Markets and their Actors in the Late Middle Ages 9783110643756, 9783110642216

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Markets and their Actors in the Late Middle Ages

Markets and their Actors in the Late Middle Ages

Edited by Tanja Skambraks, Julia Bruch, and Ulla Kypta

The publication of this book has been generously supported by the Association of the Working Group for Late Medieval Economic History, Cologne, and Mr. Andreas Lesser, Munich.

ISBN 978-3-11-064221-6 e-ISBN (PDF) 978-3-11-064375-6 e-ISBN (EPUB) 978-3-11-064242-1 Library of Congress Control Number: 2020944406 Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available on the internet at http://dnb.dnb.de. © 2021 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston Cover: HX5R8F / Art Collection 3 / Alamy Stock Foto (illustration); tomograf / E+ / getty images (backround) Printing and binding: CPI books GmbH, Leck www.degruyter.com

Table of Contents Tanja Skambraks, Julia Bruch, Ulla Kypta Introduction 1 Ulla Kypta How to Study the Premodern Market: The Concept of Market Exchange

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Franziska Quaas Towards a Different Type of Market Exchange in the Early Middle Ages: The Sacrum Commercium and its Agents 27 Franziska Neumann Imagined Investors: Markets, Agents, and the Saxon Mining 71 Administration Eva Brugger The “destroyers of trade”, “our good and dear Inhabitants”, and “all persons of what quality or nation however they may be”: Early Modern Colonial 101 Market Culture Maria Aleksandrova Markets and their Agents in History: Some Theoretical Reflections List of authors

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Index of names

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Index of places

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Tanja Skambraks, Julia Bruch, Ulla Kypta

Introduction

Markets are a ubiquitous topic in premodern economic history. Studies on the premodern market offer an interesting field for discussing the challenges as well as the fascinations of doing premodern economic history: this is one of those areas where premodern and modern concepts and perceptions at first glance contradict each other, but on a second and closer glance each helps to understand the other. At its annual conference in Basle in June 2018, the “Arbeitskreis für spätmittelalterliche Wirtschaftsgeschichte” [Research Group on Late Medieval Economic History] (http://www.wirtschaftsgeschichte.org) came together to discuss how the market was perceived in different times and places during the Middle Ages and early modern period. In a distinctly cultural-historical approach, we focused on the agents who were active regarding the market and studied their ways of using and perceiving, regulating, and dealing with the market. Our aim was to grasp how premodern contemporaries conceptualized the market, how they understood market exchange. This perspective yielded some interesting results: the market as an abstract concept was not just developed in modern times. The difference between premodern and modern understandings of the market lies not so much in the degree of abstraction, but rather in the fact that for premodern contemporaries, two issues were of major importance, namely: who was allowed to take part in the market, and how was the market to be organized? This small volume does not include all the papers that were given at the conference in Basle. Most of the speakers presented work in progress that was not yet ready to be published. But since the results of our discussions seem to us to be of some importance for further research on the premodern market – a very lively field of research in economic history today – we decided to publish a small selection of papers that present evidence for our overall hypothesis, which we introduce in this chapter. These are of course only first instances, first impressions gained by an agent-based focus on the sources. The hypothesis can by no means be regarded as verified by the examples presented in the articles; rather, they justify that the hypothesis is being proposed at all. The final chapter offers some reflections on how the market can and should be studied in further research. We hope that it will be discussed further, and that this volume can perhaps make a small contribution to the ongoing debate on the market today and its history in premodern times. In her opening theoretical chapter, Ulla Kypta examines the concept of the market and the integration of agents in markets, exploring similarities and differhttps://doi.org/10.1515/9783110643756-001

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ences between premodern and modern forms. She also points out possible misunderstandings. Kypta asks the fundamental question: what is a market? It has proved effective to split the concept of a market into two semantic components: (a) the marketplace, as a physical place of time-limited trading or market activity, and (b) more abstractly, closer to our ideas today, an exchange mechanism. Nevertheless, it would be wrong to treat the modern market as an exchange mechanism and to see the premodern market exclusively as a marketplace. In this volume, for example, we tackle three different perspectives on the market. Franziska Quaas examines the concept of the market in early medieval theological texts using a semantic approach, Franziska Neumann studies the market as a “complex arena of social interaction”, and Eva Brugger examines a specific marketplace. In her paper, Kypta also asks questions about what could be traded, whether the market was regulated, and what had to be regulated in order for the market to run smoothly. She shows by way of example that in theoretical thinking about the market in premodern times, the focus of the debates was on just prices, just trade, and dealing with the question of usury. And these debates evoke what can be seen in Neumann’s article: that the market was conceived in the sense not only of a marketplace but also of an abstract exchange mechanism. It must also be remembered that in the premodern economy, using the market was only one of several options for the exchange of goods and services; in addition, gift exchange and payment of manorial dues, as well as the exchange of information, played a decisive role. Kypta introduces several market agents: in addition to typical buyers and sellers, there were regulatory authorities and (cooperative) organized communities. It is important to note that the same rules did not apply to all market participants, for example the temporary exclusion of foreign traders or a compulsory staple (Stapelzwang). Quaas investigates the understanding of the market and markets among early medieval authors – a field of interest hitherto mostly neglected. Her hypothesis is that research – in order to avoid anachronistic meanings – can best capture the early medieval market through the contemporary understanding of the market and market events. She applies a semantic analysis and examines Latin texts that enjoyed great popularity and influence on the theoretical thinking of learned people (especially monks) in the early Middle Ages, such as those by the Church Fathers, Isidore of Seville, Hincmar of Reims, Theodulf of Orleans, and others. By analysing the semantic environment of the word “market” in these texts, she can show that “market” is connoted as a marketplace with negative characteristics. Hence, a good Christian should avoid this noisy environ-

Introduction

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ment of idle talk, vices, and sins. This interpretation of the market was drawn from late antiquity and applied not only to the marketplace but also to trade, i. e. to the market as a medium of exchange and to traders as its actors. The fact that the Carolingian capitularies contain numerous rules for the participation of clerics in the market shows that these writings were not just theoretical. The semantic analysis also shows that the word “market” plays a role in the word field of the opposition of heaven and earth. Commercium is understood not only as an exchange of goods but also as an exchange between the divine and the terrestrial spheres. Christian theologians used the vocabulary and the understanding of market in the sense of barter and exchange here, and this understanding in turn had an impact on the medieval understanding of market and exchange. Quaas’s essay shows how profitable it is to distinguish between market as marketplace and market as exchange mechanism, and to examine the historical understanding of both and the interactions between them. It should not be forgotten that the medieval understanding of the market was deeply influenced by Christianity. Quaas shows that in late antique and early medieval writings, a mercantile language was already used to describe complex theological developments. This use intensified throughout the high and later Middle Ages, where it became connected with the Commercial Revolution. Thus, a connection between mercantile semantic and socio-economic developments since the eleventh century can no longer be assumed. Neumann analyses the early modern mining industry in the Saxon ore regions and its agents. She shows how the concept of the market as an exchange mechanism can be applied to the early modern mining economy in Saxony. This industry needed enormous capital contributions for the exploitation of new ore veins and innovation in mining. Neumann understands the mining bureaucracy as a hybrid administration. This administration combined a more traditional territorial administration (based on the regal right to exploit metal deposits) in the economic sector with a shareholder system involving foreign capital and investors. For Neumann, this hybrid administration was a formal organization determined by categories of membership, hierarchies, safety, and rationality. The organization of mining was no longer related to the Saxon princes and to one person, but is to be understood as a bureaucracy. Its written remains such as ordinances and accounts should be interpreted as displays in the Luhmannian sense. This administrative writing was mainly produced to ensure that (supra-regional) investors also invested in shares – Kuxe. For these investors, who could not be constantly present to monitor the development of their investments, conditions had to be created, according to Neumann’s hypothesis, that engendered confidence in the success of this mining venture. Neumann works with the con-

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cept of trust, a concept that expands our understanding of the organization of early modern mining in Saxony and its system of Kuxe as well as the logic of the written sources of this bureaucracy. Through this concept of the market, complex industries of early modern times, their inner logic and their actions, can be grasped and explained. Thus, Neumann’s study can serve as an example of the implications of an economic concept for premodern constructs. The expansion of the circle of actors on the premodern market proved to be particularly successful. Neumann not only looks at buyers and sellers, but also at regulatory authorities and investors. Brugger begins with an image of seventeenth-century New Amsterdam and the market there that can be found in popular culture since the seventeenth century, but also in modern research. In this image, this market is described as harmonious: everybody and everything has its place through regulation. Neither fierce competition nor other economically damaging behaviour were tolerated by the government of New Netherland. Modern research holds that the modernization of trade, technology, and infrastructure brought about linear growth and emerged in modern capitalism. This narrative of modernization imposes its very own view of the world, which must be distinguished from tangible developments. In contrast to this, Brugger creates a picture of New Amsterdam’s marketplace where various agents had different interests and rights for participating in this colonial market. For her alternative concept, Brugger works very close to the sources, and uses the findings of recent anthropological studies and the concept of the “moral economy” developed by Laurence Fontaine. Brugger thus focuses on the peripheral areas such as smuggling, pre-emption, and underselling and – following Fontaine – points out the rules of the market and society from this perspective. As a case study, she examines the beaver-fur market. Concerning agents of the market, Brugger does not differentiate between the two groups of settlers and Indians (as has been previously done), but rather distinguishes between the many different people that are hidden behind these concepts. She identifies a multitude of social groups such as different tribes, the West India Company (WIC), its local administrators, permanent settlers, and temporary visitors (like company servants), but also petty traders, smugglers, pre-emptors, undersellers, or brokers. The intensive source reading (ordinances and court records) undertaken by Brugger shows that the categories indigenous/European and gender were less important than the category permanent settler/temporary visitor. She also shows that the agents of the market – including the shadow market – were dependent on one another. Moreover, the comparatively strong regulation of the

Introduction

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colonial market, which clearly favoured the permanent settlers, does not anticipate modern capitalism. This volume concludes with a theorizing overview of previous research and, at the same time, an outlook on future studies. Maria Aleksandrova answers the question of what studies of premodern markets could look like. Based on the assumption that the phenomenon “market” is determined by and dependent on the time or epoch being studied, Aleksandrova draws attention to a problem of many studies by economists: economists, and with them the politicians using their studies, investigate premodern markets in an anachronistic way. In order to prevent such misinterpretations, it is necessary from the outset to define the term “market” for the time under investigation. Aleksandrova also draws attention to the reciprocal relationship between the phenomenon “market” and the society in which it takes place; both influence each other and are temporally specific. She proposes a comprehensive characterization of the market and a distinction of different forms of the market that should be essential for further studies. She also points out that the agents of the market should be understood as market participants who were human beings embedded in their own system of norms, and not as abstract units. In addition, she concludes by developing a proposal for how future studies can proceed, namely the hermeneutic approach. Hence, she demands that historians contextualize markets not only in their micro-studies but also at the macro-level, and above all that developments should be reproduced in a temporally specific contextualized way.

Ulla Kypta

How to Study the Premodern Market: The Concept of Market Exchange 1 Markets and their agents in premodern times The premodern economy was no market economy. Markets existed, of course, and were held in a range of different forms, from the daily food markets in small towns to the large interregional fairs in Champagne, Frankfurt am Main, Lyon, or Antwerp. But those markets were not the only, probably not even the most frequent, form of exchange in premodern times. Goods and money could also be distributed by barter or gift-giving, feudal dues, or urban taxes. Besides, in a pre-industrial society, far more people were engaged in producing things than in distributing them. Agricultural innovations shaped the life of premodern people to a far greater extent than any market could. Nevertheless, the market has been one of the most prominent topics of research in premodern economic history during recent decades (Dijkman 2011; Fontaine 2014; Howell 2010; van Bavel 2016; see also Brugger et al. 2019). Studying the market promises interesting results not because it was such a relevant part of the premodern economy but because it is such an important part, or maybe even the most important building block, of the economy of our own times. The term “market economy” can today be employed to characterize not only a certain element of the economy but a whole society that exchanges goods, money, land, and labour via an abstract market. The current interest in the premodern market is fuelled by the aim of exploring the foundations of our own society and of explaining where they came from. Hence, every study of the premodern market has to face the challenge of how to do that without being either anachronistic or teleological. That is to say, one should neither classify every form of premodern exchange as market exchange, nor should one tell the story of premodern markets as one leading on a linear path to a predetermined outcome, the market economy. However, I am inclined to think that it is possible to explore our own origins without falling into any of those traps. In this article, I hope to contribute to such explorations by discussing how premodern and modern concepts of the market can be compared. This is not a very difficult endeavour, since market exchange is one of the concepts that premodern as well as modern contemporaries reflected upon. Premodern and modern thinkers saw the market as a specific form of exchange and discussed its features and properties. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110643756-002

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The two perceptions of the market can thus be contrasted. One of the major differences is that the market as an abstract model of exchange gained more prominence in modern times. This emergence of an abstract concept of the market was neither a linear process, nor was it at any point completed. The perception of the market as a specific form of exchange was not entirely absent from premodern discourse. On the other hand, the term “market” always remained a description for a tangible place and for an event that took place on certain days of the week. Even today, both notions coexist.¹ These similarities, however, should not obscure the fundamental differences between premodern and modern conceptions of the market. With this very rough comparison between today’s debates and the premodern discourses and practices, I do not intend to scrutinize the premodern perspective for the first signs of modern thinking. Rather, I aim at reaching a more nuanced perspective on the way premodern agents conceived of the market. Today’s questions – how to organize the market, how to define the market? – offer a tool for sharpening our view of differences and similarities between premodern discussions and those of today. This will hopefully lead to a better understanding of both premodern and modern conceptions and debates concerning the market: supply and demand form basic concepts crucial to both the premodern and the modern understandings of the market; and in both eras, participants in the market were, and are, regarded in a certain sense as agents with equal rights and duties. Both ideas are not an outcome of modern, neoclassical thinking, but featured in medieval discussions as well. This idea of the equality of agents, however, raises the question of who is allowed in the market, and how exchange has to be organized in order to ensure that everyone gets more or less the same rights. Hence, questions of the right of access to a market and of the regulation of market exchange should not be discussed only with regard to premodern times: they are still of importance today, even if neoclassical studies still struggle to include them. The next part of this article presents the traditional view of the conception of the market in premodern and modern times, and it introduces two questions that are often discussed today with regard to the market: how should the market be organized, and how should it be defined? The third and fourth parts of the article discuss how premodern agents involved in the market would have answered these questions. Part five summarizes what these answers tell us about the premodern concept of market exchange.  In one of the influential handbooks on economics, Mankiw writes that in some markets, “buyers and sellers meet at a specific time and place”. More often, he stresses, the market is not confined to a specific place but consists of “a group of buyers and sellers of a particular good or service” (2018, 66).

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2 What is a market? It is commonly assumed that merchants, town-dwellers, and peasants in premodern times would have given a different answer to that question than people who discuss the market today. In premodern times, the term “market” is supposed to have commonly referred to a specific event that took place at a specific location. Goods were not exchanged via the market, but rather at a market. In premodern towns, the buying and selling of goods was often confined to certain places and streets. The marketplace was not always a place in the narrow sense of the word, but could also consist of major streets, as in Freiburg im Breisgau, or take place on bridges, as in Zurich (Baeriswyl 2006, 235 – 237). These marketplaces and market streets gained considerable importance in a medieval town: the market was the place where the community came together to buy bread and sell brooms, and hence it was also the place where gossip was exchanged and information passed on. The market thus became the public space of a town: in England, royal proclamations were usually made public by being read out on a marketplace on market days (Masschaele 2002, 391). Public penance was also enacted at the market (Masschaele 2002, 400 – 413). Hardly any town could do without a market as a physical space where economic and social relations were acted out. The market was confined not only to certain places and streets but also to certain days of the week or weeks of the year. Commonplace markets, where town-dwellers exchanged foodstuffs and manufactured products with one another and with people from their surroundings, were usually held on certain days of the week. Saturday was a prominent market day in premodern Europe. Regional fairs, which attracted merchants from farther away, took place during certain weeks of the year. Fairs tended to occur in the fall, when the harvest had been brought in and part of it had to be sold to pay dues to the manorial lord.² The number of local fairs increased considerably after the Black Death in the middle of the fourteenth century (Epstein 1994). Interregional fairs brought merchants from different parts of Europe together for certain weeks of the year. The fair in Frankfurt am Main, for instance, took place twice a year, from 15 August to 15 September and from Oculi Sunday (four weeks before Easter) to Palm Sunday (Rothmann 1998, 102). Antwerp also hosted two fairs, one after Pentecost and the other around the feast day of St Bavo on 1 October (Harreld 2004, 24).  For a general description of the markets and fairs on the local, regional, and interregional level in southern Germany, see Rothmann (2010, 141– 156).

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In our time and place, in contrast, “the market” most commonly denotes a specific kind of exchange mechanism: on the market, the forces of supply and demand determine the price of a product, be that product a loaf of bread, a building lot, the services of a teacher, or a government bond. Hence, discussions of the market today focus on two major topics. First, how can the market be made to run more smoothly? This question assumes that the market is in general the best mechanism for distributing goods and services. If it is not producing desirable outcomes in certain areas, its framework and rules should be reworked. For example, the market for transportation can be considered as working inefficiently if it produces an outcome that no participant in this market desires: streets have too much traffic since too many people drive a car (or have themselves driven by car). Hence, to get the market to work, tariffs on driving on certain streets could be introduced (Cramton et al. 2018). The second question is: what kind of goods or services should not be traded on the market (Sandel 2012)? This question is based on the assumption that the market is not the best mechanism for distributing all kinds of goods and services. Tap water, for instance, is in most Western states not traded on a free market but supplied by government-backed agencies. Organ transplants are generally not sold for money but distributed via a more or less complicated system that factors in how long someone has already had to wait for an organ and how badly it is needed. In some areas, supply by the state is supplemented by supply offered on the market, for example in the education sector. In Germany discussions are raging at the moment over whether housing should no longer be distributed via the market and instead be organized by federal or communal state authorities. For a medieval or early modern merchant, both questions would have also made sense. They can thus serve as two points of comparison between modern and premodern conceptions of the market. Modern as well as medieval contemporaries discussed in theory and decided in practice how the market should be organized and how far the market should reach. The answers of course differed, but maybe not as much as one might expect. Such answers were given by debating them in theory as well as by practising trade and exchange. Discourses as well as practices, then, give us an impression of how premodern merchants, theologians, town-dwellers, and peasants perceived the market, its features, and its limits. The answers that contemporaries gave in theory and practice can, of course, only be roughly sketched in the course of an introductory article. We nevertheless reach an interesting conclusion: the juxtaposition cited above between the market as a mechanism of exchange in modern times, on the one hand, and the market as a concrete place and event in premodern times, on the other, is an over-

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simplification. It would be all too easy to assume that modern thinking about economic processes, probably starting with Adam Smith, transformed the notion of the market from a concrete place into an abstract concept. Instead, a closer look reveals that the roots of the abstract concept of the market can already be found in the discourses and practices that shaped the premodern market.

3 How to organize the market? Just like today, the question of how to organize the market was tackled from a normative as well as from a practical perspective. The normative dimension focused on the question of how exchange on the market could take place justly. This stands in contrast to today, where efficiency is typically regarded as the ultimate quality that characterizes “good” market exchange: free markets are supposed to allocate resources most efficiently and thus maximize the overall surplus of producers and consumers (Mankiw 2018, 145). The question of whether the outcome of efficient market exchange is also just is often delegated by economists to policymakers (Mankiw 2018, 144). In premodern debates, in contrast, the sphere of economic exchange was not separated from the question of justice. Justice in exchange had to be meticulously defined. Such debates mostly took place among theologians, but the main threats they contained were relayed to merchants and other market agents, for example in sermons. Bernardino of Siena, for instance, a Franciscan friar, belonged to those theologians who worked out a thorough concept of the workings of the economy and discussed its ethical implications in their sermons.³ But Bernardino, who lived during the fifteenth century – de Roover calls him “perhaps the ablest economist of the Middle Ages” (1958, 423) – was far from the first theologian to ponder economic issues. Two hundred years before, scholastic thinkers such as Thomas Aquinas, Thomas of Chobham, or Alexander of Hale discussed how a merchant could lead a life in this world that would not bar the way to eternal life, how usury could be prevented when organizing credit, or how exchange on the market should be shaped so that it happened in a just way (Langholm 1992, 2003; Wood 2002; de Roover 1974). Of major importance was the question of what price could be gauged to be just. The question of just price was discussed at length by theologians at least

 Bernardino of Siena preached in Latin and in Italian; see Bernardino da Siena, Le Prediche Volgari. His Latin sermons are edited as part of a complete edition of his works, S. Bernardini Senensis Ordinis Fratrum Minorum opera omnia.

