The Commercial Revolution of the Middle Ages 10001300

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The Commercial Revolution of the Middle Ages
1000-1300 An Introduction
Petrus Christus, A Flemish goldsmith in his shop
1449
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I. POPULATION GROWTH
As the year 1003 approached, people all over the
world, but especially in Italy and France began
to rebuild their churches. Christian nations
were rivalling each other to have the most
beautiful edifices. One might say the world was
shaking herself, throwing off her old garments,
and robing herself with a white mantle of
churches. -- Raoul Glaber, 11th-century
chronicler
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England in 1086 1.1 million ? In 1346 3.7
million
On the continent the population probably doubled
in the period 1000-1350.
Population peak circa 1250. Plague and war caused
a drastic reduction in the population in the
mid-fourteenth century. The population of Europe
would not reach the level of 1250 again until the
sixteenth century.
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II. The Agricultural Revolution, 900-1100
1000 Most of Europe covered with old-growth
forests. 1300 Most arable land stripped of trees
and under cultivation.
Planned villages were established by feudal lords
with incentives given to peasants to resettle.
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The Basis of Increased Production, Land Clearance
and Population Growth New Tools and New
Techniques
1. The Three-field system of crop rotation
introduction of legumes (beans).
2. The iron tipped heavy plow.
3. The horse collar and tandem harness draft
horses.
4. Wind mills and water mills.
These innovations reversed a downward cycle of
low population, low production, high mortality in
effect since the third century.
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Surplus population and surplus agricultural
production create ideal conditions for the
emergence of markets and a money economy.
Peasants began to sell surplus grain and other
produce in towns and market centers.
Feudal landholders began to reorganize land use
for the sake of greater profits. Typical example
Converting fields into sheep runs.
In the 11th and 12th centuries, regions began to
specialize in certain crops, e.g. grapes for wine
production and export.
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The New Money Economy and the Decline of Serfdom
Crops sold for prices promoted the commutation of
traditional peasant labor services into simple
money payments.
Serfdom declined and was practically obsolete in
western Europe by 1250. Peasants owed fewer and
personal services they became increasingly
simply tenants and wage laborers.
The European population became highly mobile
after 1000, as the portable wealth that was
money supplanted the immovable wealth that was
control of the land.
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Growing population, agricultural production, and
the circulation of money stimulate a dramatic
explosion of distance trade.
This explosion of trade brought with the
multiplication and expansion of towns and cities
throughout Europe
and the concentration of peoples in towns and
cities caused a rise and development of industry
(especially the production of woolen, silk, and
linen textiles).
Exploding distance trade rapid urbanization
industrial rise The Commercial Revolution
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• Two major zones of later medieval distance
  commerce
• Centered on the North Sea.
• 2) Centered on the Mediterranean.

What was traded by the thirteenth century
Luxury items spices, porcelains, silks from
Asia and Islam. Raw materials wool and dye
plants from Britain wood and furs from
Scandinavia and Russia. Manufactured goods
Woolen cloth from Flanders and N. Italy Venetian
glass and jewelry arms from S. Germany.
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New Business Techniques
In the 11th and 12th centuries, merchants
generally traveled with their goods and bargained
directly with buyers and sellers.
FAIRS (such as those supervised by the counts of
Champagne) were established for itinerant
merchants to conduct business.
ITALIAN MERCHANTS brought innovations in
business -- correspondence -- bookkeeping
(learned from the Arabs) -- insurance --
letters of credit -- banking -- new forms of
business contract which offered investors
limited liability
Italian innovations freed merchants from having
to travel with their goods. Transportation and
distribution could be delegated to employees.
Cities replaced fairs as centers of trade
negotiation and financial services.
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Urban Decline The Case of Rome
Pop. In 100 C.E., the height of the Empire One
million.
In c. 450 with Germanic invasion and political
collapse less than 500,000.
In c. 550, in the time of the Gothic Wars 50,000.
In the 1200s 35, 000.
In the 1300s 20,000.
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URBAN REVIVAL
Germanic invasions of 300-600 C.E. destroyed many
Roman towns and drastically reduced the
populations of others.
In the early Middle Ages, large portions of
Europe had never known urban life.
The Commercial Revolution swelled the size of
surviving urban centers, and dotted the landscape
of Western Europe with new towns.
Italy was the most urbanized part of Europe in
late Middle Ages and Renaissance, boasting the
largest cities.
Pop. 50,000 Milan, Genoa, Venice, Naples,
Florence, Palermo.
By 1300, Florence numbered 100,000 people.
In Flanders (mod. Belgium) only Ghent had
50,000. Most medieval towns had only a few
thousand inhabitants.
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European Urban Populations c. 1350
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TOWN FORMATION
In general, occurred in three ways
1. In the surviving shells of Roman centers.
2. A merchant community developed around a
bishops household. Bishops claimed governmental
authority over numerous towns, esp. in Italy.
Their households were often the vestige of a
Roman urban center.
3. A merchant settlement gathers around a
fortified castle in the countryside.
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burgus the medieval Latin term for a fortified
place
Fr. bourg -- Germ. burg Eng. borough Ital.
borgo
town dwellers bourgeois (Fr.) or burghers
(Germ.)
In the fragile merchant settlements that
formed within the protective walls extending from
fortified houses began the career of the
European bougeoisie a class of enterprising
merchants, bankers, and long-distance traders.
historian M. King