Renaissance Trade
The development of agriculture also caused a commercial explosion. The man of a certain community has not consumed all it produced.The production surplus began to be exchanged for the surplus of other communities.
During the Middle Ages , in addition to castles (house of lords), had the boroughs or cities (the clergy housing and local religious administration). In these boroughs, such as the castles, the economic base was agriculture.
Initially, the exchanges were carried out only within fiefdoms. However, local trade grew to the point that has to be done by the traders of the cities (which were reappearing) of Western Europe.
The movement of goods soared. In Flanders, the fabric; France, the wine; England, wheat and Iberia olive oil and fruit.
Trade the local principle, it has become regional and then evolved into a trade over great distances: land, river, sea and ocean.
The development of trade, however, caused great changes in the lives of boroughs. There, traders bought the mixed population and sold their goods.
However, with time, the old Burgos become small to accommodate the entire population.Thus, to solve the problem of lack of dwellings were built new boroughs. While the old boroughs the population was dedicated mainly to agriculture and handicrafts in the new, main economic activity was trade.
The expansion of trade in the new burgos caused equal expansion in the "industry" field.Rural artisans (shoemakers, potters, tailors, bakers, weavers, etc.), which until then sold their products in the field, began to sell them to dealers of new boroughs.
Using the raw material brought by traders, craftsmen manufactured products were sold in other boroughs around the Western Europe and even in other commercial centers in the world. The rural industry (crafts) was transformed into an urban industry.
Living in cities, merchants and artisans (craftsmen), to protect themselves, they created associations. The merchants created the Gildas and the craftsmen, the Corporations.
In areas of intense trade, as Lombardy (Italy), France and Flanders, these associations have created the communes (cities), whose governments were dominated by merchants and craftsmen.
In the Middle Ages the burghers were first of all free men (ie, were not serfs), who lived in the cities and dedicated primarily to trade. The capital they owned was reduced. They had only small businesses.
Over the years, the development of trade bourgeois began to enrich. They sold goods made money, bought more goods sold and earned even more money.
Buy cheap and sell car to profit. With this profit buying more merchandise still there and profit increased. The way to the Burges think the economy was totally different from the way the feudal lord think. The richness of the Feudal Lord was the land, which served to give you prestige (he had the title of noble) and so he could collect taxes feudal serfs. The wealth of Burges was the capital, a wealth that he invested to achieve profits in order to further increase its capital.
Another way the bourgeoisie was increasing its capital through banking. The bourgeois lent money at interest. That is, the debtor had to return to the banker an amount greater than what was borrowed.
Interest amount to a kind of rent money. The bankers accumulate capital through the payment of interest.
Some traders became successful bankers.They might build great fortunes to time. It should be noted that the highlight was getting the money. The land was no longer the only important wealth.
The crucial difference between Noble and Bourgeois this in the capital accumulation process. Noble was rich because he had many lands and Burges was rich because he had accumulated a lot of capital. Noble was rich because he had many lands and Burges was rich because he had accumulated capital.
The money was entering the life of everyone.The servant was already thinking about creating a pig to sell in the city and be able to buy a barrel of wine. The barons and earls already did not receive the tributes of the serfs in oat bags or pots with honey. Now they demanded that the taxes were paid in cash so they could buy the traders offered.
Many cities had grown within the fiefdoms and had to pay them feudal taxes. Some of them have spent years and years fighting for autonomy. When succeeded, they had its own, self-government, and were called communes.Not depended on the feudal lord. bankers accumulate capital through the payment of interest.
The Arabs invaded (eighth century) the Iberian Peninsula and became the new owners ofMarch Mediterranean, stopping the big trade between the West and the East.
But the Arab conquest not fully stopped that trade, which continued to be made by Constantinople traders across the plains and rivers that connect the Black Sea to Western Europe.
This trade, via Constantinople, was dominated, between centuries VIII and XI, by the Normans traders (Swedish, Norwegian and Danish), disappearing at the time that the European West became essentially rural.
However, during and after the Crusades (military expedition of economic, political and religious during the Middle Ages subject that will be treated in the sequence of classes) the old trade routes resurfaced both the Mediterranean as the Constantinople that was connected to the Baltic . The first, dominated by Italian merchants, and the second, by the Flemish and German.
Trade, via the Mediterranean, made by Italians, gave birth and gave life to many cities: Venice, Naples, Florence, Pisa, Genoa (Italy); Marseille (France); Barcelona (Spain) and Lisbon and Porto in Portugal.
Trade also had a great development between Flemings, who called the region of the Rhine to the English Channel, the North Sea and the Baltic.
Another major commercial focus has developed between the German traders who, little by little, have infiltrated the North Sea and Baltic trade.
To defend its commercial interests, the Germans created the Hansa Germany, with headquarters in London and, later, the Hanseatic League, based in Lubeck (Germany).
The Hansas (leagues or associations) spread their Baltic traders the Atlantic and Russia, selling and buying goods.
It also created an intense trade between East and West, through the Arabs, Italians and Flemings, via the Mediterranean Sea and the Alps. This trade has developed many Italian cities such as Venice, Milan, Naples, Pisa and Genoa, among others, and cities of Europe (Paris, Ypres, Ghent and Bruges).
In these cities, born two types of workers: the small craftsman, with the ongoing work in corporations, and the temporary worker, often without craft, wandering from town to town, from job to job. The modern world was born.
Text written by Professor Patricia Barboza da Silva licensed by the Foundation Federal University of Rio Grande - FURG.
Bibliographic references
FRANCO Jr, Hilary. Middle Ages. Western birth.São Paulo, Brasiliense, 1998.
FERREIRA, José Roberto Martins, History. Sao Paulo: FTD; 1997.
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Category: General history
