Commerce before Capitalism in Europe, 1300–1600

Challenges dominant interpretations of the relationship between the so-called commercial revolution of late medieval Europe and the capitalist age that followed.

Martha C. Howell (Author)

9780521148504, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 12 April 2010

378 pages, 27 b/w illus. 2 maps 1 table
22.9 x 15.2 x 2 cm, 0.52 kg

'Martha Howell's masterful analysis is based on extensive archival research and displays impressive, wide-ranging erudition. Her thoughtful examination of the structural changes in the ideas and practices about property, marriage, gifts, dress, and commerce represents a very original, multidisciplinary combination of sociocultural and institutional economic history. The book is authoritative, fundamental, and pathbreaking and makes for fascinating reading; it is a first-rate contribution to the historical sciences.' Herman Van der Wee, Leuven University

Martha C. Howell challenges dominant interpretations of the relationship between the so-called commercial revolution of late medieval Europe and the capitalist age that followed. She argues that the merchants, shopkeepers, artisans, and consumers in cities and courts throughout Western Europe, even in the urbanized Low Countries that are the main focus of this study, were by no means proto-capitalist and did not consider their property a fungible asset. Even though they freely bought and sold property using sophisticated financial techniques, they preserved its capacity to secure social bonds by intensifying market regulations and by assigning new meaning to marriage, gift-giving, and consumption. Later generations have sometimes found such actions perplexing, often dismissing them as evidence that business people of the late medieval and early modern worlds did not fully understand market rules. Howell, by contrast, shows that such practices were governed by a logic specific to their age and that, however primitive they may appear to subsequent generations, these practices made Europe's economic future possible.

Introduction
1. Movable/immovable, what's in a name?
2. 'Pour l'amour et affection conjugale'
3. Gift work
4. The dangers of dress
5. Rescuing commerce
Afterword.

Subject Areas: Economic history [KCZ], Economic theory & philosophy [KCA], Early modern history: c 1450/1500 to c 1700 [HBLH]