7 - Business responses to the new environment

Summary

In the daunting new environment following the Black Death, businessmen had a number of advantages working for them. The accumulation of technological advances, business knowledge, and management techniques through the High Middle Ages had not been lost: it was available to be used and built upon. This legacy had come down partly by word of mouth and also through the wide distribution of written material. We have already noted the positive side of higher labor costs – more consumers with income to buy goods – and the opportunities for trade created by the disruptions of war. These advantages, along with the redistribution of wealth discussed earlier, offered possibilities to the alert and the agile.

COST CONTROL AND TECHNOLOGY

Business people, both urban and rural, responded to the new realities of the post-plague era in many ways. We will offer examples in this chapter, such as the invasion of the international cloth markets by English producers and the market specialization of Flemish and Italian textile manufacturers. But the primary response of most businessmen was an intensified focus on cost control as the surest way to satisfy demand profitably. Crucial to this objective was more accurate measurement of time and of results. Determining the divisions of the workday was useful in helping mitigate the effect of higher wages, but initially not as important in controlling costs as accurate measurement of results, which entailed great emphasis on disciplined accounting, along with timely and regular reporting.