of trade transactions. They arose beginning in the high Middle Ages to meet various needs and requirements and were maintained by tradition – for example, the manner in which the price of wheat was recorded.Trading customs varied, sometimes substantially, at individual commercial centers (Trade fairs or towns). It was absolutely necessary for a merchant to be fami…

1. Introduction An annual fair (German Jahrmarkt), also called kermis, was a market with a regional catchment area, held once or several times a year and thereby distinguished both from the weekly market [9. 147, 149] and from the trade fair, whose focus was wider, even international. Like the trade fair (German  Messe), the annual fair - which took place at a designated marketplace and sometimes had its own specific market area, even its own buildings - was associated with a church festival (dedicated to Christ, Mary, or a saint) and took p…

1. Rise of the dynasty up to the 16th century The Fuggers of Augsburg were among the most famous of entrepreneurs doing business in the German area in the early modern era. In 1367, Hans Fugger immigrated to Augsburg and set himself up as a fustian weaver and merchant; his son Jakob I. Fugger, founder of the “Fuggers of the lily” branch of the family, was primarily known as a business magnate. His son Jakob II (nicknamed “the Rich”) was the one who created a Europe-wide enterprise from those comparatively…

1. General The term payment transactions refers to the organization of the fulfillment of promises to pay, which customarily are made in the course of commercial transactions. Before the emergence of national payment systems, especially in the course of the development of central banks (see Bank of issue; cf. 4.3. below), payment transactions usually took place directly between individual commercial centers with their own financial services; governmental and political boundaries were irrelevant.Markus A. Denzel2. Payment in kindPayment in kind, that is, payment for …

Export is the portion of external trade that entails the delivering of goods from the home economic zone into another (foreign) one, and the services connected with this process (warehousing, dispatch, etcetera; on the details, see Trade, external).The export of goods was subject to a range of official regulations in the early modern period, primarily prohibitions. A prohibition on export was an official ban on the export of goods regarded as strategically important, such as weapons, raw materials, foodstuffs, manufactured or lux…

1. TerminologyThe term  duty (German  Zoll, from Late Latin  teloneum/ telonium, “toll house, customs house”) denotes a fee levied when goods are transported across a customs boundary – whether within a state (internal tariff) or between two states (external tariff). Internal tariffs were levied primarily in situations where bypassing a customs stations would have been very expensive or impossible for the dealer or carrier. In land transport, this took place at major bridges (bridge toll), fords, tunnels…

In the 12th and 13th centuries, as a consequence of the commercial revolution economic and trade activity increased sharply, the money economy began to take hold (once more), and new techniques were developed for trade and payment transactions (see Bill of exchange); as a result, the need for communication between merchants increased substantially. Now, however, they no longer communicated primarily orally in the course of personal meetings; with the emergence of the settled counting-house merch…

1. Denotation Unlike bureaux de change, which already existed in Upper Germany in the late Middle Ages, exchange banks were public clearing- and deposit banks, usually established by a town to function as a clearinghouse with a multilateral system of accounting, in order to better regulate the increasingly common practice of cashless payment transactions. At the same time, by means of the introduction of a currency of accounting (bank currency), exchange banks stabilized the existing cash and curr…

1. Definition“Long-distance” or “international” trade (for the Middle Ages and the first part of the early modern period a somewhat anachronistic term) constituted a central anchor of economic activity both within Europe and between Europe and extra-European economic zones. In contrast to local and regional trade, not to mention pedlary, long-distance trade covered great distances and provided for movement of goods and money between distant regions of Europe and increasingly – beginning in the 16th century – between Europe and regions outside Europe (overseas trade).Long-dis…

1. TypesTrading books are among the most important sources for the history of trade. Ever since the Commercial Revolution that began in Italy in the 12th and 13th centuries, there were two primary types:1) The development of bookkeeping, of whatever kind, created account books in the narrower sense, which documented mercantile transactions (including the correspondence that accompanied them). Over the centuries, and especially when double-entry bookkeeping (Bookkeeping, double-entry) was implemented in the 14th and 15th cent…

