THE EVOLUTION OF THE POLISH–LITHUANIAN ECONOMY

UNTIL the late thirteenth century Poland and Lithuania were on the periphery of Europe and their larger economic significance was marginal. From the late fourteenth to the early seventeenth centuries there was a period of economic expansion, linked with the flourishing of the Polish grain trade. A period of economic decline with some interruptions began in the early seventeenth century and continued into the early eighteenth century, when a gradual recovery began.

In the years before 1300 Europe was only gradually recovering from the economic collapse caused by the barbarian invasions, the fall of the western Roman empire, and the conquest of the southern Mediterranean by the Arabs. At this time there were three main trading routes in northern Europe, one down the Dnieper from Scandinavia to the Mediterranean, one overland from the Atlantic through Germany and the Czech lands to the lands further east, and one connecting these two routes and going on to Moorish Spain. Although its volume was quite small, a variety of goods were involved in this trade: slaves from the Slavonic and Baltic lands, fur from Russia, salt from Pomerania, foodstuffs from Pomerania, Mecklenburg, and Holstein, and Frisian and Flemish cloth. Poland participated only minimally in this trade. Until the Tatar conquest the Khazar kingdom and the Grand Duchy of Kiev were much more important.

From the late thirteenth century a new period in Polish and Lithuanian economic history began. The catastrophic outcome of the Fourth Crusade, with its conquest and sack of Constantinople in 1204, signalled the decline of the Byzantine empire, and was followed by the Mongol invasion, which led to the disappearance of Kievan Rus.