Oscar Gelderblom, Cities of Commerce. The Institutional Foundations of International Trade in the Low Countries, 1250 -1650

Oscar Gelderblom, Cities of Commerce. The Institutional Foundations of International Trade in the Low Countries, 1250 -1650 (Princeton nj: Princeton University Press, 2013, 312 pp., isbn 978 0 691 16820 3).</p

‘The greatest marketplace in the world’ : the role of Antwerp in the economic and financial network of the Habsburg Empire

The city of Antwerp played a crucial role in the history of the Habsburg Empire of Charles V as a distribution center of long-distance trade, where colonial products, such as sugar, spices and precious metals were exchanged against textiles and a broad variety of luxury commodities. At the same time it was of great importance as a financial center, where the emperor could find the necessary credit for its ambitious political plans. Antwerp had a long tradition as port city as well as a center of fairs, but it was at the onset of the sixteenth century, that it christallized as the meeting point of the leading commercial actors of the moment, the Portuguese, who had just discovered the maritime route to India, the Southern Germans, with the precious metals they imported from the Alps and Central Europe, the English with their cloth, together with Spaniards, Italians and many others. During its Golden Age, Antwerp became a thriving metropolis, of more than 100 000 inhabitants, thousands of merchants, both foreign and local, artisans, and numerous outstanding artists and intellectuals. The municipal government made great efforts to provide the city with an adequate infrastructure, both in terms of architecture, by building new city walls or port infrastructure, as well as in terms of commercial institutions. The splendor of Antwerp was such that many contemporaries spoke of it in utmost admiration. However the religious and political conflicts of the late sixteenth century brought its Golden Age to a sudden end, only few years after reaching its apogee. As a result of the Dutch Revolt, many merchants left Antwerp, the city lost almost half its population and its commerce declined. In the seventeenth- and eighteenth century, Antwerp remained a port city with a considerable commercial and financial activity, but it would in no way equal places such as Amsterdam and London

Die Welt 1250-1500: vormoderne Verflechtungen von Dschingis Khan bis Christoph Columbus

The period between 1250 and 1500 was decisive for modern world history. For the first time a worldwide commercial system arose, which included large parts of Asia, Africa and Europe. On the other the Mongol expansion and the Black Death affected large parts of the Old World. China started with a maritime expansion but later gave up this policy. In the world of Islam new major emires were created. This article gives a survey of the heterogeneous yet strongly interconnected world of the period which is known in Europe as the Late Middle Ages

Social dynamics in Atlantic ports XIVth - XXIst centuries : book of abstracts

B