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since the high Middle Ages (de Roover 1958) and was of some relevance for every merchant who cared for his salvation. The cost of production and the labour put into it played some role in the debate (Langholm 2003, 249), but most commonly the just price was regarded as the “price obtainable on the local market” (quam in mercato vendere possit; de Roover 1958, 421). A price was supposed to take shape on the market if suppliers and demanders could meet without restrictions. If products were supplied by one seller only (hence, if one seller had a monopoly), the price could not be regarded as just. Monopolists were defined as players on the market who could single-handedly change the prices and thus distort the just price, and they were deeply scorned (Mertens 1996). According to theoretical debates, then, a market emerged if a price was determined by supply and demand, and if suppliers and demanders consisted of enough agents that no single one could dictate the price. A market could only come into being if a number of agents came together to exchange goods. The notion that it was the agents who made the market was thus highlighted in premodern discourse. The market thereby became more than a place where exchange was carried out: it was regarded as the more abstract place where prices were shaped by supply and demand. This has an interesting connotation: agents on the market were supposed to act from probably not equal, but at least comparable positions. If one agent was dominating exchange proceedings, this was not regarded as “common exchange” that could help to arrive at the just price (de Roover 1958, 423 – 424). Hence, if the large institutional agents such as monasteries or prominent trading companies used their market power to distort supply or demand, they would no longer be trading on a market in the normative sense of the word. In other words, today’s debates often regard every exchange that happens on an efficient market as a just outcome, whereas for medieval thinkers, a market could only be called a market if exchange happened in a just way. It was not the market that produced justice, but rather justice that preconditioned the market. This normative stance was not only debated in theological circles. Instead, the implications of these discussions were put into practice where markets were regulated to a certain degree. In late medieval Europe, it was mostly town councils that were responsible for setting out rules for the market. For example, forestalling was explicitly forbidden in many European towns (for Basle, see Hitz 2017; in general, see Davis 2018): it was not permissible to buy goods outside the city walls from peasants or merchants who were on their way to the market, and resell them on the market. This rule was based on the assumption that a peasant or foreign merchant travelling to the market did not know the current prices on the market, and could thus be tricked into accepting a price that was too low. To ensure fair competition – or, in medieval terminology, to en-

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sure that the just price would emerge – merchants or peasants had to come to the market and gauge the prices for themselves. They could enlist the help of brokers, though, who helped them to deal with the market if they were unfamiliar with it. These brokers were often urban officials or working under tight urban regulation.⁴ Other urban officials ensured that everyone was selling their goods from their appointed stalls and that everyone was using the correct weights and measures. Public scales, manned by urban personnel, made sure that merchants paid enough customs duty on the goods they were bringing into town, but they also provided merchants with an opportunity to check the weight of their commerce for themselves. Hence, agents on the market comprised not only buyers and sellers but also the wide range of people who made the functioning of a market possible.⁵ These mostly urban officials put into practice the abstract scholastic discussions about the just price, regardless of whether they knew that they were following scholastic ideas or not. Whoever came to the market thus gathered that exchange at the market not only took place in a specific part of town but also followed certain rules. If someone was being tricked out of his merchandise by a forestaller, this was not regarded as market exchange in the twofold sense of the word: this exchange did not happen at the marketplace, and it broke the basic rule of market exchange that prices were set by a multiplicity of buyers and sellers. The market could thus be perceived as the place where special rules of exchange applied – “market” came to denote more than just a square in the middle of town. Normative discussions and practical regulations hence tried to enforce the norm that everyone should pay or demand the same price for the same goods. In this sense, exchange can be regarded as equal: foreign merchants should not be forced to demand lower prices than the locals; the prince should not pay lower prices than the peasant. Of course, virtually no town ever granted foreign merchants the same rights as its own citizens: foreign merchants were normally allowed to trade only on certain days a week or to stay for certain weeks each year; they had to pay customs duties; they often were restricted to wholesale trade.⁶ The prices they had to pay, however, were seldom different from

 Börner and Quint (2010) analyse 1,106 urban regulations concerning brokers from forty-two towns of the premodern Holy Roman Empire.  Other agents on the market who were not buyers or sellers, but of crucial importance for the functioning of the market, were, for instance, translators, notaries, money changers, hostellers, freight carriers, market criers, or brokers (Epstein 2009, 89 – 90).  Northern German towns discussed such rules at the Hanseatic diets (see Jenks 1996). NonHanseatic merchants were not allowed, for example, to buy ships in Hanse towns. Each town

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what the locals had to pay. The success of fairs as focal points of exchange was based to a large degree on the fact that all merchants coming to a fair enjoyed similar, if not the same, rights (Irsigler 2007, 18). For permanent markets, guilds of foreign merchants aimed to protect their members from the various forms of discrimination there. For example, the Hanseatic merchants in Bruges secured privileges from the rulers in Flanders that guaranteed them fixed toll tariffs, fixed wages for urban personnel such as brokers or hostellers, and a reliable way to assert their rights in court (Jenks 2005). In sum, it was an important feature of the market that every buyer and seller paid the same price; and merchants strove to establish the principle that they should not only pay the same price as everyone else but also be treated like every other buyer or seller on the market in a more general sense. Hence, even if it was never completely put into practice, the idea emerged that on a market, all agents enjoyed the same rights. Exchange on the market did not only denote all exchange that took place on the market square but acquired the connotation that all partners in market exchange could, in a certain sense, be regarded as equals. Markets were not only organized by formal rules and regulations, of course. Informal norms and practices also became important characteristics of the specific form of exchange that was considered as market exchange. Practice and experience played an important role in shaping such perceptions of how exchange on a market had to function. For a much later time, Franziska Neumann points out in this volume that agents on the market had to comply with certain notions of efficiency. The requirement to seem efficient shaped the action of certain market agents – in this case, the Saxon mining administration – that relied for their operation on the trust of investors. These investors were expecting the market to be regulated in a certain way, and the mining administration issued ordinances which spelled out in great detail how exactly the mining operations were supervised by the mining administration. They thus aimed at assuring the investors that the market for shares in the mines was running smoothly. Neumann’s study thus shows two instances of abstract concepts: first, that investors shared certain abstract notions of how a market was supposed to function, and second, that these expectations of the investors served as a point of reference for the mining administration. They resulted in an abstract concept of the investor, and the

council decided for itself, however, which rules it adopted in town law. For example, merchants from Nuremberg who did business in Prussia were only allowed to trade at the markets in Marienburg and Gdańsk and not at the local fairs (Jenks 1996, 43 – 44).

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expectations and requests of this abstract investor governed the behaviour of the mining administration. With the expansion of trade that took place during the so-called Commercial Revolution of the high Middle Ages (Lopez 1976), exchange was increasingly done not only on one physical market but between two or more markets. Of course, transporting goods to a market has always been the basic idea of market exchange: a town’s shoemaker also had to get his shoes to the market if he wanted to participate in the trade there. But this was exchange between a producer and a buyer. The same is true for peasants who came to the urban market mostly to sell foodstuffs. With the increasing importance of market trade during medieval times,⁷ in contrast, exchange was not only done between a producer and a buyer who was often the end-consumer of the product bought, but between two merchants, neither of whom produced the goods or intended to consume them. Thus, markets not only began to connect production with consumption, but also formed nodes of distribution. Merchants supplied not only consumers with what they needed, but also merchants with whatever they wanted to resell. In other words, merchants exchanged goods between places of exchange. Buying in Antwerp and selling in Lübeck thus took place not only at the respective marketplaces but also at a more abstract place in between both trading hubs. In other words, markets were interconnected. This came about through merchants travelling from one marketplace to the next, as in the prominent case of the Champagne fairs during the twelfth century: market activities travelled around Troyes, Provins, Bar-sur-Aube, and Lagny-sur-Marne in the course of the year, and merchants travelled with them (Epstein 2009, 82– 83). However, only very few merchants who were engaged in international trade acted on their own. Typically, they linked up with partners, who were either based in other market towns or visited them on their journeys. The relations between merchants hence served to connect different marketplaces. For example, the Hanseatic merchant Hildebrand Veckinchusen had his headquarters in Bruges. When he wanted to trade with Cologne, he cooperated with his brother Sivert; he sent rice to Gdańsk and figs to Hamburg to his trading partners there (Hammel 1991, 361). In some cases, partners formed a trading society (societas; Amend-Traut 2012): they agreed to pool a certain amount of capital. Gains and  Whether it increased in volume as well is hard to assess. As Cipolla puts it: “We have absolutely no way to measure the relative importance of unilateral transfers (including charity, gifts and dowries, as well as plunder, ransom and theft) on the one hand and exchanges on the other. But it appears that the earlier the period under examination, the greater is the relative importance of transfers compared to that of exchanges” (1993, 16).

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losses that sprung from trading with this capital had to be shared between the partners. The partners of a society often established themselves at different trading posts. These societies thus connected different trading centres. For example, Hildebrand Veckinchusen in Bruges and Tidemann Brekelvelde in Lübeck formed a society to trade between Bruges and Lübeck: Veckinchusen sent goods from Bruges to Lübeck, Brekelvelde from Lübeck to Bruges (Cordes 1998, 245). On a larger scale, partners and servants (Diener) of the Welser company from Augsburg traded in, among others, Venice, Antwerp, and Seville.⁸ Trading societies, as well as more informal modes of cooperation, connected exchange at one marketplace with exchange at another marketplace. They bought, for instance, pepper at the marketplace in Antwerp and sold it at the marketplace in Lübeck. Market exchange was thus carried out not only at a specific place but also between different places. It became an interregional phenomenon, and thus in a way detached from a specific physical place: market exchange was not only something that happened at the marketplace in Lübeck but also something that happened between Lübeck and Antwerp. Merchants who transported (or, more often, paid a freight carrier to transport) pepper from Antwerp to Lübeck transformed something that was demanded in Antwerp into something that was supplied in Lübeck. Supply and demand were thus, in a way, becoming less attached to one place. Some merchant families connected not only different trading posts but even different systems of trading, such as the Milanese Greppi Marliani family, who connected Habsburg central Europe with the Spanish empire (Kaps 2017). Agents on the market hence play a crucial role in premodern debates on how to organize the market. Without a sufficient number of buyers and sellers, supply and demand did not yield a just price, and such exchange could not be regarded as just market exchange. Furthermore, agents on an ideal market were thought of as having equal rights, at least in the sense that they should all pay the same – just – price. In practice, merchant guilds and associations tried to assert for their members the same rights as local merchants enjoyed. Besides merchants and other buyers and sellers, another class of agents played an important role in premodern markets: these were the people, mostly urban personnel, who put the norms into practice and enforced their implementation. Agents involved in the market not only had to enforce and follow formal regulations; they also created and moulded informal rules through their everyday practices of exchange. The

 Accounts from these outposts have survived; see Rechnungsfragmente der Augsburger WelserGesellschaft (1496 – 1551).

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experience of merchants shaped their concept of the market, and their cooperation with others connected markets across Europe. In sum, if a commodity was exchanged on the market, it was not only carried to a certain place but also involved in a special form of exchange. A number of sellers sold similar goods and a number of potential buyers demanded them, none of whom were meant to have considerably more market power than the others. The product’s quality – for example its length or weight – was to be assessed by standardized means, for example the public cloth measure displayed at the municipal hall. The way the exchange was managed was meant to comply with certain notions of efficiency.

4 How to define the market? The previous section has shown that even in premodern times, the concept of market exchange was not synonymous with all the exchange transactions that were carried out on a marketplace. Rather, for exchange to be regarded as market exchange, it had to comply with certain abstract criteria; perhaps most importantly, there should be no single buyer or seller with excessive market power. How was such a market, then, marked out from other forms of exchange? In today’s debates, as mentioned above, the distinction between market exchange and other forms of exchange is most commonly discussed with regard to the items that are traded: should certain goods or services, such as organs or teaching, be traded via the market? In premodern times, this question was hardly ever touched upon. The question of whether something should be traded on the market rarely posed itself, since market exchange was not regarded as the default option for every kind of exchange. Quite the contrary: in premodern times, exchange on the market was not the most common form of exchange (van Bavel 2016, 1). Some goods were traded on the market; others were exchanged as gifts or feudal dues, or through forceful extraction; but it was hardly discussed whether a particular form of exchange was the appropriate one for specific goods. For example, luxury products were exchanged as gifts; and a manorial lord expected his subjects to bring him some animals to eat not because he paid them but because this was his feudal right.⁹ Agents hence normally participated in a number of different forms of exchange. Monasteries are a prominent example of the interaction between markets and other forms of ex-

 It is not always easy to distinguish between gift exchange and feudal dues (see Kuchenbuch 2003).

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change (Gleba 2007). The Cistercians, in particular, are famous for transforming the goods and services that were due to them into marketable goods with the help of their elaborate organization of labour (Rösener 2007). This coexistence of different forms of exchange made it clear that exchange on the market did not just happen at a different physical place from, for instance, gift exchange or the payment of manorial dues, but that the different forms of exchange also followed different sets of rules. The difference between giving one’s lord a chicken or selling it at the market was not only a question of place and time: rather, the different time and place entailed further differences in the character of the exchange. Different rules of the game, then, marked out the different forms of exchange. Markets followed a specific set of rules. In sum, since market exchange was not the dominant form of exchange, the question of what goods or services should be traded on the market was not discussed in premodern times. Furthermore, there seem to have been no limits as to what goods or services could be thought of as being tradable via the market, at least in theory. Franziska Quaas’s article in this volume discusses a very impressive example: she shows that market exchange even served as a model for exchange in the religious sphere. During the early Middle Ages, in theological writings, the relationship between Christ and the ones he saved was modelled according to an exchange on the market. Hence, market exchange was regarded not only as something that could take place in this world but as a form of exchange that structured exchange between this world and the next as well. Every Christian was to aim to be a good merchant in the sense of giving everything away for the one valuable pearl, the heavenly kingdom. Even long before the Commercial Revolution of the high Middle Ages, as Quaas shows, economic vocabulary and concepts served as a framework or metaphor for describing processes that we today would describe as distinctly non-economic.¹⁰ Hence, in theory, even salvation could be traded on a market. But market exchange was gaining ground in practice as well: one of the influential narratives in current economic history stresses that during premodern times, more and more goods, and even services, as well as land and capital were being traded via the market. This process is called commercialization. Goods or services are regarded as being commercialized when they are increasingly exchanged on the market and not via other forms of exchange (Dijkman 2011). This mechanism was increasingly put to work not only for goods but also for labour, land, and capi-

 Such a use of economic concepts in non-economic spheres is today sometimes labelled “economics imperialism”.

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tal.¹¹ The story of commercialization in this sense connects certain transformations of the premodern economy with our own experience in what can rightly be considered not only an economy with market exchange but also a true market economy in the sense that goods, labour, land, and capital are routinely exchanged via the market, the market thus being the default option we turn to if we discuss how a certain product should be traded. Hence, the question of whether something should be traded via the market or via other forms of exchange comes quite naturally to us, but was not explicitly discussed in premodern times. Instead, the question of who was allowed to trade on the market was of major importance. From the market as a physical place that was often supervised by urban personnel, people could be expelled. Since everyone who was allowed into the market was supposed to have roughly equal rights, at least to pay the same price, it was important to decide who should be allowed to participate in this equal exchange. If everyone on the market had to enjoy the same rights, so the reasoning seems to have run, then not everyone could be permitted to trade on the market. As mentioned above, foreign merchants were allowed to access the market for certain days only, or for the period of the annual fair. In the course of early modern times, access to the market became more and more restricted: during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, tighter regulation of market activities was used to exclude marginal agents such as pawnbrokers or peddlers from the market (Fontaine 1993, 2011; van den Heuvel 2015). Access to the market hence came to mean more than just the possibility of going to the marketplace: it meant being allowed to engage in a certain form of exchange whose participants all enjoyed similar rights. This form of equality endowed the relationship between market agents with a certain dynamic: differences in status could be levelled out when agents came together on the market. The article by Eva Brugger in this volume shows how in the Dutch colony of New Amsterdam in the seventeenth century, social differences between men and women or settlers and natives were levelled out, since the ordinances issued by the government distinguished only between people who were permanently present in New Amsterdam and others who were trading there for only a short time. Again it becomes clear, then, that the market was constituted by market agents coming together and by the rules and ordinances that regulated their en-

 Van Bavel (2016) analyses this process for Iraq (500 – 1000), the Italian city states (1000 – 1500), the Low Countries (1100 – 1800), and England, the United States, and Western Europe (1500 onwards).

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counter. The actions of these people constituted the premodern market. The marketplace might be called the marketplace throughout the week, but it only became “the market” when town-dwellers, merchants, and peasants came together on certain days to exchange goods. If they declined to buy and sell their goods at a certain place and time, no market could develop. When the citizens of Nuremberg tried to host an international fair during the 1430s besides their regular and prominent markets, but no one responded to their invitations to the project, it could not take place (Rothmann 2000). Not only did merchants, town-dwellers, peasants, and urban personnel bring the market into being; the question of who was allowed to trade on the market and how this trade was regulated shaped the further development of the economy. A market was defined not by its goods but by its agents and the rules they were following.

5 Conclusion: Premodern concepts of market exchange In sum, for a late medieval or early modern town-dweller, peasant, or merchant, trading on the market meant exchanging goods on a marketplace and on market days. But by doing so, they formed certain conceptions and ideas of the specific form of exchange that was taking place on the market. The exchange of goods on the market followed different formal and informal rules from other forms of exchange such as gift-giving or the payment of dues. These specific rules and forms of exchange by and by came to be regarded as essential features of exchange on the market. Interactions on a real marketplace at market time thus shaped the agents’ conception of how exchange on a market was supposed to work, and these conceptions came to be attached to market exchange in general, independent from a specific time and place. Exchange on the market became market exchange; concrete actions on a specific marketplace shaped the notion of an abstract concept of a specific mechanism of exchange. Hence, the concept of market exchange in premodern times not only comprised economic exchange at a physical marketplace but also implied that exchange was done between a considerable number of buyers and sellers such that no single agent could distort the price away from the just price. Therefore, it was of crucial importance that a market was frequented by enough participants. Furthermore, the exchange had to be regulated so as to conform to notions of just exchange; for example, forestalling was forbidden, and everyone had to use the same weights. This kind of exchange could happen at one place or could be carried out between different physical places, for example be-

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tween Venice and Antwerp, between Göttingen and Lübeck, or between Cracow and Nuremberg. How does this premodern concept compare to today’s definitions of market exchange? Market exchange has been defined as a system of exchange that is different from other allocation systems because the exchange and allocation of resources is predominantly carried out by way of monetary transactions, the prices are primarily determined by the forces of supply and demand, and the competing actors are mainly geared towards their own economic profit or utility. (van Bavel 2016, 10 – 11)

Market exchange is thus defined by monetary transactions, supply and demand, and a specific mindset of the agents. In premodern times, in contrast, an exchange did not have to be carried out with money to be considered a market exchange. However, discussions of the just price typically assumed that a price was given in money, not in kind. Hence, the question of whether the good was paid in money or kind was obviously of less importance to premodern agents, but if they discussed prices on a theoretical level, they assumed that prices were in money. As has been shown in detail above, supply and demand are of considerable importance for premodern and modern concepts of market exchange. With regard to the mindset of the agents, it seems that premodern and modern assumptions are again quite similar: according to premodern theory and practice, markets had to be regulated since agents on the market would otherwise distort the functioning of the market – they would even try to make a profit with unethical trades. If a merchant went out of town to buy products directly from the peasants bringing them to the market, tricking them into accepting lower prices than they could have got at the town market, and then sold these goods at the town market for a much higher price, he did so because he wanted to increase his profit. Hence, such practices had to be forbidden. Urban regulations thus reflect a certain idea of merchants – or even of men in general – that is quite similar to the modern idea of a profit-maximizing merchant cited by van Bavel. In conclusion, two questions seem to have been of greater importance in the premodern discussion of market exchange than they are today. First, would enough people come to a place to make it a market? Merchants’ manuals pointed out where one could find a large number of other merchants so that one could be sure that one would be able to trade with someone (Weissen 2002). The success of Bruges as an international trading centre in the late Middle Ages rested to a large degree on the assurance that someone would be there at all times of the year with whom trade could be done (Murray 2000). Other merchants were hence regarded more as welcomed trading partners than as rivals. With the modern increase in merchants, trading places, and means of communication, the

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problem of how to find a buyer or seller for goods is not as pressing as it was in premodern times. Second, the question of how a market should be regulated was discussed in depth and at length in premodern times. The fact that it had to be regulated was not questioned at all, whereas today’s debates are more concerned with the question of whether the market should be governed or left to its own devices than with the question of how any regulation should be carried out. Hence, regulators such as urban personnel or brokers are discussed as obvious agents of a premodern market. When studying the premodern market, it should thus be kept in mind that the questions of how to secure supply and demand, and how to regulate exchange, were of crucial importance for contemporaries. Premodern and modern ideas of the market have in common the fact that agents involved in the market are regarded as equal, at least to a certain degree. They are supposed to enjoy the same rights and to abide by the same rules. No single agent should be able to distort prices; that is, everyone should have a similar degree of market power. The study of premodern markets makes it clear that this assumption entails a crucial decision: if all agents on the market are to be regarded as equal, who should be allowed to participate in this exchange among equals? As has been shown, this distinction between persons who were allowed to trade on the market and others who were excluded is an important feature of the history of market exchange. Hence, future histories of the market should place less emphasis on the emergence of an abstract concept of the market, for such an abstract idea can be found right from the beginning of the Middle Ages (and probably even earlier – this remains to be studied). The idea that agents involved in the market should be regarded as equals also featured already in premodern concepts of the market. What seems to have changed is who was allowed to participate in market exchange, and how that market exchange was regulated. Hence, these two questions should not only guide future research on market exchange but should also be posed today in order to understand the working of markets in our own time.

References Source editions Bernardino da Siena. Le Prediche Volgari. Ed. Ciro Cannarozzi. Pistoia: Pacinotti, 1934. Rechnungsfragmente der Augsburger Welser-Gesellschaft (1496 – 1551): Oberdeutscher Fernhandel am Beginn der neuzeitlichen Weltwirtschaft. Ed. Peter Geffcken and Mark Häberlein. Stuttgart: Steiner, 2014. S. Bernardini Senensis Ordinis Fratrum Minorum opera omnia. Ed. Collegio San Bonaventura. 9 vols. Florence: Quaracchi, 1950 – 1965.

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Secondary literature Amend-Traut, Anja. “Handelsgesellschaften”. Handwörterbuch zur deutschen Rechtsgeschichte. Vol. 2. Ed. Albrecht Cordes, Heiner Lück, Dieter Werkmüller, and Christa Bertelsmeier-Kierst. Berlin: Schmidt, 2012. 703 – 712. Baeriswyl, Armand. “Die Topographie des städtischen Markts im Mittelalter und in der Frühen Neuzeit am Beispiel süddeutscher und schweizerischer Städte”. Zeitschrift für Archäologie des Mittelalters 34 (2006): 231 – 248. Börner, Lars, and Daniel Quint. “Medieval Matching Markets”. Free University Berlin, School of Business & Economics: Discussion Papers (2010.31). Brugger, Eva, Angela Huang, Ulla Kypta, and Mark Spoerer. “Introduction into the Study of Markets”. Methods in Premodern Economic History: Case Studies from the Holy Roman Empire, c.1300–c.1600. Ed. Ulla Kypta, Julia Bruch, and Tanja Skambraks. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019. 99 – 130. Cipolla, Carlo M. Before the Industrial Revolution: European Society and Economy 1000 – 1700. 3rd ed. New York: Norton, 1993. Cordes, Albrecht. Spätmittelalterlicher Gesellschaftshandel im Hanseraum. Cologne: Böhlau, 1998. Cramton, Peter, R. Richard Geddes, and Axel Ockenfels. “Set Road Charges in Real Time to Ease Traffic”. Nature 560 (2018): 23 – 25. Davis, James. “The Ethics of Arbitrage and Forestalling across the Late Medieval World”. Market Ethics and Practices, c.1300 – 1850. Ed. Simon Middleton and James E. Shaw. Abingdon: Routledge, 2018. 23 – 45. de Roover, Raymond. “The Concept of the Just Price: Theory and Economic Policy”. Journal of Economic History 18 (1958): 418 – 434. de Roover, Raymond. “The Scholastic Attitude toward Trade and Entrepreneurship”. Business, Banking, and Economic Thought in Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe: Selected Studies of Raymond de Roover. Ed. Julius Kirshner. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1974. 336 – 345. Dijkman, Jessica. Shaping Medieval Markets: The Organisation of Commodity Markets in Holland, c.1200–c.1450. Leiden: Brill, 2011. Epstein, Stephen R. “Regional Fairs, Institutional Innovation, and Economic Growth in Late Medieval Europe”. Economic History Review 43 (1994): 459 – 482. Epstein, Stephen A. An Economic and Social History of Later Medieval Europe, 1000 – 1500. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009. Fontaine, Laurence. Histoire du colportage en Europe. Paris: Michel, 1993. Fontaine, Laurence. “Märkte als Chance für die Armen in der Frühen Neuzeit”. Zeitschrift für Agrargeschichte und Agrarsoziologie 59 (2011): 37 – 53. Fontaine, Laurence. Le marché: Histoire et usages d’une conquête sociale. Paris: Gallimard, 2014. Gleba, Gudrun. “Summa summare: Klöster als Arbeitgeber und Handelspartner: Beispiele aus westfälischen Rechnungsbüchern”. Kloster und Wirtschaftswelt im Mittelalter. Ed. Claudia Dobrinski, Brundhilde Gedderth, and Katrin Wipfler. Munich: Fink, 2007. 171 – 188. Hammel, Rolf. “Veckinchusen, Hildebrand”. Biographisches Lexikon für Schleswig-Holstein und Lübeck. Vol. 9. Ed. Dieter Lohmeier. Neumünster: Wachholtz, 1991. 358 – 364.

