Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Preface
- CHAPTER I Trade and Industry in Barbarian Europe till Roman Times
- CHAPTER II Trade and Industry under the Later Roman Empire in the West
- CHAPTER III Byzantine Trade and Industry
- CHAPTER IV The Trade of Medieval Europe: the North
- CHAPTER V The Trade of Medieval Europe: the South
- CHAPTER VI Asia, Africa and the Trade of Medieval Europe
- CHAPTER VII Trade and Industry in Eastern Europe Before 1200
- CHAPTER VIII The Trade of Eastern Europe in the Later Middle Ages
- CHAPTER IX The Woollen Industry
- CHAPTER X Mining and Metallurgy in Medieval Civilisation
- CHAPTER XI Building in Stone in Medieval Western Europe
- CHAPTER XII Coinage and Currency
- Appendix A Table of Medieval Money
- Bibliographies
- Map 1: The Empire under Diocletian
- Map 7: Eastern Europe in the Later Middle Ages
- References
CHAPTER IV - The Trade of Medieval Europe: the North
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 March 2008
- Frontmatter
- Preface
- CHAPTER I Trade and Industry in Barbarian Europe till Roman Times
- CHAPTER II Trade and Industry under the Later Roman Empire in the West
- CHAPTER III Byzantine Trade and Industry
- CHAPTER IV The Trade of Medieval Europe: the North
- CHAPTER V The Trade of Medieval Europe: the South
- CHAPTER VI Asia, Africa and the Trade of Medieval Europe
- CHAPTER VII Trade and Industry in Eastern Europe Before 1200
- CHAPTER VIII The Trade of Eastern Europe in the Later Middle Ages
- CHAPTER IX The Woollen Industry
- CHAPTER X Mining and Metallurgy in Medieval Civilisation
- CHAPTER XI Building in Stone in Medieval Western Europe
- CHAPTER XII Coinage and Currency
- Appendix A Table of Medieval Money
- Bibliographies
- Map 1: The Empire under Diocletian
- Map 7: Eastern Europe in the Later Middle Ages
- References
Summary
The Trade in General
Commodities
The international and inter-regional trade of northern Europe and its principal industries bear little resemblance to the conventional image of medieval economy. The traffic across the continent of western Europe, or between the European mainland and the lands immediately to the north and to the north-east, evokes in a modern reader none of that romance which clings to the trade of southern Europe. The latter brought to western Europe exotic goods of every kind: pepper, ginger and other spices of the East Indies, silks, brocades and tapestries, sweet wines, oranges, raisins, figs and almonds. It enticed the merchant into the mysterious lands of the Near and Middle East, to Byzantium and Syria, often to Africa, and sometimes even to China. It was also the trade of the caravans, the galleys, the junks; and of the Venetian, Genoese and Florentine adventurers and merchant princes. This was the medieval trade as popular writers know it, and this is the trade which some serious writers have in mind when they insist on the luxury character of medieval commerce.
The trade of northern Europe was quite different. It was not greatly concerned with oriental and Mediterranean commodities. At various times between the sixth century and the tenth, traders and warriors brought goods from the extreme north of Europe to Byzantium and re-imported Byzantine goods into northern Europe. Much more frequently the Italian merchants of the later centuries sailed into the harbours of England and Flanders, bringing with them all the infinite variety of Levantine and oriental products.
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- Information
- Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1987
References
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