Introduction

It is, in general terms, somewhat hazardous to speak of ‘economic policies’ in connection with the Middle Ages. This applies even more particularly in the Low Countries than it does elsewhere. Before the Burgundian period this part of Europe did not constitute a political entity, but was divided into a number of territorial principalities, feudally dependent some upon the Empire and some upon France. Their small extent and the limited range of the interests at work in each of them were hardly likely to move princes to take account of economic considerations in drawing up their political schemes. Doubtless we must differentiate somewhat between the various provinces. Flanders, certainly, was more thickly populated than its neighbours, its political structure was stronger, and its economic life (particularly its trade and industry) was more intensive. It also numbered amongst its rulers some remarkable princes, and most notably Philip of Alsace, who were distinguished amongst their contemporaries for the lead they gave in this department of statecraft. For these reasons, examples drawn from the history of Flanders must inevitably bulk large in what follows.

At the same time it is important to note that, in some respects, the very fact that regions like Brabant or Holland developed economically much later than Flanders gave rise in itself to economic policies in these two principalities for which no equivalent is to be found in Flanders. Their rulers endeavoured, by positive intervention, to stimulate the growth of forms of commerce and industry of which they had been able to observe the beneficial effects in Flanders, though there they had arisen through the free play of economic forces.