Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t7czq Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-25T07:21:34.987Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Agenda for Early Modern Economic History

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 May 2010

Harry A. Miskimin
Harry A. Miskimin
Affiliation:
Yale University
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

It is graceless, perhaps, to begin by quarrelling with the program committee in my initial remarks, but I must plead that the assignment itself—to propose an agenda for early modern economic history—provides a mandate for such seemingly uncouth behavior. The controversial issue, of course, is the periodization of economic history into the traditional Middle Ages (pre-1500) and the Early Modern Period (post-1500). The division has never been sharp in political or intellectual history, but it is even less meaningful in economic history—there is no single, dramatic, economic event, no ninety-five theses, to establish a break—and the intellectual consequences of the division at 1500 have often been pernicious. When specialists of the early modern period assert nascent capitalism, medievalists point to thirteenth century Italy. When early modernists lay their claims to discovery and colonization, medievalists point first to the early eastern Mediterranean colonies of the Italian city-states and then to the Atlantic explorations of Spain and Portugal, begun in the fourteenth century. If rapid early modern economic growth is the issue, the medievalist will again cry foul and recall that growth was, at least in part, merely the inevitable recovery from the economic collapse of the later middle ages.

Type
Economic History: Retrospect and Prospect. Papers Presented at the Thirtieth Annual Meeting of the Economic History Association
Information
The Journal of Economic History , Volume 31 , Issue 1 , March 1971 , pp. 172 - 183
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 1971

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Rich, E. E. and Wilson, C. H., editors, The Cambridge Economic History of Europe, IV (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1967)Google Scholar. Mauro, F., Le XVIe siècle européen: aspects économique (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1970)Google Scholar. Heers, J., L'Occident aux xive et xve siècles: aspects économique et sociaux (Paris: Presses Universitaries de France, 1963).Google Scholar

2 Lopez, R. S., Miskimin, H. A., and Udovitch, A., “England to Egypt, 1300–1500: Long-term Trends and Long-distance Trade,” Studies in the Economic History of the Middle East, Cook, M. A., editor (London: Oxford University Press, 1970).Google Scholar

3 Oller, J. Nadal, “La Revoluciòn de los Precios Españoles en el Siglo XVI,” Hispania, XIX (1959), pp. 503–29.Google Scholar

4 Elliot, J. H., Imperial Spain, 1469–1716 (New York: New American Library, Inc., 1966).Google Scholar

5 Braudel, F. P., and Spooner, F. C., “Prices in Europe, 1450–1750,” Cambridge Economic History of Europe, IV, pp. 442–46.Google Scholar

6 Spooner, F. C., L'Economie mondiale et les frappes monétaires en France, 1493–1680 (Paris: A. Colin, 1956).Google Scholar

7 SirCraig, John, The Mint: A History of the London Mint from A.D. 287–1948 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1953)Google Scholar.

8 Godinho, V. M., Les Finances de l'état portugais des Indes Orientales au xvie et debut du xviie siècle (Paris, 1959)Google Scholar. Unpublished thesis cited in F. Mauro, Le XVIe siècle.

9 Hauser, H., editor, La Response de Jean Bodin à M. de Malestroit: 1568 (Paris: A. Colin, 1932).Google Scholar

10 Miskimin, H. A., Money, Prices, and Foreign Exchange in Fourteenth Century France (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1963).Google Scholar

11 Helleiner, K. F., “The Population of Europe from the Black Death to the Eve of the Vital Revolution,” Cambridge Economic History, IV, pp. 1–96.Google Scholar

12 I am aware of the lively debate concerning arbitrage in the later middle ages, but it is my view that the balance of commerce, including war, diplomacy, and ecclesiastical transfers was far more significant than monetary speculation.

13 Phelps-Brown, E. H. and Hopkins, S., “Seven Centuries of Building Wages,” Economica, 1955, pp. 195–206Google Scholar. Idem, “Seven Centuries of the Prices of Consumables Compared with Builders' Wage Rates,” Economica, 1956, pp. 296–314. Idem, “Wage Rates and Prices: Evidence for Population Pressure in the Sixteenth Century,” Economica, 1957, pp. 289–306.

14 Felix, D., “Profit Inflation and Industrial Growth: The Historic Record and Contemporary Analogies,” Quarterly Journal of Economics, 1956, pp. 441–63.Google Scholar

15 Brenner, Y. S., “The Inflation of Prices in Early Sixteenth Century England,” Economic History Review, 2nd ser, XIV, 1961, pp. 225–39CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Idem, “The Inflation of Prices in England, 1551–1650,” Economic History Review, 2nd ser., XV, 1962, pp. 266–84.

16 Miskimin, H. A., The Economy of Early Renaissance Europe, 1300–1460 (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall Inc., 1969).Google Scholar

17 Brenner, “The Inflation of Prices in Early Sixteenth Century England,” p. 239.

18 Brenner, “The Inflation of Prices in England, 1551–1650,” p. 273.

19 Böhm-Bawerk, E. V., The Positive Theory of Capital, (New York, 1923).Google Scholar

20 Hicks, J. R., “Mr. Keynes and the Classics: A Suggested Interpretation,” Econometrica, 1937, pp. 147–59.Google Scholar

For a general discussion of the entire theory see also: Hansen, A., Monetary Theory and Fiscal Policy (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1949).Google Scholar