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Harreld, Donald J. High Germans in the Low Countries: German Merchants and Commerce in Golden Age Antwerp. Leiden: Brill, 2004. Hitz, Benjamin. “Mit ‘Erkanntnissen’ gegen Teuerung ankämpfen: Fürkauf und Versorgungssicherheit als praktische Probleme des Basler Rats im späten 15. Jahrhundert”. Traverse: Zeitschrift für Geschichte 24 (2017): 17 – 33. Howell, Martha C. Commerce before Capitalism in Europe, 1300 – 1600. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010. Irsigler, Franz. “Messen, Jahrmärkte und Stadtentwicklung in Europa: Mittelalter und frühe Neuzeit”. Messen, Jahrmärkte und Stadtentwicklung in Europa. Ed. Franz Irsigler and Michel Pauly. Trier: Porta Alba, 2007. 1 – 24. Jenks, Stuart. “Zum hansischen Gästerecht”. Hansische Geschichtsblätter 114 (1996): 3 – 60. Jenks, Stuart. “Transaktionskostentheorie und die mittelalterliche Hanse”. Hansische Geschichtsblätter 123 (2005): 31 – 42. Kaps, Klemens. “Zwischen Zentraleuropa und iberischem Atlantik: Mailänder Kaufleute in Cádiz im 18. Jahrhundert”. Annales Mercaturae 3 (2017): 85 – 105. Kuchenbuch, Ludolf. “Porcus Donativus: Language Use and Gifting in Seigneurial Records between the Eighth and the Twelfth Centuries”. Negotiating the Gift. Premodern Figurations of Exchange. Ed. Gadi Algazi, Valentin Groebner, and Bernhard Jussen. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2003. 193 – 246. Langholm, Odd. Economics in the Medieval Schools: Wealth, Exchange, Value, Money and Usury according to the Paris Theological Tradition, 1200 – 1350. Leiden: Brill, 1992. Langholm, Odd. The Merchant in the Confessional: Trade and Price in the Pre-Reformation Penitential Handbooks. Leiden: Brill, 2003. Lopez, Robert S. The Commercial Revolution of the Middle Ages 950 – 1350. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1976. Mankiw, Nicholas Gregory. Principles of Economics. 8th ed. Boston: Cengage Learning, 2018. Masschaele, James. “The Public Space of the Marketplace in Medieval England”. Speculum 77 (2002): 383 – 421. Mertens, Bernd. Im Kampf gegen die Monopole: Reichstagsverhandlungen und Monopolprozesse im frühen 16. Jahrhundert. Tübingen: Mohr (Siebeck), 1996. Murray, James M. “Of Nodes and Networks: Bruges and the Infrastructure of Trade in Fourteenth-Century Europe”. International Trade in the Low Countries (14th–16th Centuries): Merchants, Organisation, Infrastructure. Ed. Peter Stabel, Bruno Blondé, and Anke Greve. Leuven-Apeldoorn: Garant, 2000. 1 – 14. Rösener, Werner. “Die Stadthöfe der Zisterzienser im Spannungsfeld der Stadt-Land-Beziehungen des Hochmittelalters”. Kloster und Wirtschaftswelt im Mittelalter. Ed. Claudia Dobrinski, Brundhilde Gedderth, and Katrin Wipfler. Munich: Fink, 2007. 85 – 99. Rothmann, Michael. Die Frankfurter Messen im Mittelalter. Stuttgart: Steiner, 1998. Rothmann, Michael. “Städtische Diplomatie im Wirtschaftskonflikt: Der Nürnberger-Frankfurter Messestreit aus den Jahren 1432 bis 1438”. Archiv für Frankfurts Geschichte und Kunst 66 (2000): 132 – 160. Rothmann, Michael. “Marktnetze und Netzwerke im spätmittelalterlichen oberdeutschen Wirtschaftsraum”. Netzwerke im europäischen Handel des Mittelalters. Ed. Gerhard Fouquet and Hans-Jörg Gilomen. Ostfildern: Thorbecke, 2010. 135 – 188.

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Sandel, Michael J. What Money Can’t Buy: The Moral Limits of Markets. New York: Ingram International, 2012. van Bavel, Bas. The Invisible Hand? How Market Economies Have Emerged and Declined since AD 500. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016. van den Heuvel, Danielle. “Policing Peddlers: The Prosecution of Illegal Street Trade in Eighteenth-Century Dutch Towns”. Historical Journal 58 (2015): 367 – 392. Weissen, Kurt. “Dove il Papa va, sempre è caro di danari: The Commercial Site Analysis in Italian Merchant Handbooks and Notebooks from the 14th and 15th Centuries”. Kaufmannsbücher und Handelspraktiken vom Spätmittelalter bis zum beginnenden 20. Jahrhundert/Merchant’s Books and Mercantile Practice from the Late Middle Ages to the Beginning of the 20th Century. Ed. Markus A. Denzel, Jean Claude Hocquet, and Harald Witthöft. Stuttgart: Steiner, 2002. 63 – 73. Wood, Diana. Medieval Economic Thought. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002.

Franziska Quaas

Towards a Different Type of Market Exchange in the Early Middle Ages: The Sacrum Commercium and its Agents Although hardly any other topic of medieval economic history has received as much attention as the phenomenon of the market, there is still no certainty as to what is actually meant by the term “market”. One of the key challenges we face is the often rather imprecise use of the term in research, which seems to be especially problematic given the many meanings of the term. It is used both to refer to the specific venue of the marketplace, where buyers and sellers meet in order to exchange goods, and in relation to the abstract concept of market economy in modern economic theory. These different meanings of the term are often used simultaneously and imprecisely, and only rarely is a differentiation made between the distinct tiers of reference, a circumstance that impairs the scholarly discourse. If the reference dimension that the user intended is not clearly indicated, misunderstandings necessarily arise,¹ which in turn inhibits the generation of intersubjectively verifiable results and thus a productive discussion of new hypotheses. Even though the problems associated with the term “market” have already been repeatedly pointed out (Jeggle 2015, 574– 584; Möller 2004, 25; Morley 2013, 109 – 111), there is still a low level of critical reflection concerning concepts of the market. This is all the more surprising not only because various sociological market concepts, which can also refer to non-economic markets, have emerged,² but also, and more importantly, because there is still no sensitivity when dealing with the understanding of “market” in eras of the distant past. So far, it is not only the vague use of the term “market” in research that poses a challenge, but also the fact that the true meaning of the term in different times, regions, and historical contexts remains completely unclear. However, the question of this contemporary understanding of the “market” has seldom been asked, which is primarily due to the widespread assumption that there was no abstract understanding of the market in premodern times (Polanyi  See Morley (2013, 109); on the problem of linguistic references, see Donnellan (1966); Kripke (1980); Putnam (1975).  See Baker (1990); Becker (1982, 1996); Berger (1963); Bourdieu (1979, 1983); Foucault (2017, 325); Granovetter (1985); Jelen (2002); Robbins (2018); Schultz (1973); Stark and Bainbridge (1987); Swedberg (2003); Tönnies (1935); White (1981, 2002). https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110643756-003

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1980, 78). This is also true for the early Middle Ages. The term “market” is thus supposed to have referred only to the marketplace (Fellmeth 2008, 183; Fiebiger Bang 2008, 140; Hägermann 1990, 22; Morley 2007, 140; Pitz 1979, 28). The implementation of this “one-sided” approach³ to early medieval markets was influenced by developments in the conceptual history and epistemological philosophy of the 1930s, which promoted the tendency to create new concepts instead of asking about their meaning in past epochs (Oexle 2011, 19 – 22). Rather than considering the problem of the historical conditionality of terms and concepts (Cassirer 2000, 22; Weber 1985, 206 – 209; 2006, 323 – 324), undertaking a differentiation between the different epochs and taking seriously warnings against transferring modern ideas to past epochs (Blümle and Goldschmidt 2007, 454; Fenske 2006, 9; Finley 1977; Funk 1869, 125; Kloft 2002, 80; Weber 2006, 331), scholars still sometimes back-transpose modern theorems and concepts such as the market economy to the early Middle Ages (Bandow 2013, 30; Carrié 1994, 175; Meyer 1910, 125; Temin 2001; Temin 2006) on the basis of the assumption that the same phenomena can be observed at different times (Reinhard 2007, 7– 8; Whittow 2013, 145). These methodological approaches have central shortcomings insofar as either artificial definitions of the term “market” are utilized or a problematic transfer of modern concepts to bygone eras is made. The question arises, then, of whether precisely the opposite path, in which the discourse would no longer be thought from its end but an attempt would be made to reconstruct the historical concepts and to investigate the historical lexemes,⁴ could enable us to better understand the “market” of the early Middle Ages. In this way, the problems of previous methodological approaches could be overcome by considering what dimensions of meaning the term “market” actually implied to people living in the Middle Ages. This question is not about understanding what a “market” might have been in the early Middle Ages but about reconstructing what contemporary users of the term might have understood by

 See Weber (1985, 206): “Stets wiederholen sich die Versuche, den ‘eigentlichen’, ‘wahren’ Sinn historischer Begriffe festzustellen und niemals gelangen sie zu Ende. Ganz regelmäßig bleiben infolgedessen die Synthesen, mit denen die Geschichte fortwährend arbeitet, entweder nur relativ bestimmte Begriffe, oder, sobald Eindeutigkeit des Begriffsinhalts erzwungen werden soll, wird der Begriff zum abstrakten Idealtypus und enthüllt sich damit als ein theoretischer, also ‘einseitiger’ Gesichtspunkt, unter dem die Wirklichkeit beleuchtet, auf den sie bezogen werden kann, der aber zum Schema, in das sie restlos eingeordnet werden könnte, sich selbstverständlich ungeeignet erweist.”  Valentina Toneatto has already characterized this method as a way out of the “vieux débat sur les ‘origines du capitalisme’” (see Toneatto 2010, 75 – 76; Todeschini 1994, 14).

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it, comprehending what contemporaries were speaking about when they used it, in the broadest sense grasping the usage of the word “market”. Based on the assumption that terms such as “market” should be understood no longer as isolated words but as semantic units (Dierse 2011, 58 – 59; Schulze 1978, 243; Trier 1973, 1), such a study can be carried out using techniques of distributive or collocative semantics, meaning the identification and examination of frequent word neighbourhoods around a keyword. Such an approach will examine whether, and if so what, collocations occur in the immediate vicinity of selected core terms in the sources under consideration. Bernhard Jussen was one of the first to warn about the risk of any anachronistic transfer of modern theories to earlier times and apply this methodology to macro-historical questions of medieval studies, reconstructing cultural semantics with the aim of demonstrating the conditions under which meaning is produced and recorded, hoping to reveal the self-understandings of a culture (2000, 9 – 11, 24– 25); Giacomo Todeschini identified the implementation of historical semantics as a viable approach for investigations into the early medieval economy (1994, 15). However, although more detailed examinations of certain concepts within semantic fields has now been recognized as a way out of the earlier research problems (Kuchenbuch and Kleine 2006, 11), and even though systematic studies using semantic approaches are becoming increasingly popular,⁵ this methodology has not yet been applied to the question of what medieval contemporaries might have understood by the term “market”. An investigation of contemporary lexemes is not only capable of countering the danger of transferring modern circumstances onto past ones. It can also help to develop a double perspective that takes into account not only the economic meanings of the term “market” but also philosophical, theological, or political meanings of the concept that existed in early medieval understandings (Toneatto 2010, 78). Such a method can be used for analysing the kinds of actions that were considered to be market exchange in the early Middle Ages: only if we figure out what contemporaries actually meant when they used the term “market” will we be able to ascertain who can be classified as an agent of this market at all. This can be achieved by going back to the sources. Former assumptions of an ostensible paucity of sources for

 While Jussen (2004, 97) and Todeschini (1999, 597) had to bemoan the sparse number of studies devoted to methods of historical semantics within medieval studies, the situation has meanwhile changed decisively, since opposing trends can be discerned. Recent studies applying semantic approaches include Bon and Guerreau-Jalabert (2002); Guerreau-Jalabert and Bon (2010); Busch (2007); Geelhaar (2015); Guerreau (1997, 2001, 2006); Guerreau-Jalabert (1995, 1997); Jussen (1997, 2000, 2003, 2004, 2006); Krauth (1984); Morsel (1997); Perreaux (2013, 2014); Rosé (2010); Todeschini (1998, 1999, 2000); Toneatto (2004).

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research on the early medieval economy (Claude 1985, 9 – 10) are countered here by the observation that new insights can indeed be gained by returning to these sources in a new way. Instead of a consideration focused solely on selectively chosen types of sources,⁶ the aim has to be to uncover contemporary understandings of “market” based on a more comprehensive and representative source basis and on an investigation of the collocations of the Latin terms mercatus, forum, and nundinae ⁷ that emerge and that can be identified as characteristic. In this way, it will be possible to acquire a closer insight into the intellectual traditions of this time. The analysis of the market terminology in a broad variety of sources such as charters and letters, capitularies and leges, but also historiographical, hagiographical, theological, and philosophical writings, as well as poetry and epitaphs, is indispensable for such a study; only in this way can a more precise approach to contemporary understandings of “market” be achieved. In the following sections, the various dimensions of meaning of “market” that can be traced in the sources through the application of collocational semantics are presented systematically (sections 1– 2.4); finally, an answer to the question of how these dimensions are to be interpreted will be proposed (section 3).

1 Early medieval definitions of “market” and the connotations of the market with tumult, disorder, and sin Given the considerable attention paid so far to the topic of the market in the Middle Ages, it is surprising that the existence of medieval definitions of the term “market” has not yet been investigated. Instead, scholars tend to propose their own definitions.⁸ Indeed, only a few medieval definitions of the Latin terms  Previous rearch on markets in the early Middle Ages has often been limited to diplomatic sources (see for example Endemann 1964; Irsigler 1999); this kind of concentration has already been criticized (see Mitterauer 1967, 317; Verhulst 1993, 33).  The existence of various terms was interpreted by Irsigler as an indication of an undefined terminology of markets in the sources; in his opinion, a more differentiated Latin terminology of markets did not develop until the end of the Carolingian period (see Irsigler 1999, 8; 2007, 3; and, following him, Bleiber 1981, 121).  See Bücher (1910, 117): “Markt ist das Zusammentreffen zahlreicher Käufer und Verkäufer an einem bestimmten Orte zu bestimmter Zeit. Mag derselbe sich an Kultfeste und Volksversammlungen anschließen, mag er der günstigen Verkehrslage folgen, immer ist er eine Gelegenheit, wo Produzent und Konsument mit ihren entgegengesetzten Tauschbedürfnissen einander gegenü-

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for “market” (mercatus, forum, and nundinae)⁹ have been preserved. The definitions given by Isidore of Seville are of significant importance, not only because of the wide dissemination of his writings but also because only Isidore undertakes a differentiation between the three terms. He describes the etymological provenance of the terms commercium and mercatus, characterizes the latter as a gathering of many people who buy and sell things,¹⁰ and defines nundinae as public meetings for trade.¹¹ In contrast to his discussion of mercatus and nundinae, Isidore refers to various meanings of the term forum. ¹² Similar references to the same meanings of the term forum can also be found in the excerpts of Paul the Deacon in De verborum significatione by Sextus Pompeius Festus¹³ as well as in the grammatical writings of Sedulius Scotus.¹⁴ This suggests not only some continuity in the use of the terms but also that the various Latin terms could berstehen, und er ist das in der Hauptsache bis auf den heutigen Tag geblieben”; see also Jeggle (2004, 109): “Ein Markt ist […] ein räumlich und zeitlich festgelegter Ort, an dem Waren ge- und verkauft werden. Die Preisbildung wird durch Angebot und Nachfrage geregelt. Die kommunale Obrigkeit sichert auf verschiedene Weise den Betrieb des Marktes: Sie kontrolliert Qualität und Preise von Grundnahrungsmitteln und sie gewährleistet Marktfreiheit und -gerechtigkeit, indem sie Geschäfte außerhalb des Marktes unterbindet (Vor- und Aufkauf im Umfeld des Marktes), Ware mit Qualitätsmitteln sanktioniert und Störungen des Marktfriedens verfolgt, sowie zur Schlichtung und Aufsicht ein besonderes Marktgericht bestellt.” Other proposals for definitions of “markets” are undertaken by Freitag (2013, 39 – 40); Irsigler (1989, 65; 1995, 161).  Suggestions for the interpretation of the terms are made by Büttner (1962, 33); Dilcher (1985, 398); Ennen (1987, 65); Fiebiger Bang (2008, 140); Frayn (1993, 2); Holleran (2012, 159); de Ligt (1993, 48); de Ligt and de Neeve (1988, 395); Loseby (2006, 94); Pitz (1979, 28).  See Isidore of Seville, Etymologiae, 5.25.35: “Commercium dictum a mercibus, quo nomine res venales appellamus. Unde mercatus dicitur coetus multorum hominum, qui res venere vel emere solent.”  See Isidore of Seville, Etymologiae, 5.33.14: “Nonae a nundinis vocatae. Nundinae enim sunt publicae conventiones sive mercimonia.”  See Isidore of Seville, Etymologiae, 15.6.8: “Sed hoc nomen multa significat: prima species fori locus in civitate ad exercandas nundindas relictus; secunda, ubi magistratus iudicare solet; tertia, quem supra diximus, quem calcatorium nominavimus. Quarta, spatia plana in navibus, de quibus Vergilius (Aen. 6, 416): ‘Laxatque foros.’”  See Sextus Pompeius Festus, De verborum significatione, 6.84: “Forum sex modis intellegitur. Primo negotiationis locus, ut forum Flaminium, forum Iulium, ab corum nominibus, qui ea fora constitenda curarunt; quod etiam locis privatis et in viis et in agris fieri solet. Alio, in quo iudicia fieri, cum populo agi, conciones haberi solent. Tertio, quum is, qui provinciae praeest, forum agere dicitur, quum civitates vocat et de controversiis eorum cognoscit. Quarto, quum id forum antiqui appellabat, quod nunc vestibulum sepulcri dicari solet. Quinto, locus in navi, sed tum masculini generis est et plurale. Sexto fori significant et Circensia spectacula, ex quibus etiam minores forulos dicimus. Inde et forare, foras dare, et fores, foras et foreculae, id est ostolo, dicuntur.”  See Sedulius Scotus, In Donati artem maiorem, 2.207.14, 45.

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have weighted the multiple aspects of the market differently. While the term mercatus seems to be more closely connected to aspects of trade, the term forum can be associated with the market as a public space. Especially this understanding of the market as public space played a central role in the early medieval understanding of “market”. In the writings of the Church Fathers, the aspects of trade were already less important than the character of the market as a public space. In particular, elements of trivial activity, leisure, idleness, and the emptiness of the conversations of people sitting on the marketplace and staring around were described.¹⁵ John Chrysostom complained that the conversations of the people on the market dealt with not wise subjects but instead with the results of chariot races¹⁶ and jokes;¹⁷ in a similar way, Basil of Caesarea evoked earlier times when the market was filled with the conversations of wise men.¹⁸ These ideas go back to ancient traditions. In The Knights, Aristophanes already thematized people sitting together at the market and talking about empty things,¹⁹ while Plato characterized the triviality of such conversations as a typical feature of uneducated people.²⁰ In Aristophanes’ Frogs, Aeschylos reproached Euripides for having been responsible for the transformation of people into loafers.²¹ According to Pliny, Cato tried to counteract this laziness in the forum by covering the forum with small, pointed pebbles²² because he strongly condemned idleness as contrary to productivity.²³ The Platonic characterization of laziness as the cause of τυραννίς,²⁴ which Plato understood as the converse of the intellectual leisure that was necessary for think-

 See John Chrysostom, Homiliae in Acta apostolorum, 35.5 (PG 60, col. 257).  See John Chrysostom, Ad populum Antiochenum homiliae, 10.1 (PG 49, col. 111), Homiliae in Johannem, 32.3 (PG 59, col. 187).  See John Chrysostom, In epistulam ad Ephesios commentarius, 17.3 (PG 62, col. 119).  See Basil of Caesarea, Epistulae, 74.  See Aristophanes, Equites, 1375 – 1380: “τὰ μειράκια ταυτὶ λέγω τἀν τῷ μύρῳ, / ἃ στωμυλεῖται τοιαδὶ καθήμενα: / ‘σοφός γ᾽ ὁ Φαίαξ δεξιῶς τ᾽ οὐκ ἀπέθανεν. / συνερτικὸς γάρ ἐστι καὶ περαντικός, / καὶ γνωμοτυπικὸς καὶ σαφὴς καὶ κρουστικός, / καταληπτικός τ᾽ ἄριστα τοῦ θορυβητικοῦ.’”  See Plato, Protagoras, 347c.  See Aristophanes, Ranae, 1013 – 1017: “σκέψαι τοίνυν οἵους αὐτοὺς παρ᾽ ἐμοῦ παρεδέξατο πρῶτον, / εἰ γενναίους καὶ τετραπήχεις, καὶ μὴ διαδρασιπολίτας, / μηδ᾽ ἀγοραίους μηδὲ κοβάλους ὥσπερ νῦν μηδὲ πανούργους, / ἀλλὰ πνέοντας δόρυ καὶ λόγχας καὶ λευκολόφους τρυφαλείας / καὶ πήληκας καὶ κνημῖδας καὶ θυμοὺς ἑπταβοείους.”  See Pliny the Elder, Naturalis historia, 19.6.  See Cato, Orationum reliquiae, fragm. 289, Charis., 256.23 (Oratorum romanorum fragmenta): “Tu otiosus ambulas […]!”  See Plato, Politeia, 582a.

