Preliminary Programme

Tue 13 April
    8.30
    10.45
    14.15
    16.30

Wed 14 April
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    10.45
    14.15
    16.30

Thu 15 April
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    10.45
    14.15
    16.30

Fri 16 April
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    10.45
    14.15
    16.30

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Tuesday 13 April 2010 14.15
E-3 ECO02 Interfaith commerce in Medieval and Early Modern Times III: Early Modern Europe and the Atlantic
Zaal L 4, muziekcentrum
Networks: Economics , World History Chair: Amélia Polónia
Organizers: Catia Antunes, Francesca Trivellato Discussant: Amélia Polónia
Catia Antunes : Atlantic Entrepreneurship: cross-cultural business networks, 1580-1776
The importance of the Atlantic Ocean in the development of Early Modern economies has been stressed in a growing number of studies since the 1960s. Some aspects of the contacts between different cultures and continents however, have enjoyed little attention. One of these is the individuals behind the Atlantic economic ... (Show more)
The importance of the Atlantic Ocean in the development of Early Modern economies has been stressed in a growing number of studies since the 1960s. Some aspects of the contacts between different cultures and continents however, have enjoyed little attention. One of these is the individuals behind the Atlantic economic system: merchants, businessmen and entrepreneurs.
The histories of families and business networks in the Atlantic have to be mainly classified as monographic and often focus on a specific economic activity, such as the trade in sugar, tobacco, slaves, or a specific religious congregation. We miss however, a comprehensive study on business networks in the Atlantic as a whole and their impact on the construction of the Atlantic system, on the one hand and on the rise of European colonial powers, on the other hand.
In order to fulfill this void in the current literature, we propose to study the business networks that contributed to the building of the Atlantic system at its different stages, as well as their impact in European economic primacy before the Industrial Revolution. Contrary to most of the studies on Early Modern business networks, we wish to engage in the analysis of cross-cultural business networks and not so much on business networks built on kinship, religious or professional affiliations. We will pay special attention to the partnerships established among Dutch merchants and Portuguese Jewish merchants operating from Amsterdam between 1580 and 1776.
In the last quarter of the seventeenth century, cross-cultural business partnerships set in the context of the Amsterdam market and once mainly dedicated to trade, gave up a significant part of their commercial activities. Many of the individuals that had been involved in the construction of the Atlantic trading networks gave up those activities by shifting their capital investments to the purchase of land in the Americas or by placing their investments in chartered commercial or insurance companies, banks or in titles of public debt, also commonly known as state bonds.
The shift from cross-cultural commercial capital into a more institutionalized international investment provoked a series of changes in the Atlantic system. These alterations interrupted a centuries-long tradition of direct cross-cultural, multi-ethnic and trans-imperial exchanges in the region, leaving the contacts between Europe, West Africa and the Americas under the sway of a growing centralized militaristic colonial state.
This paper will focus on the direct and indirect input of cross-cultural commercial and financial contacts in the Atlantic between 1580 and 1776 and their contribution for the creation of an Atlantic multi-cultural business environment. Most of the data we will use originates in the notarial archives of the city of Amsterdam, which will be methodologically sampled and used as numerical base for most of our considerations. The information of the notarial contracts, mostly of commercial and financial nature will be crossed with the information obtained at the archives of the Portuguese Inquisition, Court of Lisbon and on the bankruptcy files held by the Public Record Office in London. (Show less)

