History
Commercial Revolution
The Commercial Revolution refers to the period of European economic expansion, trade growth, and the rise of capitalism from the late Middle Ages to the early modern period. It was characterized by the development of global trade networks, the growth of banking and finance, and the emergence of new business practices. This era laid the foundation for the modern global economy.
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Related key terms
3 Key excerpts on "Commercial Revolution"
eBook - ePub- Norman John Greville Pounds(Author)
- 2014(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
CHAPTER NINEThe Commercial Revolution
A Commercial Revolution, in the words of the late Raymond de Roover, is ‘a complete or drastic change in the methods of doing business or in the organisation of business enterprise’. Such a revolution, he claims, occurred at the end of the thirteenth and early in the fourteenth century. It was characterised by a change in the activities of merchants, who gradually ceased to travel with their wares and, instead, entrusted them to ‘common carriers’, and sent their orders and made payment by couriers. It was marked by the development of new forms of partnership; by the appearance of the bill of exchange, which eliminated the need to transport large amounts of specie, together with the mechanism far clearing or discounting them, and by the increasing use of credit, which the bill of exchange made possible. Lastly, more sophisticated methods of book-keeping allowed merchants to assess more easily the success of their enterprises.All these developments in the practice of commerce appeared first in Italy and spread over much of Western Europe. They were adopted in Germany, but had little influence on the trade of the Baltic region and almost none on that of eastern Europe. Beyond serving as bankers to English kings, the Italians made little contribution to economic organisation in Great Britain,1 where the Commercial Revolution was not experienced until the sixteenth century.Before the Commercial Revolution the merchant travelled as a general rule with his wares. The volume of his goods was limited by the means of transport at his disposal, and the speed of his turnover by the slowness of his rate of travel. He carried little currency, in part because it was unsafe to do so, but partly also because the amount in circulation was inadequate for the needs of commerce. Much of his trading was done at fairs, where he could buy goods on the security of goods still in his possession, and wait until the conclusion of the fair before clearing his obligations with other merchants. It was, in fact, a highly refined form of barter. In the final accounting, which brought a fair to a close, only small sums of money had to change hands.
eBook - ePub- Carol Lansing, Edward D. English(Authors)
- 2012(Publication Date)
- Wiley-Blackwell(Publisher)
Two schools of thought have dominated research during the twentieth century. The first emphasizes commercial development as the key determinant of the period’s economic fortunes. Nearly a century ago, Henri Pirenne argued for the primacy of cities and long-distance mercantile trade as the engines of expansion throughout the period. 1 Pirenne’s exuberant vision of economic and commercial change found support in many quarters through the interwar years and ultimately inspired Roberto Lopez’s influential model of “Commercial Revolution” that placed the period’s dramatic economic change alongside the better-known Industrial Revolution as a transforming event in world history. 2 Lopez drew attention to numerous advances in how trade was conducted: new methods for organizing businesses; new institutions for pooling and investing capital (including banks); new legal and contractual ways to enforce obligations (including the use of notaries); and new ways to settle debts and transmit payments across foreign borders. Collectively these changes transformed Europe from a backward and relatively impoverished continent into one of the world’s most dynamic and entrepreneurial regions. The second leading school of thought emphasizes demographic growth as the primary force influencing the economy. Michael Postan was the main advocate of this position. Postan challenged the view that economic progress was uniform and continuous throughout the period. 3 He agreed that early growth was impressive, but he saw it as unsustainable. Ultimately the benefits conferred by commercial development were swamped by a rising population. According to Postan, population grew more quickly than the economy as a whole, leading inexorably to deprivation and suffering
eBook - ePubPower and Plenty
Trade, War, and the World Economy in the Second Millennium
- Ronald Findlay, Kevin O'Rourke(Authors)
- 2009(Publication Date)
- Princeton University Press(Publisher)
In terms of the matrix in table 2.1, the three centuries from 1500 to 1800 were largely concerned with filling in cells that had previously been blank. From now on, however, and as a result of the Industrial Revolution, the intensity of these interactions would increase at a historically unprecedented rate. Furthermore, because the Industrial Revolution was at first limited to Western Europe and her British offshoots, the structure of international trade and the international division of labor would change dramatically, becoming far more asymmetric than had ever been the case before. It is during this period that it begins to make sense to divide the world into “North” and “South,” or employ terms such as the “Third World,” and while such expressions obviously oversimplify, concealing more than they reveal, we will begin to use them in this chapter when it is convenient to do so. Corresponding to this growing economic asymmetry was a political one, as European empires expanded across the globe, implying that events in Europe now had a disproportionate influence on the world as a whole. We thus begin the chapter with an account of a European conflict that had worldwide ramifications, namely the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars opposing Britain and her old enemy, France. W AR AND R EVOLUTION 1 We saw in chapter 5 that the mercantilist period was characterized by frequent wars that disrupted international trade. We also saw that these wars led to severe fiscal crises for the states involved, which in turn led to the outbreak of the American and French Revolutions. There followed a far larger conflagration than previous mercantilist wars, into which an additional ideological dimension had now been injected. In 1792, France declared war on Austria and Prussia, and on February 1 of the following year she declared war on Great Britain
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