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ing and thus legitimate,²⁵ served Aristotle to differentiate between simple pastimes of simple men (παιδιά) and the cultural education of the educated (παιδεία).²⁶ But the close association of markets with trivial actions and with common people of little education was not the only reason that marketplaces were characterized as locations that a philosopher²⁷ or a devout Christian should avoid.²⁸ In both the thinking of the Church Fathers and in early medieval understandings, the market not only represents a place of multitudo, a place of crowds²⁹ and noise, but is above all characterized as tumultuosus,³⁰ which is why the idea of the market was closely connected with disorder.³¹ For Ambrose of Milan, this included the presence not only of unhealthy leisure but also of injustice, jealousy, or fraud, which are all opposed to Christian values; places like the forum, where Christ (who was no circumforaneus) could not be found, were thus to be avoided.³² This direct connection between the market and vices or sins was assumed not only because late antique and early medieval sources characterize the mar-

 See Plato, Theaitetos, 143a–b, Phaidon, 58d, Phaidros, 227b, Nomoi, 635b–d.  See Aristotle, Politika, 7.1334a20: “καὶ ἀνδρείαν καὶ καρτερικήν: κατὰ γὰρ τὴν παροιμίαν, οὐ σχολὴ δούλοις, οἱ δὲ μὴ δυνάμενοι κινδυνεύειν ἀνδρείως δοῦλοι τῶν ἐπιόντων εἰσίν. ἀνδρείας μὲν οὖν καὶ καρτερίας δεῖ πρὸς τὴν ἀσχολίαν, φιλοσοφίας δὲ πρὸς τὴν σχολήν, σωφροσύνης δὲ καὶ δικαιοσύνης ἐν ἀμφοτέροις τοῖς χρόνοις […].”  See Plato, Theaitetos, 173c–d.  See John Chrysostom, Homiliae in Johannem, 61.3 (PG 60, col. 111), Homiliae in 1. Cor., 8.5 (PG 61, col. 74).  See Vita Boniti episcopi Arverni, 138§40.  See Ausonius, Eclogae, 19: “Quod vitae sectabor iter, si plena tumultu sunt fora, si cura domus ancia, si peregrinos cura domus sequitur, mercantem si nova semper damna manent, cessare vetat si turpis egestas, si vexat labor agricolam, mare naufragus horror infamat, poenaeque graves in caelibe vita et gravior cautis custodia vana maritis, sanguinum si Martis opus, si turpia lucra faenoris et velox inopes usure trucidat?”; see also Hilary of Poitiers, Commentarius in Matthaeum, 20.5, col. 1029: “[…] forum autem pro saeculo accipi res admonet aequabiliter turbis hominum, calumniarium, iniurariumque contentionibus, et diversorum negotiorum semper tumultuosum.”  See John Chrysostom, Homiliae in Johannem, 3.5 (PG 59, col. 44).  See Ambrose of Milan, De virginitate, 46: “Non in foro, non in plateis Christus reperitur. Denique nec illa eum in foro et in plateis potuit reperire, quae dixit: ‘exsurgam, ibo et circuibo civitatem, in foro et in plateis, et quaeram quem dilexit anima mea. Quesivi eum, et non obaudivit me.’ Nequaquam igitur queramus Christum ubi invenire non possumus. Non est Christus circumforaneus. Christum enim pax est, in foro lites: Christus iustitia est, in foro iniquitas: Christus operator est, in foro inane otium: Christus caritas est, in foro obtrectio: Christus fide est, in foro idola […] Fugiamus ergo forum, fugiamus plateas.”

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ketplace as a place where iniquitous people³³ and sins³⁴ were concentrated, but also because these vices were regarded as central features of trade in general. Tertullian characterized cupiditas as the cause and purpose of the acquisitions of merchants, who strive only for worldly and therefore erroneous aspirations.³⁵ In the course of assessing cupiditas as the root of all evil³⁶ and of defining acquisition as idolatry, he even concluded that with the elimination of these motivations, for Christians there was no longer any need for trade.³⁷ This contradicted the statements of his Apologeticum, in which he argued against the accusation that Christians were harming the economic life of Carthage with their behaviour: in this work, Tertullian emphasized the participation of Christians in commercial

 See Tertullian, De pallio, 4.9: “Sed alius extinguit sua lumina, alius non sua accendit: aspice lupas, popularium libidinum nundinas, ipsas quoque iam frictrices, et si praestat oculos abducere ab huiusmodi propudiis occisae in publico castitatis, aspice tamen vel sublimis: iam matronae videbis.” This description goes back to earlier traditions. See Plautus, Curculio, 462, Epidicus, 198, Truculentus, 67; Varro, Satires ménippées, 456.  See Cyprian of Carthage, Ad Donatum, 10: “Sed tibi post insidiosas vias, post dispersas orbe toto multiplices pugnas, post spectacula vel cruenta vel turpia, post libidinum probra vel lupanaribus prostituta vel domesticis parietibus obsaepta, quorum quo secretior culpa, maior audacia est, forum fortasse videatur immune, quod ab iniuriis lacessentibus liberum nullis malorum contactibus polluatur. Illuc aciem tuam flecte: plura illic quae detesteris invenies, magis oculos tuos inde devertes. Incisae sint leges duodecim tabulis et publico aere praefixo iura proscripta sint: inter leges ipsas delinquitur, inter iura peccatur, innocentia nec illic, ubi defenditur, reservatur. Saevit invicem discordantium rabies et inter togas pace rupta forum litibus mugit insanum. […] Flagrant ubique delicta et passim multiformi genere peccandi per improbas mentes nocens virus operatur. Hic testamentum usbicit, ille falsum capitali fraude conscribit: hic arcentur hereditatibus liberi, illic bonis donantur alieni: inimicus insimulat, calumniator inpugnat, testis infamat. Utrubique grassatur in mendacium criminum prostitutae vocis venalis audacia, cum interim nocentes nec cum innocentibus pereunt. Nullus de legibus metus est […] Esse iam inter nocentes innoxium crimen est: malos quisquis non imitatur offentit. Consensare iura peccatis et coepit licitum esse quod publicum est. Quis illic rerum pudor, quae esse possit integritas, ubi qui damnent improbos desunt soli tibi qui damnentur, occurrunt?”  See Tertullian, Ad uxorem, 1.5.4.  See Tertullian, De patientia, 7.5, as well as John Chrysostom, Homiliae in Johannem, 28.3 (PG 59, col. 166), Adversus oppugnatores vitae monasticae, 3.6 – 8 (PG 47, col. 347), De laude Maximi et quales ducenda uxores, 3.4 (PG 51, col. 231), Homiliae in Genesim, 20.5 (PG 53, col. 173), following 1 Tim. 6:10.  See Tertullian, De idolatria, 11.1: “De generationibus si cetera delictorum recogitemus, inprimis cupiditatem radicem omnium malorum, qua quidam inretiti circa fidem naufragium sunt passi, cum his et idololatria ab eodem apostolo dicta sit cupiditas, tum mendacium cupiditatis ministrum – taceo de periurio, quando ne iurare quidem liceat – negotiatio servo dei apta est? Ceterum si cupiditas abscedat, quae est causa adquirendi? Cessante causa adquirendi non erit necessitas negotiandi.”

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activities (commerciis) and allowed them to visit fora and nundinae. ³⁸ Tertullian’s identification of cupiditas with idolatry ultimately meant an equation of cupiditas with non-belief, and it was exactly this idea that became influential in early medieval thought. Hincmar of Rheims replaced the traditional idea of a difference between cupiditas and avaritia; instead, based on Augustine, he assumed an accordance of cupiditas with avaritia. ³⁹ In early medieval discourse, the Augustinian identification of avaritia with amor pecuniae,⁴⁰ the desire for more, was directly related to unjust gain in commercial activities, which were characterized by Caesarius of Arles⁴¹ as earthly and transient.⁴² Therefore, cupiditas could signify the love of luxuria, which represented a part of sinful superbia. ⁴³ Pride was also regarded as the cause of original sin.⁴⁴ Theodulf of Orleans understood pride as the beginning of any sin because it signified apostasy from God; unlike the devout, haughty people paid a high price, since they gained no eter-

 See Tertullian, Apologeticum, 42.1– 3: “Sed alio adhoc iniuriarum titulo postulamur, et infructuosi negotiis dicimur. Quo pacto homines vobiscum degentes, eiusdem victus, habitus, instructus, eiusdem ad vitam necessitatis? Neque enim Brachmanae aut Indorum gymnosophistae sumus, silvicolae et exsules vitae. Meminimus gratiam debere nos deo domino creatori: nullum fructum operum eius repudiamus, plane temperamus, ne ultra modum aut perperam utamur [cf. 1 Tim 4:4]. Itaque non sine foro, non sine macello, non sine balneis, tabernis, officinis, stabulis, nundinis vestris ceterisque commerciis cohabitamus hoc saeculum […] Quomodo infructuosi videmur negotiis vestris, cum quibus et de quibus vivimus, nescio.” In constrast to Drexhage (1981, 28), who, against the background of Tertullian’s remarks in De idolatria assumes that Christians actually kept themselves away from the economic life of the city, Schöllgen (1982, 4– 9) points out that for Tertullian the only thing to be said is that activities should be avoided which could in some way serve idolatry, such as the incense trade; therefore, Tertullian’s remarks in De idolatria did not, according to Schöllgen, contradict the Apology.  See Hincmar of Reims, Epistulae, 33, col. 248a; see Augustine, De libero arbitrio, 3.17.8. On Hincmar’s usage of the terms cupiditas, avaritia, and turpe lucrum, see Calvet (2010).  See Augustine, De genesi ad litteram, 11.16.19: “Cui testimonio non inconvenienter aptatur etiam illud quod Apostolus ait: Radix omnium malorum est avaritia; si avaritiam generalem intellegamus, qua quisque appetit aliquid amplius quam oportet, propter excellentiam suam, et quemdam propriae rei amorem: cui sapienter nomen latina lingua indidit, cum appellavit privatum, quod potius a detrimento quam ab incremento dictum elucet. Omnis enim privatio minuit. Unde itaque vult eminere superbia inde in angustias egestatemque contruditur, cum ex communi ad proprium damnoso sui amore redigitur. Specialis est autem avaritia, quae usitatius appellatur amor pecuniae. Cuius nomine Apostolus per speciem genus significans, universalem avaritiam volebat intellegi dicendo: Radix omnium malorum est avaritia”; furthermore, see Augustine, Enarrationes in Psalmos, Ps. 118, sermo 1.6.  On the assessment of wealth of Caesarius of Arles, see Filippov (2010).  See Caesarius of Arles, Sermones, 41.1, 43.4, 225.2, 13.2, 1.19, 159.1, 74.1, 163.2, 173.5, 184.3.  See Casarius of Arles, Sermones, 8.4, 82.3, Expositio in Apocalypsin, 1.3, 1.5.  See Hincmar of Reims, Explanatio in ferculum Salomonis, cols 829 – 830.

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nal treasure.⁴⁵ The close association of the deadly sins with commercial activities in early medieval thought and the allocation of values opposed to Christian concerns to the marketplace led to a negative connotation of the market in general. In the theological discourse, this negative connotation of the market could be accompanied by the idea of an incompatibility of the market with a Christian way of life that required humility. These ideas were not confined to theoretical contexts, but also had a very tangible influence on social practices. Numerous indications of this can be found in sections of the Carolingian capitularies⁴⁶ dealing with misconduct by the clergy.⁴⁷ In particular, the participation of members of the clergy in commercial activities was criticized. One reason for this was an inability to reconcile these activities with the conscientious fulfilment of pastoral duties to communities. Instead of devoting themselves to secular business, clerics were supposed to fulfil their spiritual duties.⁴⁸ Even though a part of the clergy was tempted to take up commercial activities due to adverse financial circumstances,⁴⁹ episcopal capitularies regarded clerics who went to markets and conducted commercial transactions above all as pursuing propriis delectationibus et vanitatibus contrary to Christian piety. The absence of clerics caused by their participation in any kind of market activities could, in the worst case, result in churches that were neglected or even in people dying without receiving the last rites. For this reason, the capitularies advise that priests should not be allowed to visit markets without the consent of their bishop.⁵⁰ Apart from commercial activities for their own purposes of pecuniae ambitio, it was primarily the pursuit of idleness, insignificant conversations, and reunions with acquaintances that were perceived at early me See Theodulf of Orleans, Fragmentum de vitiis capitalibus, 185 – 210.  On the capitularies, see Brommer (1980, 1985); Campbell (1996).  A detailed analysis of clerical misconduct in the early Middle Ages was undertaken by Noethlichs (1990).  See Caesarius of Arles, Sermones, 1.6, 1.8; Concilium Arelatense (442/506), 14 (Concilia Galliae a.314 – 506, pp. 131– 134); Concilium Turonense (461), 13 (Concilia Galliae a.314 – 506, pp. 142– 148); Concilium Agathense (506), 17 (Concilia Galliae a.314 – 506, pp. 189 – 160); Concilium Aurelianense (538), 30 (MGH Concilia 1, pp. 72– 85); Concilium Clippiacense (626/627), 1 (Concilia Galliae a.511 – 695, pp. 290 – 297).  On the social status of the clergy in the early Middle Ages in general, see Krause (2006). Explicit mention of a noble descent of some members of the clergy can be found in Gregory of Tours, Liber in gloria martyrum, 1.84, Liber in vitae patrum, 8.1. On economic damage suffered by churches that was reimbursed from the personal assets of the clergy, see Concilium Agathense (506), 26 (Concilia Galliae a.314 – 506, pp. 189 – 230); on the prohibition of wearing precious clothes among clerics, see Concilium Narbonnense (589), 1 (Concilia Galliae a.511 – 695, pp. 253 – 257); on the latter, see Gresser (2015).  See Capitula Neustrica prima, 13 (MGH Capitula Episcoporum 3, p. 56).

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dieval councils as possible reasons for clerics to visit markets.⁵¹ In fact, in the royal and episcopal capitularies, markets and the pursuit of turpia lucra were often mentioned together with quite specific forms of pleasure – namely visiting women, participating in banquets, and consuming alcohol – that were associated with luxuria. ⁵² This behaviour was not only held to harm clerical dignity but was also considered to be inappropriate for clerics, who were to be role models for the community; instead, with their habits they were said to promote irreparable damage to the souls of the laity.⁵³ This assessment of the negotia saecularia as huius mundi vanas delicias is particularly clear in the capitulary of Radulf of

 See Les Statuta ecclesiae antiqua, 28, 34; Concilium Narbonnense (589), 3 (Concilia Galliae a.314 – 506, p. 253); Caesarius of Arles, Sermones, 74.1– 4.  See Concilium Turonense (461), 2 (Concilia Galliae a.314 – 506, pp. 142– 148); Concilium Veneticum (461/491), 13 (Concilia Galliae a.314 – 506, pp. 150 – 158); Concilium Agathense (506), 41 (Concilia Galliae a.314 – 506, pp. 189 – 230); Concilium Matisconense (585), 6 (MGH Concilia 1, p. 167); Caesarius of Arles, Sermones, 55.4; Gregory of Tours, Liber in gloria martyrum, 1.86, Libri de virtutibus sancti Martini, 3.38, Liber in gloria confessorum, 64, Libri historiarum decem, 7.47, 8.34, 10.14.  See Concilium Aquisgranense (836), 8 (MGH Concilia 2.2, p. 712); Additamenta ad Hludowici Pii capitularia, no. 196, ch. 13 (MGH Capitularia Regum Francorum 2, p. 33): “Similiter de illis presbiteris, qui contra statuta canonum villici fiunt, tabernas ingrediuntur, turpia lucra sectantur et diversissimis modis usuris inserviunt et aliorum domos inhoneste ac inpudice frequentant et comessationibus et ebrietatibus derservire non erubescunt et per diversos mercatus indiscrete discurrunt, observandum iudicavimus, ut abhinc districte severiterque coerceantur, ne per eorum inclitem et indecentem actionem et ministerium sacerdotale vituperetur et, quibus debuerant esse in exemplum, fiant in scandalum”; Capitulae Franciae occidentalis, 3.8 (MGH Capitula Episcoporum 3, p. 44): “Presbiteros tabernas non ingredi debere, scriptura sancta manifeste denuntiat et non solum presbiteros, sed omnes laicos ab hoc contubernio repellere certat. Quis nesciat, quod in loco tali nihil umquam audiet, quod aedificet, sed potius quod condempnet? Ibi sonant adversantium hominum inter se iurgia, ibi lites ex parvissimis rebus solent exoriri grandes […] Et est simile malum mercatus publicos adire sacerdotes, quia numquam lesione anime inde revertetur, qui talibus vacuitatibus inaniter operam dederit. Ideo praecipimus, ut nullus sacerdotum ad tabernas aut ad forum publicum accedere praesumat, si ministerium suum pro hoc amittere non vult”; Atto of Vercelli, Capitula, 43 (MGH Capitula Episcoporum 3, p. 280): “Clerici per plateas vel andronas aut nundines non ambulent et ad forum vel tabernas non accedant absque certa corporis vel officii sui necessitate vel si fuerint peregrinatione conpulsi, nec ibi commedere aut bibere praesummant”; Capitula Sangallensia, 3 (MGH Capitula Episcoporum 3, p. 116): “Quod si forte aliquis […] quoquo modo existiterit – scilicet ebrietati deditus, si contubernio feminarum assuetus, si prodigus, si moribus incomptus […] si nondenis vel mercatis sedulus absque necessitatis causa discurrendo vel in aliquo, unde represehensibilis digne videri possit, quod minime decet – volumus […] se corrigere […]”; Herard of Tours, Capitula, 43 (MGH Capitula Episcoporum 2, p. 137): “Ut presbiteri per mercata non discurrunt nec indiscrete domos circumeant et commessationibus non inserviant, ne famam male opinionis incurrant”; see Capitula Neustrica secunda, 7 (MGH Capitula Episcoporum 3, p. 60).

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Bourges.⁵⁴ These determinations in the capitularies cannot be traced back simply to an effort to isolate priests from the laity, as Van Rhijn (2006, 225) asserts. As can be seen from the praefatio to the capitulary of Theodulf of Orleans, the overarching purpose here is to improve Christian life. The clergy’s misconduct, in his view, not only impairs this but even endangers the spiritual salvation of each individual.⁵⁵ The close connection of the physical marketplace with sins in patristic and early medieval sources led to a connection of the idea of a market with sins that were seen as contradictory to an appropriate Christian way of life. A direct connection between “market” and laziness, noise, turmoil, disorder, and the presence of vices and sins was not confined to theological discourse but also affected sociopolitical realities, as manifested in the provisions of the Carolingian capitularies, which in certain respects served the objective of a re-establishment of order.

2 The sacrum commercium and its agents It would, however, be inappropriate to assume that the early medieval understandings of the market were limited to these negative connotations of the real marketplace as a site of turmoil, crowds of common people, laziness, and an abundance of sin. Thus, the assumption of the older research that, especially in the writings of the Church Fathers, a fundamentally negative attitude towards economic activities in the marketplace was advocated (Brants 1895; Garnier 1900; Schaub 1908; Seipel 1907) cannot easily be confirmed. On the contrary, a wider survey indicates that the term “market” included other dimensions of meaning that, moreover, suggest that the early medieval understanding of “market” cannot be reduced to the idea of a concrete marketplace.

 See Radulf of Bourges, Capitula, 18 (MGH Capitula Episcoporum 1, p. 247): “Observandum est sacerdotibus, ut se ab ebrietate abstineant, quoniam secundum scripturam ebrietas nullum vitium excusat. Et apostolus commonet dicens: ‘Nolite inebriari vino, in quo est luxuria’ [cf. Eph. 5:18]. Et neque per tabernas eant bibendo aut comedendo neque domos aut villas curiositate qualibet peragrent aut cum feminis vel quibuslibet impuris personis convivia exerceant. Neque comessationibus et ceteris pestibus et ad forum vel mercatum nullatenus vadant neque ad saeculare iudicium pergant […] Carnis quoque voluptatem et negotia saecularia et vanas huius mundi delicias, impudica convivia, vana spectacula, mortiferas huius saeculi pompas […] et omnia mortalia peccata et, si qua sunt similia, monemus, ut refugiant, quoniam secundum apostolum [cf. 2 Tim. 2:4]: Nemo militans deo implicat se negotiis saecularibus, ut ei placeat, cui se probavit […].”  See Theodulf of Orleans, Capitula, 1.praef (MGH Capitula Episcoporum 1, p. 103).

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When certain forms of negotia are described as saecularia and characterized as huius mundi vanas delicias in the capitulary of Radulf of Bourges, this did not refer solely to the involvement of members of the clergy in secular fields of activity. Rather, in early medieval thought, these earthly market activities were quite consciously distinguished from other forms of market exchange, namely those of the heavenly market. In early medieval sources, no other collocations occur in the same sentence and paragraph in connection with the terms mercatus, forum, and nundinae as frequently as those of heaven and earth. Giacomo Todeschini noted the existence of a linguistic system in medieval writing that was characterized by an opposition between heaven and earth (1994, 15). He associated this phenomenon with a mutual relationship between earthly economic practice and its transcendental, heavenly dimension (Todeschini 1994, 122– 123; following Todeschini, see Toneatto 2004, 6; O’Malley 1970, 191). But how exactly can the close connotation of the term “market” with the seemingly contradictory dimensions of heaven and earth be explained? And what insights can this contribute to the study of early medieval conceptions of the market and its agents?

2.1 Christus mercator and sacrum commercium A hint that could explain the occurrence of these characteristic collocations is provided in the definition of mercatus by Isidore of Seville mentioned above, where the market is defined as a gathering of people to buy and sell any things. Similarly, Augustine had already specified the purpose of markets, but with the crucial difference that commercia for him were not a form of buying and selling but an exchange of goods in which people who owned goods exchanged them for ones they did not possess.⁵⁶ This understanding of commercium, however, was not solely focused on the movement of goods; even in classical sources, commercium appeared rather as a term for describing very different forms of exchange.⁵⁷ In particular, it was used to illustrate the contact of the human sphere

 See Augustine, Sermones, 80.5, col. 496: “Mercantes homines veniunt ad commercia, ad res mutandas. Nam antiqua commercia rerum mutatio fuit. Dabat homino quod habebat, et accipeat, quod non habebat.”  On commercium as an expression for linguistic exchange, see Livy, Ab urbe condita, 1.18.3, 9.35.5; Ovid, Tristia, 3.11.9, 5.10.35, 5.7.61; Quintus Curtius Rufus, Historiae Alexandri Magni, 5.5.19, 6.3.8, 7.5.33; on commercium as a term for conversation, see Livius, Ab urbe condita, 5.15.4; Pliny the Elder, Naturalis historia, 5.45, 6.91, 6.2; on commercium as a term for written communication, see Velleius Paterculus, Historia romana 2.54.1; Seneca, Ad Lucilium epistulae mo-

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with the divine sphere.⁵⁸ This understanding of commercium as an exchange between the terrestrial and the divine, between heaven and earth, was first defined by Marcus Manilius as a sacrum commercium in the first century.⁵⁹ The understanding of the sacrum commercium as an exchange between heaven and earth was of overarching significance in medieval theology and therefore had quite a strong impact on the medieval conception of the market. The person of Jesus played a central role in this because a direct exchange between heaven and earth, God and man, was made possible by the dual nature of Christ, as Petrus Chrysologus wrote.⁶⁰ With the commercium Dei cum carne, a terrenis cum coelestibus parentela was produced in the person of Jesus himself.⁶¹ This concept, which was widely adopted in the early Middle Ages, does not just refer to commercium in the sense of an exchange; in this context, commercium is rather thought of as a form of barter. In this barter, which is made possible by the dual nature of Christ and which was understood as a barter of passion (commercio suae redemi passionis),⁶² the passion of Christ functions as an exchange that redeems mankind and releases it from eternal death.⁶³ Here, Christ appears as a negotiator caelestis, or bonus mer-

rales, 38.1; on commercium as an expression for contact with muses, see Cicero, Tusculanae disputationes, 5.66.  See Ovid, Ars amatoria, 547– 552.  See Marcus Manilius: Astronomica, 2.115 – 125: “Quis caelum posset nisi caeli muneri nosse, / et reperire deum, nisi qui pars ipse deorum est? / Quisve hanc convexi molem sine fine patentis / signorumque choros ac mundi flammea tecta, / aeternum et stellis adversus sidera bellum / [ac terras caeloque fretum subiectaque utrisque] / cernere et angusto sub pectore claudere posset, / ni sanctos animis oculos natura dedisset / cognatamque sibi mentem vertisset ad ipsam / et tantum dictasset opus, caeloque veniret / quod vocat in caelum sacra ad commercia rerum?”  See Petrus Chrysologus, Sermones, 160 (“De epiphania et magis”), col. 620: “Unde magus qui scrutari non valet, capere non potest, mox adorat; videt enim non sic lucere in coelo stellas, lunam, solem, qualiter illuxisse carnem contemplatur in terris; videt in uno eodemque corpore divinitatis et humanis convenisse commercium […].”  See Petrus Chrysologus, Sermones, 140 (“De annuntiatione beatae Mariae virginis”), col. 577: “[…] pavet coelum, tremunt angeli, creatura non sustinet, natura non sufficit, una puella, sic Deum in sui pectoris capit, recipit, oblectat hospitio, ut pacem terris, coelis gloriam, salutem perditis, vitam mortuis, terrenis cum coelestibus parentelam, ipsius Dei cum carne commercium, pro ipsa domus exigat pensione, pro ipsius uteri mercede conquirat, et impleat illud prophetae: Ecce hereditas Domini, filii fructus ventris. Sed iam se concludat ut de partu Virginis, donante Deo, et indulgente tempore, gratius proloquamur”; similarly, see Petrus Chrysologus, Sermones, 72 (“In orationem dominicam”), cols 404– 405.  See Gelasius, Epistulae, 94.24, col. 365.  See Paulinus of Nola, Carmina, 10.52– 57: “Mortalitatis vitae nostrae et mors necis, / magister hic virtutium; / deusque nobis atque pro nobis homo / nos induendo se exuit / aeterna iungens homines inter et deum, / in utrumque se commercia.”