Juan Gelabert : Pecunia, Patria, Religio: Atlantic trade during the Dutch Revolt (1585-1609)
During a conversation between the Duke of Lerma and the English ambassador to Spain, Sir Charles Cornwallis, the seizure of some Englishmen in the Caribbean by Admiral Fajardo was brought up. Cornwallis protested against such an action and Lerma answered: “that Don Lewis shall be called to account for that ... (Show more)
During a conversation between the Duke of Lerma and the English ambassador to Spain, Sir Charles Cornwallis, the seizure of some Englishmen in the Caribbean by Admiral Fajardo was brought up. Cornwallis protested against such an action and Lerma answered: “that Don Lewis shall be called to account for that he did not instantly execute them, saying, that they were there taken with the Rebells the Hollanders; and marvell’d that his Majesty of England would suffer his Vessels […] to assist or accompany such his Master’s trayterous and evill affected Subjects”. The ambassador replied: “that what Merchants did in their Trades […] I thought Princes could hardly give Account. That well it might be the Fortune of those taken in the Indies to have been found in the Company of the Hollanders, or at least in place where they were: But that they either went or were there with any purpose to assist them, appeared well by what they were laden with: By the small nomber of Men they had in their Ships, and their yielding themselves without Resistance. I said, that the Words in the Articles, for Trade within all the Dominions of the King here before the Warrs, were very generall. That the Merchaunts having had Navigation and Commerce there before, and finding none especiall Prohibition for the Indies, either in the Articles, or any Edicte or Proclamation of either of the Kings, supposed it lawfull to trade thither. That were it taken at the worst, it could amount but to an offence of Ignorance not of Will, and their purpose not hostile, or in any sort prejudiciall to the King of Spaine”.
The discussion had been conducted in strictly political and diplomatic terms, with no reference to the religious creed of the victims. This essay intends to establish that, at the beginning of the XVII century, trade between Western European countries, and between some of the said nations and Muslim countries was of a "secular" nature, removing the religious factor from relationships between subjects of different countries both in economic and political transactions. By 1600 the ius gentium had matured sufficiently for Alberico Gentili to have written that “between a prince and the subject of another nation it is the practice that the civil law should not apply but rather the law of nations alone”.
No prohibition based on religious aspects appeared in the articles of the Truce of Antwerp (1609) or in the Peace of Vervins (1598), the exception being the Spanish-English Treaty of 1604. The economic and political environment of the Spanish-Dutch conflict between 1585 and 1609 served to prove that Pecunia, Patria and Religio, in this precise order, constituted the parameters governing trade relations between states. This conflict proves that relations between both countries and their allies were based on material rather than political interests, the English accusing the Republic of providing Spain with the necessary military supplies to wage war (1585-1603), and the Republic accusing the English for exact the same in 1604-1609. (Show less)

Silvia Marzagalli : Trade across religious boundaries in Early Modern France
Historians generally assume that coreligionists made up the essential part, if not the totality, of French merchant networks in early modern trade. They explain the strengths of these ties in different ways. Mistrust toward merchants of a different faith could get along with the difficulty of sanctioning opportunistic behaviors outside ... (Show more)
Historians generally assume that coreligionists made up the essential part, if not the totality, of French merchant networks in early modern trade. They explain the strengths of these ties in different ways. Mistrust toward merchants of a different faith could get along with the difficulty of sanctioning opportunistic behaviors outside one’s own confessional network, although the efficiency of social ostracism within the confessional group is more often postulated rather than demonstrated. Also, it has been suggested that the confessional nature of trade networks can be explained by looking at the way networks were built and expanded. As they integrated people who were recommended by a member of the existing network, the chances that this individual belonged to the same confessional group were high, given the importance of family and patronage relationships.
Recent research, however (Molho and Ramada Curto, 2003), has suggested that the capacity of establishing trade relations outside the existing networks was the key to success for large scale merchants, such as Sephardim Raba and Gradis families, or Huguenot merchants Bonnaffé and Nairac of 18th-century Bordeaux, who were able to take profit of French colonial trade which was theoretically opened to Catholic merchants only. Was this the product of the expansion of trade and the normalization of trade norms in the 18th-century, removing reluctances to inter-confessional trade, or is it possible to retrace the existence of this phenomena in early Modern France as well?
This paper aims to reassess the importance of trade between French merchants of different religious faith in early modern France, from the religious civil wars of the 16th century until the end of the 18th century. The analysis will rely on existing literature and case studies of the trade networks of individual merchants. It will examine how far trade with coreligionists prevailed and how this evolved over time. The paper focuses on the assessment of merchants’ capacity of coping with members of different religious groups in order to achieve trade and on their evaluation about the opportunity of doing so. (Show less)