1. DefinitionExternal trade, in contrast to internal trade, is the portion of trade that imports (Import) or exports (Export) goods across the borders of a country or imports goods in order to export them again as quickly as possible, sometimes further processed or refined (re-export). In this sense, every territory of the early modern Holy Roman Empire that traded with its neighbors engaged in external trade. When external trade was essentially entrepot trade (Staple), that is, when the great ma…

The dispatching of goods in the early modern period was always regarded as an integral part of trade, although a distinction may be made between “normal” carriage, simple traffic and transport between two places, and long-distance dispatch (Ger. Speditionshandel or Transithandel).Dispatch as part of the business of trade was not generally operated professionally (cf. Professionalization 4.2.). Waggoners, in Alpine districts pack drivers, on larger rivers bargees or raftsmen, were often peasants and tenants, who took on paid transport…

1. BasicsAn outgrowth of a storage right in a natural trading center (Trade), the right of staple had already become a mandatory requirement by the high Midde Ages: traveling merchants were required to “staple” (i.e. store) their goods at a specific place – often a river crossing or a crossroads – for a specific length of time and offer them for sale to the local population. This could be accompanied by the obligation to sell the goods at that place and no other – a privilege that the Hanseatic L…

Regional trade comprises commercial activities occurring, geographically speaking, between the two poles of the essentially local confines of the retail trade and the long-distance trade over substantial distances (Trade, Long-distance). It therefore denotes the trade within a single economic region, or between two or more regions, as often limited by the available (preindustrial) transportation possibilities (Traffic and transport). Merchants often specialized in regional trade when …

Traditionally a counting-house has been understood as the scriptorium or shop (in modern language, the office) of medieval and early modern merchants. The term goes back to French  comptoir (“counter,” from Latin  computare, “count,” “calculate”), which suggests an original reference to a table or desk used for writing or trading. The counting-house became a central feature of commercial activity in the high Middle Ages, when merchants no longer traveled with their merchandise but settled in one place. With increasing literac…

1. Bookkeeping in Antiquity and the Middle Ages Bookkeeping or accounting is probably almost as old as commercial activity itself. In Sumerian Mesopotamia (3rd millennium BCE), commercial transactions were already being recorded on clay tablets. This simple method of bookkeeping, in use since antiquity, served to document completed transactions as a reminder for the trader and as evidence in legal disputes. The Roman Corpus iuris civilis, for example, required the accounts of merchants to be presented publicly in court in case of disputes.Such documentation became especial…

1. Definition and formsThe term  interest (French  intérêt; see  Interest), in earlier Latin sources often called  interesse, contrasts with German  Zins – from Latin  census, “valuation (of wealth),” “tribute.” Until well into the 18th century, it meant compensation for both the loan of money or movables (Loan for consumption [mutuum]) and the use of land or immovables (lease or rent interest, ground rent, rent charge; see Peasant property rights; Services, peasant), later it normally meant only the former (see also…

The term commercial revolution was introduced by Raymond de Roover in 1942 [2]; it is used in studies of economic history for epochal changes relating to the history of trade, when commercial innovations were concentrated in a short space of time, thus triggering an advance in the long-term development of trade. De Roover set the commercial revolution of the Middle Ages in the 13th century, while modern scholars prefer to speak of a period from the late 12th century to the 14th. During the medieval commer…

1. DefinitionImport is the portion of external trade (Trade, external) that involves the transfer of goods from a foreign economic area into one’s own and the related services (warehousing, dispatch, etc.); it is thus complementary to export.Markus A. Denzel2. RestrictionsAn import ban or embargo is a government decree prohibiting (for example) the import of raw materials, foodstuffs, manufactured goods, or luxuries. Such bans have been common since antiquity, especially vis-à-vis hostile nations, but it was not until the era of mercantilism that they became an…