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cator, who, within the framework of divina commercia, exchanged something human for something divine, earthly for heavenly goods. It was Augustine who defined these goods precisely: birth, suffering, and death are characterized as earthly goods that were exchanged by the heavenly merchant for heavenly goods, since every merchant gives what he has and receives what he does not have.⁶⁴ In the context of this exchange, which is based on the divine and human nature of Christ,⁶⁵ Jesus not only serves as bonus mercator; the exchange of earthly and heavenly goods, the divinum commercium, takes place at the cost of the blood of Christ, who, according to Chromatius of Aquileia, sells himself in

 See Augustine, Sermones, 130.2, col. 726: “In terris istis, maligno qui abundat, nisi nasci, laborare et mori? […] Haec sunt mercimonia regionis nostrae, isti hic abundat. Ad tales merces mercator ille descendit. Et quoniam omnis mercator dat et accipit; dat, quod habet, et accipit quod non habet; quando aliquid comparat, dat pecuniam, et accipit quod emit: etiam Christus in ista mercatura dedet et accipit. Sed quid accipit? Quod hic abundat, nasci, laborare et mori. Et quid dedit? Renasci, resurgere et in aeternum regnare […]”; see also Augustine, Enarrationes in Psalmos, Ps. 30, sermo 1.3: “Numquid enim possumus pavorem bene intellegere in Christo propinquante passione, qui propter eam venerat? Cum venisset ad quod venerat, numquid pavebat moriturus? Si prorsus ita homo esset, ut Deus non esset, magis gauderet resurrecturus, quam paveret moriturus? Verumtamen quia dignatus est assumere formam servi, et in ea nos vestire se; qui non est dedignatus assumere nos in se, non est dedignatus transfigurare nos in se, et loqui verbis nostris, ut et nos loqueremur verbis ipsius. Haec enim mira commutatio facta est, et divina sunt peracta commercia, mutatio rerum celebrata in hoc mundo a negotiatore coelesti: venit accipere contumelias, dare honores; venit haurire dolorem, dare salutem; venit subire mortem, dare vitam. Moriturus ergo ex eo quod nostrum habebat, non in se, sed in nobis pavebat; quia et hoc dixit, tristem esse animam suam usque ad mortem, et utique nos ipsi omnes cum illo.”  See Augustine, Sermones, 80.5, col. 496: “Mortuus est Deus, ut compensatio fieret coelestis eiusdam mercimonii, ne mortem videret homo. Deus enim Christus, sed non ibi mortuus ubi Deus. Idem enim Deus, idem homo: unus enim Christus, Deus et homo […] Cum ergo Deus esset et homo, volens nos vivere de suo, mortuus est de nostro. Unde enim ipse mercretus non habebat: sed nec nos unde viveremus. Quid enim ille erat, qui non habebat unde moreretur? […] Quaere de Deo unde moriatur, non invenies […] Nec ille ergo potuit habere mortem de suo, nec nos vitam de nostro: sed nos viam de ipsius, ille mortem de nostro. Qualia commercia!”; see furthermore Augustine, Sermones, 233.3, col. 1114: “Quid hic quaeris in terra salutem hanc? Ipsa salus huc venit, et mortem nostram hic invenit. Numquid Dominus noster Jesus Christus, quando venit ad nos in carne, invenit hic salutem istam in regione nostra? Magnum quid huc attulit mercator iste de regione sua veniens: mercator iuste invenit in regione nostra, quod hic abundat. Quid hic abundat? Nasci et mori. Plena est terra his mercibus, nasci et mori. Natus est, et mortuus est. Sed qua via natus est? Ad istam regionem venit, sed non ea via qua et nos venit. De coelo enim venit a Patre. Et tamen natus est mortalis. Natus est de Spiritu sanctu ex virgina Maria […].”

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order to redeem the entire world.⁶⁶ In this way, Jesus is characterized as Christus mercator as well as Christus mercatus, i. e. the merchant as well as the merchandise. Consequently, Petrus Chrysologus is able to characterize the miraculous exchange (admirabile commercium) as a cruel exchange (commercium crudele).⁶⁷ From this perspective, it is not Christ but Judas who is described as mercator; it is no coincidence that the latter was regarded as the most important agent of cupiditas in early medieval sources.⁶⁸ Martin Herz (1958, 195 – 196) pointed out that Augustine had already made a distinction between different types of the sacrum commercium. In some places, the exchange provided by Christ is understood as a kind of purchase; the price of the blood is paid by Jesus as a buyer (emptor) following the objective of redeeming mankind, and the Gospel functions as a deed of purchase.⁶⁹ According to Augustine, mankind must be redeemed from Satan, to whose rule mankind was responsible for exposing itself because of the sin of Adam and Eve.⁷⁰ Tertullian described this act of redemption in the context of his remarks concerning the flight of Christians from persecution, and characterized imitatio Christi as a purchase of heaven at the cost of the earth that had to be carried out by men. This idea ultimately implied that martyrdom should be sought by

 See Chromatius of Aquileia, Tractatus in Matthaeum, 42.402: “Et non dubium est navem istam ecclesiam figurasse secundum quod per Salomonem de ea sanctus spiritus loquitur dicendo: Facta est tamquam navis mercatura longinqua, id est ecclesia quae navigantibus apostolis, gubernante Domino, flante spirito sancto, praedicationis verbo ubique discurrit, portans secum magnum in inaestimabile pretium, quo omne genus hominum, vel potius totum mundum, sanguine Christi mercata est.”  See Petrus Chrysologus, Sermones, 80.8 (“De Christi resurrectione et secunda manifestatione facta mulieribus a monumento regredientibus”), col. 427: “Iudaei vendente Iuda emerunt, ut perderent, Christum. […] Viri sanguinem et dolosi statuunt pretium falsitatis, perfidiae conficiunt instrumentum, commercio crudeli fraudem fide, veritatis latrocinium nundinantur, corrumpunt milites, ut furtum vocent, quod erat resurrectionis archanum.”  See Prudentius, Psychomachia, 533 – 535: “Incidit in nostrum flammante cupidine telum, / infamen mercatus agrum de sanguine amici / numinis, oblisio luiturus iugera collo?” See furthermore De passione ac resurrectione Domini, 9, p. 502: “Iudas, reus mercator, / et impius falsator, / osculum signum dedit, / quando Christum tradidit. / Iam Christus resurrexit!”  See Augustine, Sermones, 130, col. 726: “O bone Mercator, eme nos. Quid dicam, eme nos, cum gratias agere debeamus, quia emisti nos? Pretium nostrorum erogas nobis, sanguinem tuam bibimus; erogas ergo nobis pretium nostrum. Et Evangelium legimus, instrumentum nostrum. Servi tui sumus, creatura tua summa: fecisti nos, redemisti nos. Emere potest quisque servum sum, creare non potest. Dominus autem servos suos et creavit et redemit: creavit, ut essent; redemit, ne semper captivi essent.”  See Augustine, Enarrationes in Psalmos, Ps. 125, sermo 1.

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devout Christians.⁷¹ Sedulius Scotus wrote that the discordia inter caelum et terra et inter deum et hominem that existed since the first sin could only be dissolved at the price of the Passion of Christ.⁷² Both the person Jesus, as an intermediary between God and men, as a celestial merchant who is able to exchange earthly for heavenly goods, and especially the Passion narrative are quite inseparably connected with the idea of barter, but even more with the concept of the market. This fact had direct effects on the early medieval understanding of the market in general, and it also provides a theological explanation for the frequent occurrence of the thematic fields of heaven and earth in close proximity to the Latin market terminology. These ideas also affected definitions of the duty of devout Christians, who, as good mercatores, were also to practise various forms of exchanging earthly for heavenly goods. In this way, the idea of the sacrum commercium had very tangible implications for Christian religious practices as imitatio Christi.

2.2 Martyrdom as negotiatio and the martyr as felix and bonus mercator Already for Tertullian, this imitatio Christi ultimately meant the consent to suffer martyrdom.⁷³ In his opinion, martyrdom meant the necessary completion of Christian life,⁷⁴ because a Christian had to pay the same pretium sanguinis as Jesus himself.⁷⁵ Martyrs thus paid back the salvation of mankind achieved by  See Tertiullian, De fuga in persecutione, 12: “Ut autem redimas hominem tu nummis, quem ex sanguine suo redemit Christus, quam indignum deo et dispositionis eius, qui filio suo non pepercit pro te, ut fieret pro nobis maledictum – quia maledictus, qui pependerit in ligno –, qui tamquam ovis ad victimam ductus est, et tamquam agnus ante tondentem sic non aperuit os, sed posuit dorsum sum in flagella, maxillas autem in palmas et faciem non avertit a sputaminibus autem crucis: totum hoc, ut nos a peccatis lucraretur. Sol cessit die[m] emptionis nostrae: apud inferos remancipatio nostra est et stipulatio nostra in caelis; sublevatae sunt portae sempiternae, ut introiret rex gloriae dominus virtutum, hominem de terris, immo ab inferis mercatus in caelos”; see furthermore Tertullian, Ad uxorem, 2.2.1, 2.3.1, Adversus Marcionem, 5.14.1, De corona militis, 13.4, De patientia, 16.5, De pudicitia, 6.18, De resurrectione carnis, 10.4, 16.14.  See Sedulius Scotus, Collectaneum miscellaneum, 2.46: “Aut quia inter caelum et terra grandis erat discordia, ut tolleret reconciliator, se mediante, scandalum in aera suspenditur, ut, se in medio positum inter caelum et terram et inter Deum et hominem, pax rediret post odium.”  On Tertullian’s idea of martyrdom, see Bähnk (2001).  See Tertullian, De corona militis, 1.4, Scorpiace, 2.1.  See Tertullian, Scorpiace, 9.6. The notion of martyrdom as the most central form of imitatio Christi had already been mentioned before Tertulian. See Eusebius of Caesarea, Historia ecclesiastica, 4.22.4, 5.1.9, 5.2.2, 5.4.2; Ignatius of Antioch, Ad Magnesios, 5.2, Ad Romanos, 4.2, 6.2, Ad

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the passion of Christ;⁷⁶ the payment of the highest price⁷⁷ would be rewarded with compensatio ⁷⁸ that included obtaining the corona aeternitatis, the brabium angelicae substantiae, and the politia in caelis. ⁷⁹ For Tertullian, martyrdom thus represented a duty⁸⁰ in which earthly goods such as gloria terrena,⁸¹ gloria humana,⁸² gloria vana,⁸³ or gloria turpis ⁸⁴ were exchanged for a much higher profit, gloria caelestis et divina merces. ⁸⁵ The acquisition of this heavenly glory was a central purpose for a devout Christian.⁸⁶ This idea of martyrdom as negotiatio can also be found in several medieval hagiographies. In these writings, the idea of Christus mercator, who sells himself to redeem mankind and who, in this way, carries out a sacrum commercium in which death is exchanged for life, plays an important role. In order to emphasize the similarity of the saints with Christ and to demonstrate that they fulfilled the apostolic demand for imitatio Christi like nobody else, it is underlined how they also engaged in a sacrum commercium. Like Christ, the saint is characterized as mercatus;⁸⁷ with the price of blood the saints buy their place in heaven.⁸⁸ But the

Smyrneos, 4.2; Pseudo-Ignatius of Antioch, Martyrium Polycarpi, 17.3, 19.1; Irenaeus of Lyon, Adversus haereses, 3.12.13, 3.18.5; Passio Perpetuae et Felicitatis, 18.9.  See Tertullian, De fuga in persecutione, 9.4, De resurrectione carnis, 8.5, Scorpiace, 13.9, 15, 6.  See Tertullian, Scorpiace, 6.8: “Porro et si fidei propterea congruebat sublimitati et claritatis aliqua prolatio, tale quid esse oportuerat illud emolumenti, quod magno constaret: labore, cruciatu, tormento, morte. Sed respice conpensationem, cum Caro et anima dependitur – quibus in homine carius nihil est, alterum manus dei, alterum flatus – ipsa dependi in profectum quorum est profectus, ipsa erogari quae lucri fiant, eadem pretia quae et merces.”  See Tertullian, Adversus Marcionem, 2.20.3, Apologeticum, 50.15: “Quis non, ubi reuquisivit, accedit, ubi accessit, pati exopta, ut totam dei gratiam redimat, ut omnem veniam ab eo compensatione sanguinis sui expediat?”, De fuga in persecutione, 11.2, Scorpiace, 6.8, 6.11.  See Tertullian, Ad martyres, 3.3: “Proinde vos, benedicti, quodcumque hoc durum est, ad exercitationem virtutum animi et corporis deputate. Bonum agonem subituri estis in quo agonothetes Deus vivus est, xystarches Spiritus Sanctus, corona aeternitatis, brabium angelicae substantiae, politia in caelis, gloria in saecula saeculorum.”  See Tertullian, Ad martyres, 2.6: “Et si aliqua amisistis in vitae gaudia: ‘negotia est aliquid amittere, ut maiora lucreris.’”  See Tertullian, Ad martyres, 4.9.  See Tertullian, Ad nationes, 2.7.5.  See Tertullian, De pallio, 4.6.  See Tertullian, De corona militis, 13.7.  See Tertullian, Ad martyres, 4.9.  See Tertullian, De virginibus velandis, 2.3.  See Venantius Fortunatus, Vita sancti Martini, 4.370 – 375: “Quam merito, Martine, loco conpungeris isto! / Nec poteras exiure aliter, nisi iussa facessis, / inter utrumque nefas mercatus acerba doloris. / Nunc age constanta repara virtutis honorem / et tibi te revoca trepidum, ne noxia frangant, / gloria ne pereat seu prospera lubrica perdant.”

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saints resemble Christ in more than just the payment of the pretium sanguinis, the suffering of martyrdom. Like him, they also carry out an exchange of earthly for heavenly goods. They disregard earthly goods and seize eternal ones;⁸⁹ like Christ, who is understood as a venditor who brought his lucra to the earth, the saints will preserve their own profit and in this way will act as good merchants too.⁹⁰ It is clear that the sacrum commercium was by no means limited to the Passion narrative of Christus mercator but also included a wider scope, which had direct implications for Christian religious practice against the background of the imitatio Christi.

2.3 A treasure in heaven The call for imitatio addressed to Christians not only pertained to an emulation of Christus mercator. Another merchant also had to be impersonated, namely the mercator of the gospels, who endeavoured to accumulate not earthly and transient treasures but heavenly and eternal ones (Matt. 6:19 – 21). This merchant, who found a precious pearl and sold everything he had in order to acquire it (Matt. 13:44– 46), had to be imitated,⁹¹ because those who did so were said to gain eter-

 See Theodulf of Orleans, Versus scripti litteris aureis de sancto Quintino, 3.5.5 – 10: “Hic bene Quintini requiescunt ossa beati, / qui studuit domino rite placere suo. / Sanguine qui proprio est mercatus caelica regna, / atque locum sibimet emit in arce poli. / Cuius martyrium devota mente frequentat / plebs vivens, quaerens et peregrinus opem.”  See Walahfrid Strabo, Vita sancti Galli confessoris, 1549 – 1555: “O nimium felix feliciter atque beatus, / qui mercatus erat paradysum cespite vili, / tellea contempnens, caelestia dona capessens. / Qui palme accepta laetus sine fine cluebit / atque deum vicot miles stipabit in aevum. / Glorificans regem gestantem clara tropaea. / Sanguine qui proprio vicit dominamina saeva.”  See Milo of St Amand, Vita sancti Amandi, 2.96 – 116: “O memorande pater, qua te un laude celebrem, / nescio tantarum mirans insignia rerum: / Largiris pretium captorum vincula solvis, / Ad caelumque haec arte facis conscendere nummos, / et pretium et captos pretio super astra reponis / et vacuas saccum, dum comples munere caelum. / Et, quia mercator fueras, talem esse dicebat: / […] / Venditor ille suam lucra ad terrena reportat, / emptor tuque tuam lucra ad caelestia servas.”  See Hieronymus, Ad Titum, 1.188: “Mercator ille de Evangelio qui plures habuit margaritas, ad extremum unum pretiosam repperit quam de multis margaritis solam coemit. Perfectorem quippe est una margaritam et unum thesaurum omnibus margaritis et totius substantiae suae emere commercio; incipientium vero et adhuc in itinere positorum, necdum unam et solam habere, sed plures”; see furthermore John Chrysostom, Adversus oppugnatores vitae monasticae, 2.5 (PG 47, col. 338), Homiliae in 1 Cor., 12.7 (PG 61, col. 106), Homiliae in Genesim, 20.5 (PG 53,

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nal beatitude⁹² as well as to receive the luminous pearl, an imperishable treasure.⁹³ For Victricius of Rouen, this imitatio of the merchant searching for the pearl represented an example of the practice of the cardinal virtues belonging to the via caelestis. He interpreted it as consistent conduct in a Christian life; from this perspective, only martyrs were able to imitate the merchant of the gospels entirely and to defeat volupatas, ambitio, divitia, lascivitas, and intemperantia. ⁹⁴ The direct association established by Victricius of Rouen between the martyrs and the treasure in heaven symbolized by the precious pearl corresponds to the Augustinian idea of a thesaurus meritorum, an accumulation of a treasure consisting of collected martyrs’ blood.⁹⁵ Lucas Burkart demonstrated that precisely this idea represented the basis for the legitimation of ecclesiastical wealth in early medieval understandings, since it was assumed that the creation of a material treasure in the Church and the immaterial treasure in heaven were interdependent (2009, 44– 46, 56 – 58; 2014). In early medieval thought, however, this idea had less relevance than the question of how to accumulate heavenly instead of earthly treasures. Paulinus of Nola contrasted the heavenly kingdom, which represented the most precious pearl for man and which could ultimately be identified with God, with the pretiosossimum mercimonium of man for God, which consisted in good deeds; these deeds were necessary for acquisition of

col. 174), Homiliae in Johannem, 44.3 (PG 59, col. 250), Homilia in paralyticum demissum per tectum, 1 (PG 51, col. 49), Quod nemo se laeditur nisi a se ipso, 10 (PG 52, col. 471).  See Ruric of Limoges, Epistulae, 32.28: “Simulque idcirco frater scripsi, quia et deo propitio a saeculi actibus ad aeternam beatitudinem te animam convertisse cognovi et imitatorem illius evangelici negotiatoris effectum, qui, venditis omnibus suis, comparavit pretiosissimum margaritum, vel illius, qui reperto in agro thesauro, distractis quae habebat universis, agrum ipsum laudabili cupiditate mercatus est, non alienae possessionis importunus inhiator, sed propriae facultatis providus distributor, caritatem utpote sincerrimam retinens corde perfecto, non ut parcius venderet, sed ut largius feneraret.”  See Radbod of Utrecht, In translatione sancti Martini episcopi, “in tertio noctuno”: “Gemma ista fulget in caelo, coruscat in terra, ubique honoratur, ubique dilligitur. Si quis eam mercatus fuerit, perhenni gaudebit thesauro. Si quis possederit, non deficiet omni bono.”  See Victricius of Rouen, De laude sanctorum, 6: “Quid est enim aliud […] martyr nisi Christi imitator, domitor rabidae voluptas, calcator ambitionis et mortis ambitor, contemptor divitiarum, conpressor lasciviae, intemperantiae persecutor? […] Prudentia, iustitia, fortitudo, temperantia via caelestis est. Hanc Salvator aperuit dicens: Ego sum via et veritas. Hanc margaritarum caelestium et aeternitatis mercator adtrivit. Hanc viatoribus christianis prophetae demonstrant. Hanc apostoli frequentarunt.”  See Augustine, Enarrationes in Psalmos, Ps. 78, sermo 6.3.

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the kingdom of heaven in the spiritual market, the spiritualis mercatura. ⁹⁶ Similarly, Augustine also described the Christian community as a commercium spiritualium, whose members should be like the merchant of the gospels who sought the most precious pearl.⁹⁷ Thus, in contrast to the sacrum commercium performed by Christus mercator, the commercium spiritualium describes that type of commerce which is to be exercised by the worshippers themselves when they pursue the kingdom of heaven. As good merchants in this commercium, they should not, as Salvian of Marseille pointed out, tolerate a life enslaved to money in the terrenis nundinis that involved taking delight in transient goods and losing their own salvation, whereby they could not obtain heavenly treasures.⁹⁸ Salvian thus confronts the worshippers imitating the merchant of the gospels with the merchants of the earthly marketplace oriented to attaining transient instead of eternal treasures. In this way, Salvian already differentiates between an earthly and a heavenly market.

