Commerce before Capitalism in Europe, 1300}}}1600 [Paperback]

Challenges dominant interpretations of the relationship between the so-called commercial revolution of late medieval Europe and the capitalist age that followed.In Commerce before Capitalism in Europe, 13001600, Martha C. Howell challenges dominant interpretations of the relationship between the so-called commercial revolution of late medieval Europe and the capitalist age that followed. Howell argues that the merchants, shopkeepers, artisans, and consumers in cities and courts throughout Western Europe were by no means proto-capitalist and did not treat their property as fungible assets. Although certain of their practices have thus seemed primitive to subsequent generations, they nevertheless helped make Europes economic future possible.In Commerce before Capitalism in Europe, 13001600, Martha C. Howell challenges dominant interpretations of the relationship between the so-called commercial revolution of late medieval Europe and the capitalist age that followed. Howell argues that the merchants, shopkeepers, artisans, and consumers in cities and courts throughout Western Europe were by no means proto-capitalist and did not treat their property as fungible assets. Although certain of their practices have thus seemed primitive to subsequent generations, they nevertheless helped make Europes economic future possible.In Commerce before Capitalism in Europe, 13001600, Martha C. Howell challenges dominant interpretations of the relationship between the so-called commercial revolution of late medieval Europe and the capitalist age that followed. Howell argues that the merchants, shopkeepers, artisans, and consumers in cities and courts throughout Western Europe, even in the densely urbanized Low Countries that are the main focus of this study, were by no means proto-capitalist and did not consider their property a fungible asset. Even though they freely bought and sold property using sophisticated financial techniques, they preserved its capacity to secure sociallsh