Jeroen Puttevils : Commerce and Religion in Sixteenth-Century Antwerp
In her book Strangers Nowhere in the World: the Rise of Cosmopolitanism in Early Modern Europe, Margaret Jacob defines cosmopolitanism as “the ability to experience people of different nations, creeds and colours with pleasure, curiosity and interest, and not with suspicion, disdain, or simply a disinterest that could occasionally turn ... (Show more)
In her book Strangers Nowhere in the World: the Rise of Cosmopolitanism in Early Modern Europe, Margaret Jacob defines cosmopolitanism as “the ability to experience people of different nations, creeds and colours with pleasure, curiosity and interest, and not with suspicion, disdain, or simply a disinterest that could occasionally turn into loathing” (p. 1). In her search of the evolutionary dynamics of this attitude, she considers the degree of cosmopolitanism present in Antwerp during the sixteenth century. It has been argued that commerce automatically makes people more open and more accepting of strangers. Trading with strangers requires rules of civility which were, according to Jacob, not always present or strong enough in sixteenth-century Antwerp. A cosmopolite market needed the enforcement of strong local and central governments. Jacob suggests that in sixteenth-century Antwerp commerce in Antwerp did not automatically lead to cosmopolitism due to violence and chaos on the market spaces, and the workings of the religious troubles, the Inquisition and the conflict culminating in the Spanish authorities forcefully re-establishing their rule. Thus, Jacob opposes a large historiography on sixteenth-century Antwerp which often juxtaposes the city on the Scheldt with a cosmopolitan character. I tend to follow this historiography since tensions and conflicts within a city do not automatically rule out the possibility of a cosmopolitan character: tensions and harmony often go hand in hand and are subject to historical processes.
Sixteenth-century offers a very interesting case study for the research on commerce and religion: the city was simultaneously a hotspot of commerce and of religious change. Several heterodox merchant communities can be observed in the city: Portuguese New Christians, Jews, Calvinists, Lutherans, Catholics and even Ottoman subjects. Two lines of research will be merged in our investigation. Firstly, we want to analyze the policies of the central and local government regarding the various merchant communities in Antwerp. The local Antwerp government mostly took on a tolerant attitude towards heterodox merchants and actively tried to protect them, given their importance to the city’s economic position. Yet this tolerance did not extend to all religious dissidents; the city harshly prosecuted Anabaptists who, interestingly, did not recruit among the city’s merchants. The central Spanish government, however, often displayed an ambiguous attitude towards the merchants, since the central policies heavily depended on merchants financing them.
Secondly, as part of an ongoing research, I will analyze cooperation between various merchant communities, focusing for this paper on groups with different religious beliefs, by using the Antwerp Certificatieboeken as a source. The Antwerp aldermen provided an institution that was highly valued by international merchants: they issued certificates of various transactions on demand. The Antwerp aldermen thus provided a third party contracting institution given the fact that these certificates were considered as legal proof in court. Focusing on this institution, cooperation within communities and with outsiders can be studied in our selection of sample years throughout the sixteenth century. At this point, it is not entirely clear which groups of merchants will be in the paper, but I will try to include several heterodox merchant communities.
As already said above, cosmopolitanism implies both harmony and tensions. Merchants could cooperate, but opportunistic behavior was always another possibility. In this paper I will not go into a discussion of relations between individual merchants, the focus will be on tensions between various groups of merchants, for example under the form of violence. In some cases the privileges of one merchant community led to aggression against them committed by other merchant communities. Identities and perceptions of both individual members of a merchant community and the community as a collective need to be taken into account. The central issue in this investigation of identities and perceptions concerns religious differences. (Show less)



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