 See Paulinus of Nola, Epistulae, 23.30: “‘Ecce’ enim, inquit, ‘maior Salomone hic’, qui non conteret nos spiritu vehementi inter naves Tharsis, si illi bono actu vitae nostrae lucrum, quod est pretiosissimum deo mercimonium, convehamus, ut suum ipse pretium accipiat a nobis, quia ipse est et margarita, atque eam tota spiritalis istius mercaturae conversatio sibi nititur conparare.”  See Augustine, Sermones, 212.1, col. 1058: “Symbolum autem nuncupatur a similitudine quaedam, translato vocabulo; quia symbolum inter se faciunt mercatores, quo eorum societas pacto fidei teneatur. Et vestra societas est commercium spiritualium, ut similies sitis negotiatoribus bonam margaritam quaerentibus. Haec est caritas, quae diffundetur in cordibus vestris per spiritum sanctum, qui dabitur vobis.”  See Salvian of Marseille, Ad ecclesiam, 1.1.6: “Maxima quippe non filiorum tuorum portio mortiferarum rerum negotiatrix est, propolisque et cauponibus similis terrenis, immo tartareis, perituris semul atque perdentibus studies nundinis. Lucro enim pecuniae damnum vitae ementes, ut adquirant quae non sunt sua, prodigunt quae sunt sua, mandantes terrae thesauros luctuosos, heredibus breve gaudium, auctoribus longum maerorem adlaturos, frandantes seu rerum praesentium tam alios quam se ipsos, condentes profundis specibus infernas opes, simul pecuniam suam ac spem suam infodientes, secundum illud scilicet domini nostri dictum, quo ait: ubi fuerit thesaurus tuus, ibi erit et cor tuum. Invident itaque saluti suae animasque proprias, quae vocantur ad caelum, terrenis ponderibus in terram premunt. Mens enim thesaurizantis thesaurum suum sequitur et quasi in naturam terrestris substantiae demutatur, nec solum nunc, sed etiam in futuro atque perpetuo.”

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2.4 The exchange of earthly and heavenly goods as felix commercium and the idea of the bonus mercatus Devout Christians were supposed to participate in this heavenly market by being good mercatores, accumulating eternal treasures instead of earthly ones. Augustine revealed how exactly this objective could be achieved. He characterizes nostra mercatio as the giving of terra and temporalitas in exchange for the taking of heaven and eternity, caelum et aeternitas. ⁹⁹ In this type of mercatio, the devout Christian obviously exchanges different kinds of earthly and heavenly goods than Christus mercator, who exchanged eternal death for eternal life, and also different goods than a martyr, who performs a certain form of repayment for the redemption of mankind. In early medieval theological writings, two variants of the exchange of earthly and heavenly goods are proposed for the faithful. Gregory the Great, for instance, speaks of the necessity of general renunciation of any kind of earthly goods, because according to him the kingdom of God, which has no fixed price, always costs as much as one possesses.¹⁰⁰ This requirement is based on the biblical narrative of the rich young man who was asked to sell everything he possessed (Matt. 19:16 – 22). For Hilary of Poitiers, such an action could enable one to buy the heavenly treasures and thereby transform commerce into a fortunate exchange (felici commercio mutare); in this way, one could follow Christ.¹⁰¹ The characterization of the exchange of earthly for heavenly goods as a felix commercium strongly influenced high medi-

 See Augustine, Sermones, 177.10, col. 959: “Quodammodo Dominus Deus noster mercatores nos vult esse, mutationes nobiscum facit: quod hic abundat damus, quod ibi abundat accipimus; quemadmodum plerique traiectitias merces faciunt: aliud dant alibi, et quo veniunt aliud accipiunt […] Talis est ista mutatio, qualis, fratres mei, nostra mercatio. Quid damus, et quid accipimus? Hoc damus quod nobiscum ferre non possumus, et si vellemus, quare ergo perit. Hic quod minus est detur, ut quod est maius ibi inveniatur. Damus terram, et accipimus caelum; damus temporalia, et accipimus aeterna; damus putrescentia, et accipimus immortalia; postremo damus quod dedit Deus, et accipimus ipsum Deum. Non ergo pilgri simus in ista mutatione rerum, in ista mercatura opima et ineffabili. Prosit quia hic sumus, prosit quia nati sumus, prosit quia peregrinamur. Non inopes redeamus.”  See Gregory the Great, Homiliae in Evangelia, 5, on Matt. 4:18 – 22: “Multa, fratres, relinquitis, si desideriis terrenis renunciatis. Exteriora etenim nostra Domino quamlibet parva sufficiunt. Cor namque, et non substantiam pensat: nec perpendit quantum in eius sacrificio, sed ex quanto proferatur. Nam si exteriorem substantiam perpendamus, ecce sancti negotiatores nostri perpetuam angelorum vitam datis retibus et navi mercati sunt. Aestimationem quippe pretii non habet: sed tamen regnum Dei tantum valet, quantum habes. […] Regnum itaque Dei, ut diximus, tantum valet, quantum habes.”  See Hilary of Poitiers, Commentarius in Matthaeum, 19.6, col. 1206.

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eval thinking as well. Peter Damian called those markets where one could buy eternal life and a place in the heavenly dominion felices nundinae. ¹⁰² But abandoning earthly goods was not considered the only way to those fortunate markets. A second variant of the exchange of earthly and heavenly goods was inspired by the Gospel of Luke, where the demand for the creation of an eternal treasure was directly set in relation to the giving of alms (Luke 12:33 – 34). Pope Leo the Great called this form of exchange a possibility of gaining eternal reward;¹⁰³ following Augustine’s idea of the commercium caritatis,¹⁰⁴ Leo the Great spoke of a commercium misericordiae that was performed through the act of giving earthly goods and taking the heavenly.¹⁰⁵ In this context, Caesarius of Arles spoke of heavenly commerce, a coeleste commercium,¹⁰⁶ and Gregory the Great even went so far as to say that, by giving alms, one could directly make God a debtor.¹⁰⁷ Arnold Angenendt aptly described this notion as the beginning of medieval Heilsegoismus, meaning the phenomenon whereby alms were given less out of an affection for the poor than out of an interest in elevation to heaven (1995, 1; 1997, 376).

 See Peter Damian, Liber qui appellatur Dominus vobiscum ad Leonem eremitam, col. 247: “O cella negotiatorum coelestium apotheca, in qua videlicet illarium mercium summa reconditur, quibus terrae viventium possessio comparantur! Felix commercium, ubi pro terrenis coelestia, in transitoriis commutant aeterna. Felices, inquam, nundinae, ubi venalis aeterna vita proponitur, ad quam emendam etiam minimum quid solum sufficit, quod habetur: ubi brevis afflictio carnis emit coeleste convivium, et exiguae lacrymae risum pariunt sempiternum; possesio terrena distrahitur, et ad aeternae haereditatis patromonium pervenitur.”  See Leo the Great, Sermones, 17, col. 181: “Concupisce iustum misericordiae lucrum, et aeterni quaestus sectare commercium. Munerator tuus vult te esse munificum, et qui dat ut habeas, mandat ut tribuas, dicens: Date, et dabitur vobis.”  See Augustine, Sermones, 38.6, cols 239 – 240: “Ecce adsum: da, et sume; tempore redditionis reddam tibi. Et quid reddam? Pauca dedisti, plura sume: terrena dedisti, coelestia sume: temporalia dedisti, aeterna sume: mea dedisti, me ipsum sume. Quid enim dedisti, nisi ex eo quod a me accepisti? Quod dederis non reddo, qui unde dares dedi? Qui te ipsum qui dares dedi; qui tibi Christum cui dares dedi […] Ecce cui das, pascit et esurit propter te: donat, et eget. Quando donat, vis accipere: quando eget, non vis dare. Eget Christus quando eget pauper: qui omnibus suis vitam aeternam paratus est dare, in unoquoquo paupere tempraliter dignatus est accipere”; see furthermore Petrus Chrysologus, Sermones, 9.3 (“Adversus avaritiam”), col. 213.  See Leo the Great, Sermones, 4, cols 150 – 151.  See Caesarius of Arles, Sermones, 31.5.  See Gregory the Great, Registrum epistolarum, 1.13.14; John Chrysostom, Homiliae in Genesim, 31.1 (PG 53, col. 283), Homiliae in Romanos, 7.9 (PG 60, col. 453), Homiliae in Matthaeum, 85.4 (PG 58, col. 809); see Peter Damian, De elemosina, 6, col. 219: “Quod igitur in terra Deo datur, in coelo recipitur: et inde sperandum est praemium quo praecessit munus oblatum […] O felix tale commercium, ubi homo fenerator, et Deus fit omnipotens debitor: et fidenter ei possumus compensationis nostrae debitae digna resposcere, si nostris eum stagimus muneribus praevenire.”

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Much evidence suggests that the idea of the sacrum commercium was not only a matter of importance within the early medieval philosophical discourse but was also a central issue in the consciousness of contemporaries. Indeed, this idea is reflected not only in theological writings but also in testimonies of pragmatic literature, including the documentary culture of the laity. The early medieval formulae collections provide, among others, templates for charters concerning donations for churches carried out by lay people. These are introduced with notification clauses discussing the exchange of earthly and heavenly goods and the purchase of a place in heaven.¹⁰⁸ Here, as well as in a few thousand early medieval private charters, the incentive for donations to churches is

 See for example Formulae Salicae Lindenbrogianae, no. 1 (MGH Formulae, p. 266): “Ille bene possidet rebus in seculo, qui sibi de terrenis seu de caducis rebus conparat praemia sempiterna” (similarly, Formulae Augienses, collectio A no. 2, B no. 29 [MGH Formulae, pp. 342, 359]); Rheinisches Urkundenbuch, nos 69, 76, 318; Die Traditionen des Hochstifts Freising, nos 144, 321, 393, 551; Das älteste Traditionsbuch des Klosters Mondsee, nos 99, 125; Die Traditionen des Klosters Schäftlarn 760 – 1305, no. 25; Traditiones Wizenburgense, nos 88, 104, 106, 118, 120, 127, 177, 201, 210; Urkundenbuch des Klosters Fulda, no. 403); Formulae Marculfi, 2.2 (MGH Formulae, p. 74): “Quantum intellectus senusque humani potest mente sagaci pensare atque solerte indagnatione perpendere, nihil amplius valet in huius seculi lucem de gaudia fugitia lucrare, quam quod de rebus suis lucis venerabilibus in alimoniis pauperum curetur inpendere, quatenus fragilitatem naturae, quod omnes generaliter paciuntur, priusquam subitania transpositio eveniat, oportit pro salutem animae vigilare, ut non inveniat quemquem inparatum, et sine aliquo respectu discedat a seculo; quin potius, dum proprio libertatis iurae subsistit ex caducis substantiis in aeterna tabernacula vitam quaerat mercare aeternam, ut inter iustorum consorcio desiderabile valeat adipisci locum et retributorem sibi preparet Dominum, ut de fructu indeficienti paradisi mereatur foveri, de cuius vivo fronte perfecta fide poscent nec subtrahetur poculum nec minuetur alveus, sed potius quisque hauserit inrigatur dulcidine caelitus, atque suavis ei flaragur odor balsami paradisi”; Addimanta e codicibus Marculfi, no. 1b (MGH Formulae, p. 110): “Debet unusquisque, largiente Doino, dum versatur in corpore, futura tractare et de caducis rebus mercare aeterna, ut, quandoquidem, iubente Deo, de corpore egredi contingerit, de mamona inquietatus mansionem sibi reperiat comparatam in caelis”, no. 1d: “Properum, salubrae et satis iocundum esse consivimus, ut homo de caducam quispiam seculi peccata sua redemendum valeat auffere, aut quid prumptione consilio, ut homo de mundanis rebus seculi conparet paradisum et de terrena substantia se transferat in caelestia”; Die Traditionen des Hochstifts Freising, no. 519: “Dum oportet unicuique in hoc secolo vacare sacramenta reminisci et diem ultimum pertimisci, propterea convenit omnibus Christianis, ut despiciant terrena et caduca et perpendant aeterna et desiderant caelestia”, no. 855a: “Divinae ammonitionis conpuncta quae dicit voce divina: Date terrena et caduca et conparate premiae sempiterna”, no. 865a: “Quis non diligenter imitatur scripturam divinam dicentem: Date terrena et adquirite aeterna?”; Traditiones Wizenburgense, nos 17, 175, 238: “Dum domibus de terrena mercare precepit caelestia […]” (in a similar manner, Die Traditionen des Hochstifts Freising, no. 57a).

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defined in the acquisition of the treasure of heaven;¹⁰⁹ furthermore, it can be seen here that in the charters the exchange that took place in the heavenly market was clearly differentiated from that of the commerciis terrenis. ¹¹⁰ This not only implies that in the early Middle Ages the term “market” meant much more than the real marketplace, but also that the abstract idea of the market made a distinction between earthly and heavenly market events. Thus, in early medieval thinking there was a contrast between the heavenly felices nundinae of the good merchants, i. e. the good market activity of those believers who had exchanged earthly for heavenly goods, and the earthly commercium of the marketplace, where trading activities were based on avaritia and cupiditas. The omnipresence of the separation of the heavenly from the earthly market is also evident in the fact that the activities of the sacrum commercium were assessed as instruments directed against specific features of the earthly market. For instance, the giving of alms was regarded as the most effective means of fighting avaritia. In his second capitulary, Theodulf of Orleans says that just as the deadly sin of avaritia brings the soul to hell, largitas raises it to heaven.¹¹¹ This idea had also been formulated in the Libri Carolini,¹¹² which shows that Theodulf’s provision reflects Carolingian reform goals. The contrast between the good and the bad type of market exchange is already particularly clear in the writing of Arnobius the Younger, who emphasized that the mercatus bonus was no marketplace on which to run around; the good market means losing the transient to receive the eternal.¹¹³

 See Die Traditionen des Hochstifts Freising, no. 106: “Preceptum evangelicum tonat per orbem terrarum in quo fideles ammonet, ut caduca dispiciant et ad aeternam patriam tendat, ut lucrum sibi in perventione faciant sicut ab ore veritatis evangelista conclamat: Thesaurizate vobis thesauros in caelo” (similarly, Die Traditionen des Klosters Schäftlarn 760 – 1305, no. 10); Die Traditionen des Hochstifts Freising, no. 485: “Dominus Jesus Christus per magnam misericordiam suam in evangelio clara voce intonat dicens: Thesaurizate vobis thesauros in caelo ubi nec erugo nec tinea demolitur, et propter spem aeternae vitae sicut dicit: Date terrena et caduca et pro hoc adquirite vobis praemia sempiterna infinita in caelo” (in a similar manner, Die Traditionen des Hochstifts Freising, nos 1, 344, 493, 588a, 614, 634, 700; Das älteste Traditionsbuch des Klosters Mondsee, nos 8, 34, 46).  See Die Traditionen des Hochstifts Regensburg und des Klosters S. Emmeram, no. 38.  See Theodulf of Orleans, Capitula, 2.10.8 (MGH Capitula Episcoporum 1, p. 174): “Quartum principale vitium est avaritia, per quam vir avarus inferno similis est, et avaro viro nihil est celestius. Haec largitate et elemosina sananda; quia sicut avaritia in infernum mergit, ita largitas in caelum elevare consuevit”; John Chrysostom, Ad populum Antiochenum homiliae, 2.6 (PG 49, col. 42), Adversus Judaeos, 7.6 (PG 48, col. 926), In Lazarum, 4.9 (PG 48, cols 1005 – 1006).  See Opus Caroli regis contra synodum, 2.30.  See Arnobius the Younger, Liber ad Gregoriam, 12: “In hoc enim saeculo invertum mihi est omne quod vivo, et ad instar somnii umbra mihi quaedam videtur esse quod transit. Bonum ita-

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The fact that some people found this exchange of earthly goods for heavenly ones effective is evident from epitaphs thematizing the fate of souls after death;¹¹⁴ especially in papal epitaphs that characterize the popes as holy (Scholz 2005, 91– 92), it was emphasized that the deceased would receive a good profit for their earthly merits in the heavenly market.¹¹⁵ Venantius Fortunatus used exactly this concept in his book of epitaphs, where he applied a similar kind of mercantile language (Walz 2005, 58 – 59) to point to the heavenly reward for the earthly merits of the deceased, which could include heavenly senatorial dignity.¹¹⁶ This idea should not be understood simply as a way of giving hope to the relatives of the deceased, as George (1992, 94) argues. It should by now be clear that in these epitaphs, reference is being made to the concept of the commercium spiritualis that was prevalent in the early medieval Latin intellectual tradition: it comprises the exchange of earthly goods for heavenly ones as well as the accumulation of heavenly instead of earthly treasures, and thus requires imitatio Christi from all devout Christians. The remuneration of the heavenly market could only be achieved after the death, which indicates that the real mercatus bonus, in contrast to the terrenis nundinis of this world, was located in the beyond.

3 Conclusion: Reasons for the existence and the use of mercantile semantics in the early Middle Ages Since it has been established that there was an abstract dimension of meaning to the term “market” in early medieval thinking, the question arises as to the reason

que mercatum praeterire non debeo: dabo plane parva, ut magna recipiam; dabo infirma, ut fortia capiam, ut stabilia teneam; ammitam temporalia, ut inveniam sempiterna […] ipsi opes meas ad caelos perferant necesse est, quorum magister Christus est, et sancti angelici protectores.”  On the topoi of Christian epitaphs, see Rädle (1992, 244– 245).  See the epitaph for Pope Benedict IV in Poetae latini aevi Carolini, 1025.7: “Praetulit hic generale bonum lucro speciali, / mercatus caelum cuncta sua tribuit […].”  See Venantius Fortunatus, Epitaphium Euphrasiae, 17– 18: “Aeternum mercata diem sub tempore parvo / misisti ad caelos quas sequereris opes.” See Venantius Fortunatus, Epitaphium Rurici episcopi Lemovicenae, 19 – 20: “Felices qui sic de nobilitate fugasci / mercati in caelis iura senatus habent!” On heavenly senatorial dignity in hagiographical contexts, see Heinzelmann (2007, 129 – 130).

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why a “mercantile semantics”¹¹⁷ was used to explain complex theological matters. This phenomenon can hardly be traced back to an “erstaunliche[n] Unbefangenheit der religiösen Quellen” [an astonishing impartiality of the religious sources] (Hamm 2009, 23); on the contrary, one must assume that the sources deliberately used these mercantile semantics. Although the existence of this mercantile semantics has been observed in a few previous studies, no further investigation of the problem has been conducted. Instead, these studies, primarily dealing with aspects of the high and late Middle Ages, content themselves with the assumption that this semantics was probably due to economic developments in the late Middle Ages. For example, the occurrence of the motif of the exchange of earthly and heavenly goods, and the relationship between avaritia and caritas in Dante’s Divine Comedy were assessed by Klettke (2012/2013, 202) as an unexpected reference to the monetary conditions current in the epoch. Berndt Hamm assumed a similar assessment when tracing the mercantile semantics back to economic developments in the late Middle Ages, since he supposed an increasing penetration of Christian theology by commercial motives due to the so-called Commercial Revolution between the eleventh and thirteenth centuries (Hamm 2009, 28; Le Goff 1956; Lopez 1971), which has also been understood as the beginning of a medieval market consciousness per se (Kaye 1998, 372). In Hamm’s perspective, the commercial motives used and mediated by medieval theologians changed the entirety of Christian religious practice and conveyed the emergence of an early capitalist mentality.¹¹⁸ This deep relationship between late medieval religion and economy, he argues, at the same time legitimized and promoted the early capitalist practice of the Church, which revealed itself in the phenomenon of counted piety (Hamm 2009, 28). Hamm thus follows an observation already previously formulated by Jörg Oberste in conjunction

 This notion was employed by Burkart (2009, 45); Carrié (2006, 26); Oberste (2001, 449); Walz (2005, 64).  Hamm (2009, 25 – 27): “Meine These ist, dass mit dieser Semantik und Metaphorik unlösbar eine bestimmte Vorstellungsweise verbunden ist, die sich inhaltlich in den Koordinaten kaufmännischen Denkens und Kalkulierens bewegt. Kirchliche Theologie und Frömmigkeit werden seit dem 12. Jahrhundert mehr und mehr von einer merkantilen Logik geprägt. Das bedeutet: Die Logik des marktorientierten Waren- und Geldverkehrs bemächtigt sich der Gottesbeziehung des Menschen, sowohl der theologischen Denkformen als auch der Art und Weise, wie die Gläubigen diese Beziehung praktisch gestalteten und dazu von den Theologen angeleitet wurden […] Zu verstehen ist dieser tiefgreifende Wandel des kirchlichen Denkens und Verhaltens nur vor dem Hintergrund jener ökonomischer Veränderungen, die man als ‘kommerzielle Revolution zwischen dem 11. und 13. Jahrhundert’ bezeichnet hat […] Mit der verstärkten Hinwendung zu Markt, Handel und Geld ist […] [die Entstehung] eine[r] frühkapitalistische[n] Mentalität [verbunden].”

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with the presence of these motifs in the language of high medieval preachers. Oberste also attributed the popularity of these topics to socio-economic developments in the course of the alleged Commercial Revolution; he identified the use of this language in theological contexts as the expression of an adjustment of the Church to socio-economic changes that, he argued, ultimately manifested itself in recognition of the homo oeconomicus. ¹¹⁹ Werner Plumpe even described this alleged process of the adjustment of religious semantics to changing economic practices in the high and late Middle Ages as the formation of a protoeconomic semantics (2007, 329 – 330). This idea of an adaptation of the theological language of the Church to socio-economic developments since the eleventh century stands in close connection with the widespread assumption that an established Christian economic ethics also arose as a reflection of these processes and was also used by the Church to generate a Christian theology of trade (Carrié 2006, 20; Toneatto 2004, 43; 2010, 79 – 80). It is evident that these hypotheses cannot explain how this mercantile semantics can, as has been demonstrated here, already be detected in late antique and early medieval sources. Thus, the use of mercantile semantics is not necessarily due to processes of economic change. All the more urgent is the question of how the existence and use of these motifs in the late antique and early medieval intellectual tradition can alternatively be explained. Such an explanation might be based on aspects common to economy and religion. It is conceivable that theology and economics formed a closely interwoven system of meaning consisting in a common order (Burkart 2009, 46 – 47). Based on this thought, Todeschini developed the idea that the economic terms had not simply been transferred to theological matters in the sources, but that instead the common linguistic conditions of both spheres had made possible a theological extension (risemantizzazione) of the dimensions of meaning of mercantile language (1994, 125 – 127). One of these common linguistic preconditions might be the complex character of economic language itself, which would be particularly appropriate

 Oberste (2001, 437, 448 – 449): “Die Motivation für die Bildwahl wird man vielmehr in der Beliebtheit jenes alten Kaufmannstopos zu suchen haben […]. Dass sich ein bestimmtes merkantiles Denken im 12. und 13. Jahrhundert nicht nur in den Städten und ihren wirtschaftlich aktiven Schichten, sondern von hier aus in der ganzen abendländischen Christenheit durchgesetzt hat, ist fraglos eine der weitreichenden Folgen der revolution commerciale […]. Fest steht, dass der signifikante soziale Wandel in den hochmittelalterlichen Städten Eingang in den Bildervorrat zeitgenössischer Kirchenleute fand. Die Kirche bediente sich appellativer Rhetorik, um ein statisches religiös-ethisches Normensystem einer im Wandel begriffenen Gesellschaft zu vermitteln […] Die Hinwendung zur merkantilen Topik dokumentiert den notwendigen Anpassungsprozess der Kirche an sozioökonomischen Wandel.”

