Early Modern Period

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Erik Lindberg - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.

  • Merchant Guilds in Hamburg and Königsberg: a comparative study of urban institutions and economic development in the Early-Modern Period.
    The Journal of European economic history, 2010
    Co-Authors: Erik Lindberg
    Abstract:

    Merchant guilds in Hamburg and Konigsberg : a comparative study of urban institutions and economic development in the Early Modern Period

  • Club goods and inefficient institutions: why Danzig and Lübeck failed in the Early Modern Period
    The Economic History Review, 2009
    Co-Authors: Erik Lindberg
    Abstract:

    This article uses club theory to explain why two major medieval commercial centres declined in the Early Modern Period. Luibeck and Danzig illuminate the difficulties experienced by old-style European towns where Early Modern guilds (and other privileged 'corporations') had a lot of political influence in making the transition to the new style of north-west European cities such as Amsterdam and Hamburg. The article refutes theories proposing that the special privileges awarded to a merchant elite enhanced economic growth; instead, it is argued that those privileges gave rise to 'club goods' that were beneficial only to a small number of merchants and were provided at the expense of society at large, resulting in economic decline. iibeck and Danzig (present-day Gdansk), two major late medieval trading centres in northern Europe, became increasingly marginalized in the Euro pean trading network that evolved in the Early Modern Period. Why did Luibeck, the former leader of the mighty Hansa, sink into insignificance in the Early Modern Period? And why did Danzig, the dominating grain entrepot of the Baltic, decline in importance as a trading centre such that its population decreased by half between the zenith of the grain trade around 1650 and the Prussian conquest in 1793? The stagnation in the urban populations of Liubeck and Danzig is quite remarkable, comparatively speaking. According to data presented by Bairoch, between 1500 and 1700, the populations of more than half of the 52 major European ports doubled in size, whereas stagnation or decline occurred in only 17 per cent. The latter were mostly located in Mediterranean cities, where unfavour able general economic developments took their toll on urbanization.' The great expansion in economic activity after 1500 instead benefited cities adjacent to the Atlantic in north-western Europe.2 The increasingly marginal positions of Luibeck and Danzig in the European urban network can, on the one hand, readily be ex plained by external factors, particularly geographical ones, in that these cities were marginalized when the new urban network became centred along the Amsterdam London axis. There is, on the other hand, an element of circular reasoning in this explanation. The decline of Liubeck and Danzig, while inherent to the development of a new urban hierarchy of commercial cities in which the two cities played an increasingly marginal role, was not simply caused by external forces acting to retard Hanseatic commercial growth. Rather, an endogenous explanation can be proposed, one that takes into account how the political institutions in Liubeck and Danzig governed trade and how, as a result of their governance, the

  • Urban growth and stagnation in the European north in the Early Modern Period: how urban constitutions matter
    2008
    Co-Authors: Erik Lindberg
    Abstract:

    Urban growth and stagnation in the European north in the Early Modern Period: how urban constitutions matter

J.l. Van Zanden - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.

  • Tracing the beginning of the Kuznets curve: western Europe during the Early Modern Period
    The Economic History Review, 1995
    Co-Authors: J.l. Van Zanden
    Abstract:

    In some respects comparative research into the inequality of income and wealth in western Europe during the Early Modern Period is virgin territory. There are a large number of studies on the assessment lists of several kinds of taxes on (components of) wealth, such as land, merchant capital, and houses, that give an impression of the degree of inequality in this Period.' But the analysis is virtually always confined to the construction of a benchmark estimate of the inequality of wealth or of the social structure in a specific region or city. Only a few studies attempt to present a longterm view on the development of inequality based upon a comparison of data from a number of towns and villages. Nevertheless, they have not ventured beyond the observation that the late medieval sources show a large measure of inequality and that this pattern persisted in the cities of the Early Modern Period.2 Research into the inequality in Early Modern western Europe is in need of a theoretical framework that allows for a consistent interpretation of the results of the various case studies. The historiography of the development of income inequality in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries has gained a measure of conceptual unity by means of the Kuznets curve, a hypothesis dating from I955.3 During the first phase of 'Modern economic growth' Kuznets found an increase in income inequality. After i900 or I920 this trend ended and a process of continuous levelling of incomes began, which persevered until the 1970S as can presently be established. On the strength of these findings Kuznets argued that the relation between Modern economic growth and the inequality of income displayed an inverse U-shaped curve. During the I970S this hypothesis was revived by the work of Lindert and Williamson on inequality in the United States and Great Britain.4 Despite their research, the 'upswing' of inequality in Great Britain in the first half of the nineteenth century remains controversial. In a scathing review Feinstein has sharply criticized Williamson's conclusions.5 In a recent survey

Michèle Hayeur Smith - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.

