Florentine business family, patriarch was Cosimo who established family's power in 1434. Lorenzo, a descendant, would be the great patron of Renaissance artists. Started as wool merchants and became bankers. Great wealth and power. Family would later produce two popes and two queens of France.
Johann-weaver(1368) - Augsburg - fustian(wool with cotton) - wider market. Venice for cotton and got into other items of trade. Diversified into mining. Then to Banking - Banker to popes, emperors and kings - financed Portug. trade - became great bankers of Euro. Declined only with German economic decline of 16th. C and bankruptcies of Hapsburgs. No bankruptcy insurance in those days.
in Middle Ages loaning money & charging interest was seen as usury - denounced by Church as avarice and forbidden under canon law. In 16th C still frowned upon. Theologians of U. Paris still ruled agnst it in 1530 and Luther condemned Fuggerism. Calvin made some allowances but Dutch Calvinist ministers still disapproving of it in 1640. However as interest rates went down and loans were for productive uses not just to sustain eccliastics and princes - attitudes changed.By 17th C reasonable interest rates accepted as necessary to economies. (During Middle Ages Jews,non-Christians, were ones to loan money - contributed to prejudiced agnst them).
knowing not only what needed to be made but where to sell it - commercial- ization of industry. Producers made goods by order of merchants who often supplied capital. This type of capitalism would remain in effect until industrial capitalism of 19th C. Often included Domestic System/Putting Out.
govt policies beginning with bullionism and leading to idea of bldg strong self-sufficient national economy. Country's wealth measured in gold. To acquire gold, exp > imp. To accomplish this discourage imps with high tariffs, encourage exps by subsidizing new industries. Have colonies, bring in raw mats. from colonies and sell exps to them and othr countries. Discourage devt. of industries in colonies and prevent colonies from trading with other countries. Also, set poor to work - productive population. All this done by a royal system of regulations - nationwide. Mercantilism became in econ. sphere what statebuilding of the New Monarchies was in the political - signifying transition from town
to nation centered units of social living.
Favorable Balance of Trade
Exporting more than importing, selling more than buying at a national level.
Statute of Artificers
of 1563 in England - Parliament regulated admission to apprenticeship and level of wages in various trades. Doing at a national level what guilds had previously done at local level. Thereby further demonstrating move to nation-centered economy. In effect this showed that England's government was prepared to start limiting power of guilds in order to better promote commerce in an age ripe for trade.
provincial and municipal tariffs against imports from outside. In effect from medieval times to protect local industries/crafts united under guilds. Mercantilists sought to end these tariffs and impose external tariffs to protect domestic industries. Much resistance to this and took a while to accomplish. England more successful in breaking down internal tariffs than continental Euro.
chartered trading companies
merchants and their respective govts came together to found official companies for transoceanic trade. England in 1553 with discovery of White Sea and the port of Archangel in northern Russia founded a Russian trading company. From 1600 on, many East India Companies - English, Dutch and French - were founded Each held a monopoly and each expected to find markets for domestic products and bring home the bullion(gold and silver). With these chartered trading companies the N. Euro countries were encroaching on Sp. and Port. monopolies in the Orient and the Americas. With them, new commercial-colonial Empires would be launched.
refers to composition, functions and interrelationships of social classes. Changes in this v. slow and hard to identify. However, the effects of commercial revolution, rising population and falling value of money -> classes taking new forms that would last until industrial era of 19th & 20th C. These classes - landed aristos, peasantry, M.C. and urban poor.
In England - a class of small freeholders(the yeomanry) developed between the landed gentry and the rural poor. Reached status becos fixed payt. to manorial lord and due to inflation acquired more wealth & became small landowners. Some peasants in France, w. Germany and the Netherlands gained status like the Engl. yeoman.
Poor Law of 1601
In England. Designed both to force people to work and to relieve absolute destitution - part of mercantilist policies. Remained in effect, with amendments until 1834. Made local areas responsible for their own homeless and unemeployed and offered ways to raise money for charity and provide work for beggars - kept poor in their area rather than wandering about.
below aristos. is social structure were the MC or bourgeois - French word like the Engl. burgher - person living in a chartered town or borough and enjoying its liberties. Whole class known as bourgeoisie. (Marx would later use term to refer to owners of capital). In time some blurring of lines betw. aristos and bourgeois. IN 16th C bourg. becoming more numerous.
In Eastern Euro - vast process set in whereby peasantry sank further down into serfdom. Impact of religious wars. Loss of individual parcels of land or received them back on condition they render unpaid labor services to lord. Usually owed 3/4 days per week - robot. Often the no. of days increased since in E. Euro no strong legal systems under central monarchy.
In E. Euro - rural masses losing personal freedom rather than gaining it as in W. Euro.
In Spain - nobility. Very numerous - overlapping with what in other countries might be considered MC - often aspirants for positions in Church or royal govt.
combined work of English Grammar school with what corresponded to first year or two of university work at Oxford or Cambridge. Of 167 existing by time of Fr. Rev. in 1789, 92 established in France betw. 1560 & 1650.
Catholic Order of Nuns established in 1535 by Angela Merici and dedicated to education of young girls. In general though, provision for girls schools was more sporadic. Spread from Italy to France and thence to Quebec and New Orleans.
term used in England to describe the whole MC from wealthy merchants down to quite modest levels. 1560 to 1660 about half the students at Oxford were plebians - therefore at this time Oxford was more widely representative of Engl. pop than in 1900.
term used in Germany for serfdom. Subjects of manorial lord - could not leave the manor, marry or learn a trade without the lord's express permission. The lord, drawing on this large reserve of compulsory labor(robot), using most of it for agriculture (though teaching some the crafts needed on the estate), worked the land as his own venture and sold the produce and retained the profit for himself. Little opportunity for lower classes to progress.