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for describing the complex relationship between mankind and the divine sphere (Hart and Ortiz 2014). Both the assumption of common linguistic preconditions in the fields of economy and religion, and the idea of an extension of the dimensions of meaning of mercantile vocabulary, could provide a plausible explanation for the use of mercantile semantics. However, the fact that the symmetrical parallelism of exchange relations in economy and religion lends itself, by its very nature, to a metaphorical transfer of mercantile language to religious contexts (Durkheim 1893; Mauss 1923/1924, 96 – 98; Herz 1958, 13 – 14; Purcell 2012, 95) is probably of greater relevance. These alternative interpretations, unlike the theory that attributes the presence of mercantile semantics in theological contexts to socio-economic developments since the eleventh century, might provide plausible explanations for the existence and use of mercantile language in relation to religious issues; such interpretations can also be traced back to the existence of a metaphorical meaning of exchange relations in the Latin intellectual tradition. Thus, it has to be assumed that theological exchange processes could be described appropriately with the language of economic exchange. Before anything else, the market was characterized as exchange in all respects, meaning that market exchange was by no means limited to economic processes of exchange on the marketplace. The felix commercium that the devout Christians who strived to earn otherworldly wages were to carry out marked a contrast to that of the apocalyptic merchants who will weep over the destruction of Babylon (Rev. 18:2– 17); Primasius of Hadrumetum characterized the latter as infelix commercium. ¹²⁰ The medieval concept of the market first and foremost had a theological dimension of meaning that occupied an omnipresent position in the consciousness of contemporaries. Against the background of the idea of the sacrum commercium, a wide range of actions could be considered as market exchange. In this way, almost anybody could become an agent of this market. Acknowledgements: I would like to thank Dr Matthew Munson (Hamburg) for providing a critical review of the draft and for offering many suggestions.

 See Primasius of Hadrumetum, Commentarius in Apocalypsin, 5.18.3: “Avaritia enim, in eo quod dicit, mercatores locupleti sint, licet quidam hic divites peccatis non facultatibus aestimare maluerint, gentes permixtam vulgi ignobilis multitudinem designavit, reges vero, qui inter eos temporaliter videntur excellere, mercatores, quoniam terrenis lucris inhiantes, pro abundantia temporali suas infelix mercatu animas conmutant, contraria dictis dominis peragentes, qui dicit: Quam dabit homo commutationem pro anima sua?”

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Perreaux, Nicholas. “De l’accumulation à l’exploitation? Expériences et propositions pour l’indexation et l’utilisation des bases de données diplomatiques”. Digital Diplomatics: The Computer as a Tool for the Diplomatist? Ed. Antonella Ambrosio, Sébastien Barret, and Georg Vogeler. Archiv für Diplomatik, Schriftgeschichte, Siegel- und Wappenkunde: Beihefte 14. Cologne: Böhlau, 2014. 187 – 210. Pitz, Ernst. Wirtschafts- und Sozialgeschichte Deutschlands im Mittelalter. Wiesbaden: Steiner, 1979. Plumpe, Werner. “Die Geburt des ‘homo oeconomicus’: Historische Überlegungen zur Entstehung und Bedeutung des Handelsmodells der modernen Wirtschaft”. Menschen und Märkte: Studien zur historischen Wirtschaftsanthropologie. Ed. Wolfgang Reinhard and Justin Stagl. Veröffentlichungen des Instituts für Historische Wirtschaftsanthropologie 9. Vienna: Böhlau, 2007. 319 – 352. Polanyi, Karl. Economie primitive, archaice e moderne. Turin: Einaudi, 1980. Purcell, Nicholas. “Quod enim alterius fuit, id ut fiat meum, necesse est aliquid intercedere (Varro): The Anthropology of Buying and Selling in Ancient Greece and Rome: An Introductory Sketch”. Anthropologie de l’antiquité: Anciens objets, nouvelles approches. Ed. Pascal Payen and Évelyne Scheid-Tissinier. Antiquité et Sciences Humaines : La traversée des frontières 1. Turnhout: Brepols, 2012. 81 – 100. Putnam, Hilary. “The Meaning of ‘Meaning’”. Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science 7 (1975): 131 – 193. Rädle, Fidel. “Literarische Typik und historischer Einzelfall in lateinischen Grabinschriften”. Vom Quellenwert der Inschriften: Vorträge und Berichte der Fachtagung Esslingen 1990. Ed. Renate Neumüllers-Klauser. Supplemente zu den Sitzungsberichten der Heidelberger Akademie der Wissenschaften: Philologisch-Historische Klasse 7. Heidelberg: Winter, 1992. 239 – 252. Reinhard, Wolfgang. “Historische Wirtschaftsanthropologie: Einführung”. Menschen und Märkte: Studien zur historischen Wirtschaftsanthropologie. Ed. Wolfgang Reinhard and Justin Stagl. Veröffentlichungen des Instituts für Historische Anthropologie 9. Vienna: Böhlau, 2007. 3 – 12. Robbins, Lionel Charles. On the Principles of Economic Analysis: The 1930s Lectures. London: Routledge, 2018. Rosé, Isabelle. “Commutatio: Le vocabulaire de l’échange chrétien au haut Moyen Age”. Les élites et la richesse au haut Moyen Age. Ed. Jean-Pierre Devroey, Laurent Feller, and Régine Le Jan. Collection haut Moyen Age 10. Turnhout: Brepols, 2010. 113 – 138. Schaub, Franz. Der Kampf gegen den Zinswucher, ungerechten Preis und unlautern Handel im Mittelalter: Von Karl dem Grossen bis Papst Alexander III. Freiburg im Breisgau: Herder, 1908. Schöllgen, Georg. “Die Teilnahme der Christen am städtischen Leben in vorkonstantinischer Zeit: Tertullians Zeugnis für Karthago”. Römische Quartalsschrift für Christliche Altertumskunde und Kirchengeschichte 77 (1982): 1 – 29. Scholz, Sebastian. “Papstepitaphien vom VI. bis zum X. Jahrhundert: Eine Quellengattung zwischen ‘Memoria’, ‘Gesta’ und ‘Vita’”. Mittellateinische Biographie und Epigraphik/Biografía latina medieval y epigrafía. Ed. Walter Berschin, Juan Gómez Pallarès, and José Martínez Gázquez. Heidelberg: Mattes, 2005. 89 – 106.

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del Centro Italiano di Studi sull’alto medioevo 40. Spoleto: Presso la Sede del Centro, 1993. 23 – 50. Walz, Dorothea. “Das Epitaphium Vilithutae (carm. IV 26): Überlegungen zum Epitaphienbegriff bei Venantius Fortunatus”. Mittellateinische Biographie und Epigraphik/Biografía latina medieval y epigrafía. Ed. Walter Berschin, Juan Gómez Pallarès, and José Martínez Gázquez. Heidelberg: Mattes, 2005. 55 – 68. Weber, Max. “Die ‘Objektivität’ sozialwissenschaftlicher und sozialpolitischer Erkenntnis”. Gesammelte Aufsätze zur Wissenschaftslehre. Ed. Johannes Winckelmann. Tübingen: Mohr, 1985. 146 – 214. Weber, Max. “Agrarverhältnisse im Altertum (3. Fassung)”. Gesamtausgabe. Vol. 1.6. Zur Sozial- und Wirtschaftsgeschichte des Altertums: Schriften und Reden 1893 – 1908. Tübingen: Mohr, 2006. 300 – 373. White, Harrison C. “Where Do Markets Come From?” American Journal of Sociology 87 (1981): 517 – 547. White, Harrison C. Markets from Networks. Socioeconomic Models of Production. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2002. Whittow, Mark. “How Much Trade Was Local, Regional and Inter-Regional? A Comparative Perspective on the Late Antique Economy”. Local Economies? Production and Exchange of Inland Regions in Late Antiquity. Ed. Luke Lavan. Late Antique Archaeology 10. Leiden: Brill, 2013. 133 – 166.

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Imagined Investors: Markets, Agents, and the Saxon Mining Administration This volume invites us to think about the dynamics between markets and agents in the early modern period. I understand the market neither as an actual physical space nor, as in a neoclassical approach, as a virtual field of exchange, but as a complex arena of social interaction (Beckert 2007, 6). Market agents, be it as sellers, buyers, or rulers, do not operate detached from their environment, driven purely by rational considerations. Instead, they are embedded within social networks as well as within institutional values, norms, and attitudes to which they orient their actions (Granovetter 1985; Fligstein and Dauter 2007; White 1981). Therefore, a market is a “complex constellation of actors embedded in social structures that change dynamically” (Baur 2013). I would like to focus on an aspect that has attracted particular interest, especially in recent market sociology, namely the central importance of imaginations and fictions. And I would like to do so by using the example of Saxon mining in the sixteenth century. The early modern Saxon mining sector has some characteristics that make this economic field interesting for the investigation of markets and agents. It is a very early example of the emergence of an early capitalistic, market-like economy within a traditional setting of territorial power (Laube 1974). By the beginning of the sixteenth century, the Saxon princes had developed a complex mining administration that oversaw almost every aspect connected to mining. One of the key innovations of late medieval Saxon mining was an intricate financial instrument, the Kux, basically a shareholder system. Kuxe were bought and sold on the open market, and their prices were tied to supply and demand.¹ This provided the Saxon mining economy with a permanent stream of desperately needed money. It also offered sufficient flexibility to adjust to the ever-changing environmental conditions that marked this economy. Unlike in other domains of territorial power, this funding scheme created a mutual dependency between the Saxon princes and the shareholders. Early modern authorities in Saxony had to tackle the problem of the reversible flow of money induced by the Kux trade at an early stage. Mining is therefore

 For a classical socio-economic approach, see Werner (1936, 1937); Schirmer (2007, 215 – 216); Laube (1974, chap. 3); E. Westermann (1997, esp. 57– 58). For a more cultural interpretation that connects the financial instrument of the Kux with a broader understanding of notions of treasure-hunting and Fortuna, see Asmussen (2016b). https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110643756-004

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a particularly early example of an economic sector in which contemporary agents were confronted with fundamental problems of market-based interactions. One could argue that early modern mining bureaucracy was an administrative hybrid: it worked as a territorial administration but under the specific economic umbrella of a shareholder system, with foreign capital and investors that were not necessarily resident in the mining areas or even the subjects of the princes. Thus, the mining administration was also an “agent” of some kind within the market. Both mining officials and investors were important agents whose interactions constituted a market. This interaction, however, cannot be reduced to the dichotomy of norm-producers and -recipients. Rather, their relationship was characterized by a certain amount of uncertainty. Neither could the investors know how the economic development of a specific mining district would change over time, nor could the mining administration know where, when, and especially why investors would invest in one particular area or pit. Thus, unpredictability was an essential part of early modern mining. This is a typical economic dilemma: nobody can foresee what the future is going to be like. As Jens Beckert argues, against the background of the general uncertainty of the future, imaginations and fictions are an important aspect that shape the dynamic of marketbased interactions – as do norms, values, and institutional frameworks (2011, 5). Adapting the idea of imaginations of an unknown future, I argue that mining was shaped not only by the “real” interaction between mining officials and investors, but also by an imagined idea of how the investors might potentially behave. Both the actual investor and the imagination of a potential investor’s behaviour had a deep impact on the mining authorities as agents. Imaginaries shaped the way the mining administration represented itself towards its economic environment. Hence, thinking about markets and agents should include not only the actual agents but also imaginaries about agents. To put forward this argument, I will proceed in three steps. In order to provide a better understanding of the market-based form of the Kux trade, I will first provide an overview of the complex economic dynamics of mining in Saxony. In a second step, the focus will be on imaginaries within the mining administration about investors and investment behaviour. In the third part, I will show how the mining administration created imaginaries of itself to gain the trust of investors.

1 Mining, markets, and the Kux system The complex mineral physiography and geology of the Ore Mountains are key to understanding the Saxon mining economy and thus the workings of this com-

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plex market. The Ore Mountains are a low cross-border mountain range located between what was then the Electorate of Saxony and Bohemia. The region was, and still is, rich in various precious metals and minerals: ore veins include iron, copper, tin, bismuth, tungsten, cobalt, uranium, lithium, and above all silver.² It is not surprising to see that the history of this environment has been deeply influenced by its economic development, especially that of silver mining. Evidence of mining can be traced back to the twelfth century (Hoffmann and Balášová 2014; Schwabenicky 1992, 2002, 2013; Schirmer 2001, 2013; Flemming and Schirmer 2009; Unger 1963). After a long prosperous period, ore mining largely came to a standstill in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries (Schirmer 2001; Laube 1974, 12– 20). This changed during the so-called zweites Berggeschrey (literally the “second mining clamour”, a kind of silver rush) at the end of the Middle Ages. After new high-potential deposits of precious metal had been discovered, miners from all over the Holy Roman Empire migrated to the Ore Mountains in the hope of fortune and prosperity (Laube 1974, chap. 1; Flemming and Schirmer 2009; Suhling 1996). The Berggeschrey generated a fundamental transformation of the region, where new and numerous colonies swiftly merged into towns and booming cities. These urban communities thrived, as mining cities attracted adventurers as well as entrepreneurs or humanist intellectuals like Georgius Agricola. A high level of urbanization shaped the region, with mining towns becoming not only the economic but also the administrative, intellectual, and cultural centres.³ In the middle of the sixteenth century, cities such as Freiberg, Annaberg, or Joachimsthal/Jáchymov were the biggest cities in Saxony and Bohemia (excluding Prague), with between six and twelve thousand inhabitants each. After the miners had exhausted the deposits near the surface, mining quickly became incredibly cost-intensive. This development is connected to the complex geology of the region, particularly its two layers of mineral deposits. The first one, the surface deposits (or the “iron hat”; eiserner Hut), went down to a depth of fifty metres. In this area, silver ore was rich and easy to extract. But once the surface deposits had been exhausted, hence necessitating to go deeper into the bedrock of the reduction zone, water leakage was a serious problem. Solutions like delicate drainage systems required not only technical expertise but

 A detailed description of the Saxon deposits can be found in Sebastian (2013, 28, 129–152); Bohdálek et al. (2016, 42– 48); Quellmalz (1990, 17– 23); Wagenbreth and Wächtler (2015, 10 – 17).  For a general overview of mining towns, see Kellenbenz (1991); Molenda (1976); Kaufhold and Reininghaus (2004); Knittler (2000, 71– 77); Stoob (1974). For a more regional focus, see Laube (1968, esp. chap. 2); Thiel (2004); Hoffmann and Richter (2012, esp. chap. 6); Kratzsch (1972, 2007); Bräuer (2004); Seng (2003, 185 – 191).

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also a significant amount of capital (Wagenbreth and Wächtler 2015, 13; Schirmer 2013, 52; Czaya 1990, 20; Quellmalz 1990, 20). Yet there always remained an element of uncertainty: silver ore veins were present in varying sizes in the cracks and pores of the bedrock. No one could foresee where they might be found or estimate how large they might be once they had been found. Hence, there was a great interest in exploring as much as possible, and in going deeper and deeper into the mountain. Therefore, considerations of the geological value of the ground shaped the economic landscape of the Ore Mountains, which could thus fluctuate and change rapidly. Thus, the financial output was very variable, and there was no guarantee of long-term profits at all. Since silver ore was part of the mineral royalty (Bergregal), the Saxon princes had the pre-emptive right, i. e. the mined silver ore had to be sold exclusively to the sovereign at a price well below the market price. Although Saxon silver was linked to the European metal markets, the local silver ore mining and its subsequent sale was not market-like in the narrow sense. The situation was different with regard to the shares linked to individual mines, the Kuxe. ⁴ One way to handle the high cost of mining was a shareholder system, invented in the late fifteenth century (Schirmer 2007, 215 – 216; K.-H. Ludwig 1991). Each pit in a mining district could be divided into 128 shares, the Kuxe, that were sold and bought on an open market: if the pit yielded a profit, the Kux entitled the shareholder to his share, the Ausbeute. The yield was based on the fixed prices for the pre-emptive sale of silver ore to the Saxon princes. In return (and in contrast with the stock market), the investors had to contribute to an equitable arrangement. Each shareholder had to contribute every quarter to meeting the operational costs of his pit (the Zubuße). If an investor was not willing or able to pay the Zubuße, his shares reverted to the remaining investors, who had the option to buy. If the remaining investors were not interested, the mining shares were offered for sale again on the free market. Arguably, this system had some benefits: first and foremost, it ensured a constant stream of working capital for the pits. Second, the operational cost of a pit could be quite intense. Large quantities of manpower, wood, and pumping machines were expensive, especially in the reduction zone. By spreading the operational costs on many shoulders, the investors’ burden was made bearable. The Kux trade itself was organized on a market basis and followed the dictates of supply and demand. It was shaped by an institutional framework in the  The etymology of the word Kux is inconclusive. While some argue that it evolved from the Slavic term kus in the meaning of “part” or “share”, Judy Mendels points out that there are some philological inconsistencies. Hence, she argues that the origin is the German word gucken or vergucken in the meaning of the Latin word speculare. See Zycha (1921); Mendels (1961).

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form of legal privileges, regulation, and the mining administration; by the trade of Kux shares; and by actors like the princes, mining officials, and not least the investors. It is necessary to take a closer look at these different aspects, starting with the general outline of the Kux trade. The institutional framework of the Kux trade was determined by the sovereigns. The heart of Saxon mining was the local mining office (Bergamt). The Saxon princes established a complex mining administration which ensured that mining was carried out in accordance with the mining law and customary legal rules (A. Westermann 2008; Kroker 1984; Laube 1974; Kaiser 1953; Schirmer 2009; Kaden 2003, 2007; Lorenz 1990). The mining administration not only fulfilled technical and economic tasks, but had also jurisdictional and administrative powers. It recorded the shares of investors, calculated the yields and allowances of a mine, and settled conflicts between shareholders on the basis of the mining law. In short, there was no area of mining that was not organized, regulated, and if necessary sanctioned by the mining administration. Its activities and duties, as well as the basic processes of mining, were made public in the mining ordinances (Bergordnungen), which lay at the foundation of the Saxon mining administration.⁵ The Saxon princes published an enormous number of local mining ordinances during the late fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. They regulated officials’ duties, miners’ labour conditions, the melting process, and the specifics of mining law. The mining administration was the guarantor for the smooth running of mining and the safety of the financial instrument of the Kux. Generally, everyone had the right to buy Kuxe. The trade with Kuxe could take place in different ways. Shares could be bought and sold locally and without intermediaries by investors, the Gewerken (Laube 1974, 105). More important, however, was trade via sworn intermediaries, the Kuxkrenzler. Kuxkrenzler acted both locally within mining districts and above the local level. One important trading centre for shares was trade fairs, especially the Leipzig trade fair (Laube 1974, 106; Werner 1936, 131). In 1558 alone, 101 Gewerken from the Bohemian mining town of Joachimsthal gathered at the Leipzig trade fair for the acquisition of Kuxe, which illustrates the dimension of the trade in shares. In order to promote their “product”, Kuxkrenzler were able to exhibit display boards (Letten) from the pits, with which they demonstrated the profitability of a pit. The figure of the Kuxkrenzler was particularly susceptible to accusations of fraud

 Still relevant are Ermisch (1887, 1886). For a more general overview, see Hofmann and Tschan (2004); Brassert (1883); K.-H. Ludwig (1985). More specific are Buchhester and Müller (2014); Lück (2005); Löscher (1957); Laube (1999); Hoppe (1908); Schirmer (2007).

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and corruption. The Saxon princes tried by law to prevent illegitimate trade in Kuxe that did not involve official Kuxkrenzler, using the threat of severe punishment.⁶ The price of the Kuxe was based on the prosperity of a pit: the higher the expected yields of a mine, the higher the prices for the Kuxe (Laube 1974, 106). Kux trading was highly speculative, particularly in the early phase of mining in the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. This means that Kuxe were acquired in the hope that their future value would increase. It was speculated that a rich vein of ore would be found or that an ore vein already discovered would prove to be particularly productive (Werner 1936, 130). Mining was all about that one stroke of luck and the fervent hope that the cost of mining the silver ore deposits would be amortized by its yields. It is no coincidence that the symbolic representation of mining was heavily connected to images of Fortuna, treasure hunting, and not least luck, as Tina Asmussen has pointed out (2016a, 2016b). The trade itself was relatively simple. There was no permission needed for transferring shares; a contract or a simple receipt between seller and buyer was sufficient (Laube 1974, 106; Jenks n.d., 8). After a successful purchase of shares, the new Gewerke received a certificate confirming the purchase (fig. 1).⁷ Subsequently, the buyer had to be enrolled in the Gegenbuch at the local mining office in order for the purchase to become legally valid. In return, the new Gewerke received a document, certifying the buyer’s name and the location of his Kux.

Figure 1: Kuxschein, 4 June 1580, Sächsisches Staatsarchiv, Bergarchiv Freiberg, 40164 Dokumente zum Kuxbesitz, Nr. 843.

 See for example BO 1554, §lxxviii, edited in CA, col. 140. Mining ordinances are cited as BO (Bergordnung) with the edited text in Lünning’s Codex Augusteus […] (1774), abbreviated CA.  I would like to thank Tina Asmussen for sending me this figure.

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The market for Kuxe was rather volatile; or, summarized in the apt words of Stuart Jenks: “fools and their money were soon parted” (n.d., 8). Georgius Agricola best captured this problem in the first chapter of his De re metallica (1974, 74– 75). Agricola saw in mining one of the best ways to acquire wealth, but only if the investments drew on knowledge and expertise. Investors should not follow the illusion of fantastic wealth, but act with a calm mind. Otherwise, he stressed, it would be quite easy to ruin oneself. Share prices could fall or rise within days, with some ruinous effects on mountain areas. This becomes particularly clear when looking at the legendary Himmlisch-Heer (“Divine Army”) pit at Schneeberg. While in 1537 one share yielded a profit of 1,930fl., one year later one share yielded 142fl., whereas four years later the profit was only 5fl.⁸ Another example is documented by Christian Meltzer, a chronicler from Joachimsthal, who reports that silver ore was found while digging at the courtyard of one Lukas Schütz and a Kux was sold one day for 3fl. (Laube 1974, 106; Meltzer 1716, 904; Jenks n.d., 5). The next day, the price was already at 21fl., and it rose to 120fl. in the course of a week. This episode shows how strongly the price of Kuxe was determined by the law of supply and demand: the more promising the yields of a pit were, the more interested parties there were for shares and the faster the price of a Kux rose. It also illustrates that the inherent price fluctuations of the Kux trade were reflected on, for instance in local chronicles. The Saxon territorial princes took great care to create an investment-friendly environment through legal actions, especially by protecting the security of the Kux as a financial instrument. In 1554 August decreed that Kuxe could not be confiscated from shareholders either after warlike conflicts or in the case of general non-mining debts (BO 1554, §1, edited in CA, col. 117; Falke 1868, 160). Only in the case of an outstanding Zubuße could shareholders lose their shares. This regulation illustrates how much the authorities were anxious to provide incentives for the acquisition of Kuxe even in politically or economically unstable times. The Saxon rulers tried to guarantee the security of Kuxe as a financial instrument within the framework of normative guidelines, regardless of the status or origin of the owner. This means that it was irrelevant for the Kux trade whether the investor was a nobleman or a delinquent, a Saxon farmer or a Nuremberg citizen. This leads to the next important aspect, namely the question of who the investors in Saxony’s mining business were. Saxon shares were prevalent and circulated widely in the Holy Roman Empire. In fact, almost every town had a Saxon Kux, and almost every social group

 See Laube (1974, 92).

