Essential Background to the Italian Renaissance: The Commercial Revolution of the Middle Ages 1000-1300

1. Essential Background to the Italian Renaissance: The Commercial Revolution of the Middle Ages 1000-1300 Petrus Christus, A flemish goldsmith in his shop 1449

2. I. POPULATION GROWTH As the year 1003 approached, people all over the world, but especially in Italy and France began to rebuild their churches. […] Christian nations were rivalling each other to have the most beautiful edifices. One might say the world was shaking herself, throwing off her old garments, and robing herself with a white mantle of churches. -- Raoul Glaber, 11th-century chronicler

3. England in 1086: 1.1 million  In 1346: 3.7 million On the continent the population probably doubled in the period 1000-1350. Population peak circa 1250. Plague and war caused a drastic reduction in the population in the mid-fourteenth century. The population of Europe would not reach the level of 1250 again until the sixteenth century.

4. II. The Agricultural Revolution, 900-1100 1000: Most of Europe covered with old-growth forests. 1300: Most arable land stripped of trees and under cultivation. Planned villages were established by feudal lords – with incentives given to peasants to resettle.

5. The Basis of Increased Production, Land Clearance and Population Growth: New Tools and New Techniques 1. The Three-field system of crop rotation; introduction of legumes (beans). 2. The iron tipped heavy plow. 3. The horse collar and tandem harness; draft horses. 4. Wind mills and water mills. These innovations reversed a downward cycle of low population, low production, high mortality in effect since the third century.

6. Surplus population and surplus agricultural production create ideal conditions for the emergence of markets and a money economy. Peasants began to sell surplus grain and other produce in towns and market centers. Feudal landholders began to reorganize land use for the sake of greater profits. Typical example: Converting fields into sheep runs. In the 11th and 12th centuries, regions began to specialize in certain crops, e.g. grapes for wine production and export.

7. The New Money Economy and the Decline of Serfdom Crops sold for prices promoted the commutation of traditional peasant labor services into simple money payments. Serfdom declined and was practically obsolete in western Europe by 1250. Peasants owed fewer and personal services; they became increasingly simply tenants and wage laborers. The European population became highly mobile after 1000, as the “portable wealth” that was money supplanted the immovable wealth that was control of the land.

8. Growing population, agricultural production, and the circulation of money stimulate a dramatic explosion of distance trade. This explosion of trade brought with the multiplication and expansion of towns and cities throughout Europe… …and the concentration of peoples in towns and cities caused a rise and development of industry (especially the production of woolen, silk, and linen textiles). Exploding distance trade + rapid urbanization + industrial rise = The Commercial Revolution

9. Two major zones of later medieval distance commerce: • Centered on the North Sea. • 2) Centered on the Mediterranean. What was traded by the thirteenth century: Luxury items: spices, porcelains, silks from Asia and Islam. Raw materials: wool and dye plants from Britain; wood and furs from Scandinavia and Russia. Manufactured goods: Woolen cloth from Flanders and N. Italy; Venetian glass and jewelry; arms from S. Germany.

10. New Business Techniques In the 11th and 12th centuries, merchants generally traveled with their goods and bargained directly with buyers and sellers. FAIRS (such as those supervised by the counts of Champagne) were established for itinerant merchants to conduct business. ITALIAN MERCHANTS brought innovations in business: -- correspondence -- bookkeeping (learned from the Arabs) -- insurance -- letters of credit -- banking -- new forms of business contract which offered investors limited liability Italian innovations freed merchants from having to travel with their goods. Transportation and distribution could be delegated to employees. Cities replaced fairs as centers of trade negotiation and financial services.

11. Urban Decline: The Case of Rome Pop. In 100 C.E., the height of the Empire: One million. In c. 450 with Germanic invasion and political collapse: less than 500,000. In c. 550, in the time of the Gothic Wars: 50,000. In the 1200s: 35, 000. In the 1300s: 20,000.

12. URBAN REVIVAL Germanic invasions of 300-600 C.E. destroyed many Roman towns and drastically reduced the populations of others. In the early Middle Ages, large portions of Europe had never known urban life. The Commercial Revolution swelled the size of surviving urban centers, and dotted the landscape of Western Europe with new towns. Italy was the most urbanized part of Europe in late Middle Ages and Renaissance, boasting the largest cities. Pop. 50,000+: Milan, Genoa, Venice, Naples, Florence, Palermo. By 1300, Florence numbered ~100,000 people. In Flanders (mod. Belgium) only Ghent had 50,000+. Most medieval towns had only a few thousand inhabitants.

13. European Urban Populations c. 1350

14. TOWN FORMATION In general, occurred in three ways: 1. In the surviving shells of Roman centers. 2. A merchant community developed around a bishop’s household. Bishops claimed governmental authority over numerous towns, esp. in Italy. Their households were often the vestige of a Roman urban center. 3. A merchant settlement gathers around a fortified castle in the countryside.

15. burgus – the medieval Latin term for a fortified place Fr. bourg -- Germ. burg – Eng. borough – Ital. borgo “town dwellers” = bourgeois (Fr.) or burghers (Germ.) “In… [the] fragile merchant settlements [that formed within the protective walls extending from fortified houses] began the career of the European bougeoisie– a class of enterprising merchants, bankers, and long-distance traders.” – historian M. King