  • “Some in Rags and Some in Jags and Some in Silken Gowns”: Textiles from Iceland’s Early Modern Period
    International Journal of Historical Archaeology, 2012
    Co-Authors: Michèle Hayeur Smith
    Abstract:

    The Danish trade monopoly of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries resulted in the implementation of strict regulations and controls on textile production, the introduction of weaving workshops equipped with new horizontal looms, and a deliberate attempt to phase out the production of homespun cloth on the warp-weighted loom. What was the fate of homespun cloth in this era of introduced industrialization in Iceland? Archaeological textile collections from Iceland’s Early Modern Period are abundant though understudied. This paper reports current research on these collections and suggests that homespun cloth did not die out in the late medieval Period, but that it continued into the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, declining slowly thereafter. Moreover, homespun cloth of the Early Modern Period evolved into something that was structurally different than its earlier medieval version, possibly in response to increased climatic fluctuations during the Little Ice Age.

  • "Some in Rags and Some in Jags and Some in Silken Gowns": Textiles from Iceland's Early Modern Period
    International Journal of Historical Archaeology, 2012
    Co-Authors: Michèle Hayeur Smith
    Abstract:

    The Danish trade monopoly of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries resulted in the implementation of strict regulations and controls on textile production, the introduction of weaving workshops equipped with new horizontal looms, and a deliberate attempt to phase out the production of homespun cloth on the warp- weighted loom. What was the fate of homespun cloth in this era of introduced industrialization in Iceland? Archaeological textile collections from Iceland's Early Modern Period are abundant though understudied. This paper reports current research on these collections and suggests that homespun cloth did not die out in the late medieval Period, but that it continued into the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, declining slowly thereafter. Moreover, homespun cloth of the Early Modern Period evolved into something that was structurally different than its earlier medieval version, possibly in response to increased climatic fluctuations during the Little Ice Age.

Jacqueline Sonia Broad - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.

Alpay Filiztekin - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.

  • Wealth and inequality in Ottoman lands in the Early Modern Period
    2014
    Co-Authors: Hülya Canbakal, Alpay Filiztekin
    Abstract:

    The impact of growth on the distribution of wealth and income in the Early Modern Period is known to be diverse but has not been comprehensively charted for different parts of the world. While differences between Eastern Asia and Western Europe appear pronounced, little is known about patterns of inequality in lands lying in between. Our paper reports some of the preliminary results of a project that aims to locate the Ottoman Empire in the Early Modern map of inequality. Using probate inventories from four of the project cities in Anatolia, we examine patterns of accumulation and distribution of wealth from 1500 to 1840, with an emphasis on 1700-1840. We find a positive relationship between growth and inequality and a net increase in inequality in the long run in all but one of the cities under study. Similar to what has been observed in Western Europe, we also see an upswing in inequality everywhere from late 17th-century onwards and a milder one in 16thcentury Bursa, the only city where we have a continuous series. The terminus of our study does not allow us to trace the impact of industrialization on this long-term trend. However, medium-term fluctuations in wealth and inequality are identifiable and appear to parallel secular waves of demographic change, urbanization and commercialization.

  • Wealth and inequality in Ottoman central lands in the Early Modern Period
    2014
    Co-Authors: Hülya Canbakal, Alpay Filiztekin
    Abstract:

    The impact of growth on the distribution of wealth and income in the Early Modern Period has not been comprehensively charted for different parts of the world. While differences between Eastern Asia and Western Europe or South and North America appear pronounced, little is known about patterns of inequality in central lands of Eurasia. This article reports some of the preliminary results of a project that aims to locate the Ottoman Empire in the Early Modern map of inequality. Using probate inventories from six cities in Anatolia and one in Macedonia, we examine patterns of accumulation and distribution of wealth from 1500 to 1840, with an emphasis on 1700-1840. We observe major increases in mean wealth from the sixteenth century until the middle of the eighteenth century after which time most cities suffer a drastic downturn. Distance to ports and the degree of integration into European trade stand out as the most significant factors to be tested for their correlation with wealth swings. We also find a positive relation between wealth and inequality and a net increase in inequality in the long run in all but two of the cities under study. While this trend overlaps with long-term institutional change, medium-term fluctuations in wealth and inequality, too, are identifiable and appear to parallel secular waves of demographic change, urbanization and commercialization.

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