Preliminary Programme

The twelfth century is generally considered as a period of economic growth and trade intensification in Europe. Due to source bias, many historians have unfortunately attributed a rather peripheral role to Northwestern Europe in this narrative of the Commercial (R)evolution. For this reason, research on the exact chronology and character of this commercial development in fast developing regions such as coastal Flanders have been disregarded. The exceptional early presence of sources on toll collection, more specifically toll tariffs, in this region, can help us to gain insight in this matter. Regarding coastal Flanders, five tariffs prior to 1200 have been preserved: Arras (1036), Nieuwpoort (1163), Letterswerve (1160s), Saint-Omer (two tariffs, one from 1167 and one from the end of the twelfth century). However, twelfth-century tariffs are not as straightforward as one would assume, containing many methodological pitfalls. It is therefore pertinent to expound the possibilities and foremost the obstacles of these sources. By means of a comparative analysis of these five tariffs, this paper will expose these source-specific characteristics, providing new insights on how these can be deployed to study economic development in Flanders during the Central Middle Ages. (Show less)

This paper assesses the various means by which regulators and transacting parties within local medieval markets sought to overcome the problems of asymmetric information. The fundamental issue, that one party to a commercial transaction possessed greater market knowledge than the other, was seemingly well known within medieval thought. For example, Thomas Aquinas notably reassessed Cicero’s dilemma whether a grain merchant should disclose their knowledge of incoming supplies at a time of scarcity. More broadly, medieval moralists expressed concern that sellers might take advantage of ignorant buyers in what was known as ‘lyther bargaining’. Public spot markets in themselves were, of course, a means to aggregate information for transacting parties. However, the need for commercial confidence required market officials to promote information symmetry, or a simulacrum of it, in a range of other ways.

The corollary was that many skilled trades, particularly those allied through a guild, saw asymmetrical information as potentially desirable and thus protected their specialised knowledge from outsiders. However, there was equally recognition that certain types of information asymmetry (eg. regarding quality, credit) had the potential to disrupt guild business, akin to Akerlof’s ‘lemons’ model that leads to adverse selection and even market failure (Akerlof 1970).

Such issues concerning the flow of medieval market information have been previously discussed in relation to impersonal exchange/credit in international markets (eg. Greif 1993, 2006), the grain trade (Kowaleski 1996, Davis 2018) and brokerage (Reyerson 2002, Boerner 2016). However, other formal and informal efforts to manage information flow within local medieval markets have received less attention, despite an understanding that these could lower concomitant search and bargaining costs.

This paper provides a preliminary assessment of what we know about the mechanisms of information flow within and between medieval English markets, drawing upon civic ordinances, guild regulations and associated cases. It demonstrates that contemporaries had a clear sense of the value of market and price-making information, sometimes preventing its dissemination beyond the town or guild, stipulating oaths of secrecy, or punishing collusion with outsiders. There were undoubtedly strong vested interests within medieval markets and towns. For example, there has been a tendency among scholars to assert that guild monopoly reinforced information asymmetry (Munro 1990, Richardson 2004, Ogilvie 2004, 2008, 2011). Yet, guild regulations also show that their members understood the importance of quality warranty in order to maintain premium prices (cf. Akerlof 1970). More broadly, there were formal efforts to increase the spread of information upon certain commodities (especially foodstuffs) in relation to price, weights and measures, quality standards and creditworthiness, both within and beyond the marketplace. Such dissemination was achieved through public ordinances, messengers, criers, pledging and brokerage, but also through public ritual and informal networks. Arguably, the ability to manage information flows effectively, despite the constraints of vested interests and limited enforcement options, was fundamental to the success of a medieval market. (Show less)

At the origins of the strong economic growth of Flanders and some of its neighbouring regions during the central Middle Ages was a decisive rise in agricultural productivity, without which the high degree of urbanization that came about in the Low Countries would not have been possible. Other crucial elements for this remarkable urban growth, when compared to most other parts of Northwestern-Europe included the development of international commerce as well as the expansion of an export-oriented cloth industry at the core of the Flemish economic miracle. But the role of strong princes like a number of Counts of Flanders or Bishops of Liège was also important. Many scholars have discussed urban development in this region so it might seem that everything has been said. However, the exact mechanism of this exceptional growth is still unclear. Reframing and combining some of the theories of my predecessors I propose a model to describe and explain this ‘political economy of the urban phenomenon’, more specifically, in the portus or vicus types of towns which developed in the Southern Low Countries between the tenth and the twelfth centuries. (Show less)

The paper intends to analyze the spatial distribution of the Ragusan (Dubrovnik') urban elite from the mid-14th until the end of 15th century with regard towards two main social groups – the Ragusan nobility and the group of the emerging wealthy commoners engaged in Ragusan commerce. The central question would be to assess how various features of political and economic power, influence, and mobility of these two groups were mirrored in urban space. We would like to address the question whether fixed boundaries between these two social strata could be found or were the social barriers somewhat more fluid in the Ragusan urban environment. The paper will also apply the combination of prosopography and methods of social topography. (Show less)