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was part of the system: princes and noblemen, women, merchants and craftsmen, councillors and townsmen, churches, and monasteries alike were involved in mining. Thanks to the work of Theodor Werner and Walter Bogsch, we know a lot about the investors. First, there were the local investors, who lived in the area and invested mostly on a small-scale level. According to Bogsch, these smallscale investors were the majority of Kux owners (Werner 1937, 184– 185; Bogsch 1966, 38). Compared to the large-scale investor, they had more Kuxe, but their Kuxe were not as valuable. Second, there were the fremde or ausländische Gewerken. These terms essentially cover all shareholders who did not live locally. This could be a rather heterogeneous group, consisting of members of princely families and the high nobility, civil servants, wholesalers, traders and craftsmen, members of the large German commercial cities (especially Augsburg, Nuremberg, Frankfurt, Cologne, Leipzig), and citizens of smaller central German cities such as Magdeburg and Erfurt. But investors also included corporations such as city councils, guilds, cooperatives from the nobility, and universities.⁹ Third, and not undisputedly, there was a further group: the mining officials themselves. Formally, mining officials were not allowed to own Kuxe. Until 1571 almost every mining ordinance forbade the involvement of mining officials in the Kux trade and threatened disobedience with severe sanctions.¹⁰ But de facto it was a most common phenomenon within the sixteenth century.¹¹ A particularly outstanding example is the Bergmeister (surveyor of the mines) at Buchholz, Matthes Busch, who owned 449 Kuxe in Buchholz alone. For a clearer understanding of investment practices in early modern mining, let us take a closer look at one investor called Hans Harrer the Younger, a secretary to the treasurer in the Saxon financial administration.¹² Over a period of three years, from 1554 to 1557, Harrer kept a record of his shares, the purchase prices, the payouts, and the costs (Zubuße).¹³ This personal account book is a unique testimony of sixteenth-century mining ventures, providing insights into the otherwise hidden commercial activity of mining entrepreneurs. Harrer was  For a superb analysis of the investments within the Marienberg mining district, see Bogsch (1933, 1966). With a focus on female investments in the Joachimsthal district, see Matasová (2013).  See for example BO Annaberg 1509, §4; BO Freiberg 1548; territorial BO 1554, §4; all edited in CA, cols 75 – 96, 114– 115, 117– 150.  Examples can be found in Laube (1974, 163 – 170); Bogsch (1966, 38 – 59); Werner (1935, 34– 36).  For the biography of Hans Harrer, Müller (1894) remains essential; see also Stollberg and Hüttig (1983, esp. 545 – 547).  Sächsisches Staatsarchiv, Hauptstaatsarchiv Dresden, 10036 Finanzarchiv, Loc. 36121, Rep. IX, Sect. 1, Nr. 1748. The following statements refer to this record.

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a typical large-scale investor with significant disposable capital. Over a period of three years, he spent about 1,894fl. for new Kuxe. Altogether, he held 105 Kuxe plus a few fractional Kuxe in ninety-four pits. Harrer was keen to diversify his investments in many pits in different mining towns, which enhanced his chances of making a profit. A profit he did make, especially with a few but lucrative Kuxe. His quarterly profits lay between 15pf. and 160fl., and most of his shares only yielded a modest profit between 1fl. and 10fl. Just seven of his ninety-four pits gained more than 20fl., and only one pit in Marienberg yielded a profit of 160fl. in 1557. Over a period of three years, he received 1,089fl., 251gr., and 21pf. from his shares, and had to pay 71fl., 2,607gr. (about 124fl.), and 193pf. for the Zubuße. Harrer’s investments were based on a simple system: he spread his investments and offloaded every share that involved operational costs over 1fl. This system was not unusual in the region (Werner 1935, 21). Investors like Harrer speculated on rich findings and low costs. Returns on investments were always a question of luck. To avoid putting all the eggs in one basket (as today’s investors would say) – namely, spreading the capital over various ventures and reacting to changing prices, as Harrer did – was always a safer option than investing only in one pit, because this system promised to bring at least some kind of earnings. As a market agent, Harrer is a representative of a specific type of investor: the large-scale shareholder whose investments were desperately needed by the Saxon princes. Their enterprises would bring fresh money to the mines of Marienberg, Annaberg, or Schneeberg, and it was their money that mainly funded the expensive deep mining (Bogsch 1966, 37). Shareholders like Harrer needed to be conscious of the economic dynamics of the region and to observe the mining areas closely. Which pits might be lucrative? Where and when should one buy a share? Which area was promising? Which areas could one afford to neglect? Therefore, information was key: rumours about new and abundant findings of silver ore could attract investors and destabilize the prices of shares. Potential investors therefore needed information in order to invest sensibly. The announcement of the opening of new mines took place by public notice, displayed at town halls, on church gates, and in other public spaces in the mining towns. In Freiberg, Ausbeutebögen (literally “yield sheets”; fig. 2), documented since 1529 and printed since 1551 by the Freiberg printer Wolfgang Meyerbeck, listed the yields of the individual pits on a quarterly basis.¹⁴ These yield sheets were printed in

 Since the second half of the sixteenth century, corresponding yield sheets were also produced in other districts. See Kugler (2008, 84– 86); Bogsch (1971).

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small editions and aimed at potential investors. To obtain further information, non-local and financially stronger investors in particular maintained close contact with local agents. It is known that the brothers Jörg and Christof Scheurl in Nuremberg received reports both from the Joachimsthal smeltery owner and tradesman Georg Neuesser and from the Counts Schlick. Anton Fugger also received information about the condition of the mines via Neuesser. The secretary of Duke Moritz, Joachim Faust, in turn obtained his information from the Marienberg administrator Georg Stumpfelt (Werner 1936, 133).

Figure 2: Ausbeutebogen Quartal Reminiscere 1606, Sächsisches Staatsarchiv, Bergarchiv Freiberg, 40165 Ausbeutbögen sächsischer Bergreviere, Nr. 3.

To summarize: mining was a complex economic system, especially with regard to the Kux trade. The basic structure of the Kux trade was impersonal. Investors did not have to maintain personal relationships or contacts with people in the mountain region in order to participate in the Kux trade. They acted according to the rules of the mining law, which were laid down in mining regulations and the implementation of which was monitored by the mining administration. In mining, at least in the ideal conception, the same rules applied to everyone, regardless of origin or status. However, the market cannot be fully understood on these terms. Rather, the relationship between agents, markets, and institutions was more complex. Information is an important tool for managing investments, but information was not everything. Market agents like Harrer were not homines oeconomici who made purchase decisions based on as much information as possible.

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A closer look at Hans Harrer’s investment strategies in particular reveals a fundamental problem facing historians as well as contemporary agents, namely the question of how investment decisions were actually made. Even if we can analyse different investment patterns based on Harrer’s account book, there is simply no way to know why he decided to purchase a Kux in the St Elisabeth or the Turmhoff pit. Did he have insider information, or did he read the yield sheets? Was he reacting to rumours about new findings, or, quite the contrary, did rumours actually put him off purchasing lucrative Kux? Did he react to attractive names like “Silverlace” or “Widow’s Luck”? We simply do not know. But not only do we not know; the reasons for a purchase were also a black box for the Saxon princes and their administration. Jens Beckert has convincingly argued that market-based exchange is highly contentious (2006, 7– 12; 2011). The unpredictability of markets, he argues, makes them a precarious arena for social action, whose functioning is anything but self-evident. One of the key elements in addressing this problem, he suggests, is to reduce uncertainty and create stable expectations for market actors. Under the impression of the unpredictability of the future and the corresponding economic behaviour, he continues, images and narratives of economic behaviour are not to be dismissed as mere reflection, but as a central component of the formation of economic interactions. Accordingly, not only values, norms, and attitudes, but also imaginations and fictions shape market-based interactions. This leads to my next point. What kind of perceptions did the early modern mining administration have of its investors?

2 Imaginaries and tropes: The imagination of shareholders As already mentioned, the motivations of the Gewerken were something of a black box. The shareholder system made it necessary to be aware of the economic dynamics of the region and act accordingly, as shown above by the example of Hans Harrer the Younger. Therefore, mining officials expected investors to closely observe the mining industry and mining officials. Mining and its administration were under scrutiny, and the administration was aware of that. But what the officials did not know was how, when, and by whom they would be observed. The interesting point is that the mining administration took up this dilemma on the level of discourse by talking about the shareholders, and especially the fremde Gewerken, who became one of the central imaginaries in mining. In the late fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the investors, and more specifically

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the foreign investors, constituted the phantasm of administration par excellence. The topos of the foreign investors who could withdraw their money from mining was omnipresent in how the administration talked about mining. One episode can shed light on this issue: in November 1570, a commission of financial and mining officials set out on a large-scale tour of the Ore Mountains. Its goal was to evaluate the conditions of the mining economy, and there were many issues to resolve. One point is particularly interesting for our topic: the Schneeberg Bergmeister (chief surveyor of the mines in a mining district), Nicol Drechsel, complained about current investment behaviour and the exploding prices of shares¹⁵. According to Drechsel, investors bought shares based on rumours and without more detailed knowledge. The more investors were interested in stocks, the higher the prices rose. And this happened before it was even clear if there were any profitable resources at all. If there were no lucrative payouts, investors let their shares expire and blamed the whole mining system for their failure. Yet, Drechsel argued, such ill-considered ventures meant that investors themselves were responsible for their losses. But due to malicious slander, spread through rumours and polemical writing, mining in the Schneeberg district was getting a poor reputation, and potential investors were being deterred from investing in this area. Drechsel’s complaints should be read with a pinch of salt, not least because the rumours and the polemics he denounced were in fact addressed against him and his corrupt administration. When Drechsel complained about the imprudent investors, this was a vital part of his own defence against these accusations. But there is a structural element in his argumentation that leads us to a key problem for the Saxon mining economy, namely the problem of hearsay and trust. Drechsel’s argument was far from unique. Several complaints from the sixteenth century point in the same direction.¹⁶ Even the pamphlet mentioned by Drechsel suggested a similar problem. It asked the polemical question: why is the Gewerke shying away from the pits of Schneeberg? Its answer was: because investors had heard about Drechsel’s corrupt and nepotist regime.¹⁷

 Sächsisches Staatsarchiv, Hauptstaatsarchiv Dresden, 10036 Finanzarchiv, Loc. 36126, Rep. IX, Sect. 1, Nr. 1863, fol. 212a.  See for example an anonymous pamphlet from 1560. The pamphlet can be found in Sächsisches Staatsarchiv, Hauptstaatsarchiv Dresden, 10036 Finanzarchiv, Loc. 36060, Rep. IX, Sect. 1, Nr. 0163. See also Sächsisches Staatsarchiv, Hauptstaatsarchiv Dresden, 10036 Finanzarchiv, Loc. 36060, Nr. 167b, fol. 8a; Sächsisches Staatsarchiv, Hauptstaatsarchiv Dresden, 10024 Geheimer Rat (Geheimes Archiv), Loc. 04502/06.  “All Ehr vnd Lob soll Gottes sein. Will itz schweigen all sein bos stuck / darumb es alles gehet zurück / Warumb lest gar ab der fremde man / Weys wie ers vnd sein son getriebn

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References to the investors and their investment behaviour permeated and greatly influenced the language of and about the mining administration. Various actors could use the trope of the local investor, but especially that of the fremde Gewerke, to create pressure in very different contexts, be it in times of crisis, in complaints about malpractice among mining officials, or to lobby for a new Bergamtsstube. ¹⁸ Talk about the non-local investors, however, always remained an abstract imagination. I am not aware of any context where mining officials used fremder Gewerke to refer to a specific investor or the economic situation of a specific pit. Even the episode involving Nichol Drechsel refers very generally to a scenario that was not linked back to specific Kux price developments in the pits. Early modern authorities did not use their various accounting books to develop future-linked economic strategies or even to evaluate the dynamics of an economic area. As current research on early modern accounting practices has emphasized, there was no assumption, or indeed expectation, that regulations were synonymous with greater efficiency.¹⁹ Rather, accounting practices were based on routines. The same goes for the topos of the fremder Gewerke. To speak about the fremder Gewerke was almost always to speak about an abstract and impersonal investor. This was thus not so much an evaluation of concrete economic practices but rather an imagination that drew on ideas shared by all. All mining agents, from the mining official to the sovereign, wanted non-local shareholders to invest in Saxon mining. At the same time, everyone involved was aware that investment behaviour could only be controlled to a limited extent. The investors,

haben / den gewercken gabs wider mit schand / dem frembden kam das bald zuhand / ist zornig, lest liegen, lest ab / spricht sein vrteil dieser dieb hab / wüßte das der edle churfurst mein / wo wolt der arme drechsel sein / bey den Juden ein heimlich dieb / vom volck Got mitt seinem segen trieb”; Sächsisches Staatsarchiv, Hauptstaatsarchiv Dresden, 10036 Finanzarchiv, Loc. 36126, Rep. IX, Sect. 1, Nr. 1863, fols 395a–396a.  Examples can be found in Sächsisches Staatsarchiv, Hauptstaatsarchiv Dresden, 10036 Finanzarchiv, Loc. 36127, Rep. IX, Nr. 1868, fols 65a–66a; Sächsisches Staatsarchiv, Hauptstaatsarchiv Dresden, 10036 Finanzarchiv, Loc. 36127, Rep. IX, Nr. 1869, fols 7a–8a; Sächsisches Staatsarchiv, Hauptstaatsarchiv Dresden, 10036 Finanzarchiv, Loc. 36060, Rep. IX, Sect. 1, Nr. 0163, fols 19a–25b; Sächsisches Staatsarchiv, Hauptstaatsarchiv Dresden, 10036 Finanzarchiv, Loc. 36075, Rep. IX, Sect. 1, Nr. 0592, fol. 33a; Sächsisches Staatsarchiv, Hauptstaatsarchiv Dresden, 10015 Landtag, Nr. A11, Torgau 1570, fols 33b–34a; Sächsisches Staatsarchiv, Hauptstaatsarchiv Dresden, 10036 Finanzarchiv, Loc. 36060, Nr. 167b, fols 23a–b.  See Mersiowsky (2008, 181); Arlinghaus (2002, 246). Lars Behrisch argues that until the eighteenth century, early modern graphs, records, and lists did not serve as statistical instruments (2004, 555).

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indeed, could withdraw their money from mining at any time, for whatever reason. As mentioned earlier, the future was unknown and to a certain degree unpredictable. Günter Ortmann has pointed out that speech acts have powerful effects which are closely linked to the self-perception and the perception of others (2004, 56). Language and perception are more than, and different from, mere factual descriptions; they lead to the self-reinforcement or self-undermining of institutions. To put it in the words of the famous Thomas theorem: “If men define situations as real, they are real in their consequences.”²⁰ Speech acts in organizations are therefore not only illustrations of reality; they bring it to life. By ascribing importance to the fremde Gewerken and their perception of mining, the mining administration also maintained their importance. It is not absolutely correct to say that talk about investors was always abstract. There is one great exception, and that is the investment behaviour of the Saxon princes. Again the complaints of the surveyor of the mines in Schneeberg, Nicol Drechsel, offer an interesting insight: Drechsel lamented that there was a rumour about the variable quality of ore in the Schneeberg mining district. The fact that even the Elector had ditched his Kux in Schneeberg, he wrote, had added fresh fuel to the rumours, which led investors to abandon the district. If even the Elector was not willing to invest in the area, Drechsel remarked, the investors must have second thoughts as well.²¹ In other words, he observed, the Elector’s individual behaviour created a bad impression of economic conditions in general. This example shows the Elector’s role as a model for investors; more generally, it hints at the fact that the mining administration was well aware of the necessity of a kind of “impression management” (Goffman 2013, 189 – 215). This leads to my last argument: if one knows that one is being observed and one wants to try to influence how one is perceived from the outside, it makes sense to actively pursue some form of impression management.

 Quoted from Ortmann (2004, 56); originally from Thomas and Thomas (1928, 527).  “Wie ihr eins teils sich offentlich des horenn lassenn, Weyl vnser gnedigster herr mitt vns nicht bawen wolle, sey ihnen auch bedenklich Ihr geld ferner bey vns anzuwenden”; Sächsisches Staatsarchiv, Hauptstaatsarchiv Dresden, 10036 Finanzarchiv, Loc. 36126, Rep. IX, Sect. 1, Nr. 1863, fol. 212b.

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3 Impression management, mining ordinances, and the problem of trust This impression management was connected to the use of media. I argue that the mining ordinances themselves served not only as media but even as a “display” (Schauseite) of the administration.²² As mentioned before, during the late fifteenth and sixteenth centuries the Saxon princes published an enormous number of local mining ordinances. In fact, almost every town in the Ore Mountains had its own mining ordinance at this time. These printed or handwritten texts were public performances: they were publicly displayed, read aloud, sent out to other cities like Augsburg or Frankfurt am Main, and compiled in collections like the Ursprung gemeiner Bergrecht. ²³ Although mining ordinances regulated many parts of the mining process and its administration (e. g. officials’ duties, miners’ labour conditions, the smelting process and the specifics of the mining law, conditions of membership of the mining administration, the duties of officials, the importance of literacy and of the written word), and in this way defined relatively stable behavioural expectations,²⁴ they did not represent the whole mining administration. When thoroughly analysed, they appear quite selective. Despite their detailed stipulations, there are numerous areas of mining that are hardly mentioned in the mining regulations, if at all. The public-facing part of the mining administration stood in stark contrast with most of its internal workings, especially the parts that were connected to communication and information processing, which were much less formally regulated. Reading these “silences” in the mining regulations, I would argue, offers an insight into the complexities of such normative descriptions. These texts are no mirrors of social reality. They are not to be read as detailed rulebooks for the administration either. Rather, they fulfilled particular medial and symbolic functions: they worked as part of a display that was established by the mining administration for its economic environment.²⁵

 The term Schauseite is used by Niklas Luhmann to describe the way in which organizations represent themselves and communicate with their environment. See Luhmann (1995, 112– 122, esp. 112).  Haselberg [1535]. More information about Johann Haselberg can be found in Connolly (2005, 33 – 85).  Landwehr (2008, esp. 216); with a more general approach towards formal rules, see Stollberg-Rilinger (2013, esp. 5 – 7).  Luhmann (1995, 112– 122) is primarily interested in displays as a vital part of a complex communication process between organizations and their environment. In contrast, Ortmann and

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Entries on accounting procedures in the early modern Saxon mining industry illustrate this point perfectly. Generally speaking, there were two key accounting procedures related to silver production.²⁶ First and foremost were the quarterly accounts of the pits, the Bergrechnungen. These accounts were based on a ratio between the amount of silver ore that was extracted in the pit and the weekly expenses for the workers’ wages, material costs, and taxes. Based on the Bergrechnung, the mining officials calculated the quarterly profit of the pit, the Ausbeute, as well as the dreaded Zubuße. Therefore, the Bergrechnung was very important for the investors, whose economic behaviour depended heavily on this accounting practice, as mentioned above with the example of Hans Harrer, who dumped every share with a Zubuße over 1fl. The mining ordinances regulated in a very detailed fashion what the final accounts of the pits should contain, as well as by whom, and with what accounting techniques, they should be drawn up. According to the Annaberg mining ordinance of 1509, the accounts should be written in German numbers (i. e. Roman, not Arabic, numbers).²⁷ Every week, the shift foreman had to document the exact amount and cost of all material such as iron, wood, or tools that was used in the pit, as well as the weekly operational costs for the workers employed in the pit, in the Anschnitt. What was not documented in the Anschnitt was not allowed to be included in the quarterly accounts of the pit, the Bergrechnungen, and the mining ordinances provided a detailed description of what expenses should be documented, and in what manner, in the quarterly accounts of the pits. The accounts of the Anschnitt, as well as the general documentation of all accounts of the pits, the Rezessbücher, had to be stored in a chest with three locks in the local

Kühl lay a stronger emphasis on the deceiving quality of these representations. According to Ortmann, organizations develop “facades of rationality” (Rationalitätsfassaden) that are quite deliberately designed to deceive the institutional environment. Whether organizations actually instrumentally construct a display to deceive their environment remains worthy of discussion; Ortmann (2004, 39); Kühl (2011, esp. 138 – 141).  Another important accounting procedure can be observed in the accounts of the smelteries. For pragmatic reasons, this paper focuses on the extraction of silver and not the further processing.  While the previous ordinances merely referred to the fact that the accounts of the pits had to be redlich (“upright”), the Schreckensberg ordinance of 1499/1500 already contains numerous small-scale regulations that were adopted in the Annaberg mining ordinance of 1509. The regulations of the Annaberg mining ordinance were in turn the basis for the other major mining ordinances of 1554 and 1589, which differ only marginally in terms of accounting. The Schreckensberger Ordnung can be found in Ermisch (1887, 112– 144, esp. §§15 – 25); BO Annaberg 1509, §§47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 53, and territorial BO 1554, §§54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59 (edited in CA, cols 75 – 112, 117– 150).

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mining office²⁸. The keys for the locks were to be kept by three kinds of official: the mining clerk (Bergschreiber), the Bergmeister, and his subordinates (the Berggeschworene). The mining ordinances made one thing clear: there was no way that anybody could tamper with the accounts. Furthermore, the integrity of the accounts was highlighted by vivid descriptions of keys, lockable chests, and other safety measures like restrained access to offices (where the accounts were stored) in order to make sure that no one even had the chance to get a hand on the accounts²⁹. No official records, be it an account book or other document, were allowed to leave the restricted area of the mining office. The second quarterly procedure was the drawing up of the Zehntrechnung, which documented the various revenues of the Saxon princes from their mining districts.³⁰ Looking at the Zehntrechnungen is quite revealing. It would seem most likely that the princes and local authorities had a great interest in these accounts. But they were not regulated in the same manner as the accounts of the pits were. Quite the opposite: while the accounts of the pits were meticulously regulated and described, the relevant mining ordinances between 1490 and 1589 barely mentioned the Zehntrechnungen at all³¹ – even though both records were based on the same accounting practices. It is unlikely that this was a coincidence, or that the princes simply did not care about their mining revenues and therefore did not regulate these records in the same manner as the accounts of the pits. If any proceeding was critical for the whole mining economy, it was these accounts of the territorial revenues. One possible explanation for why the mining ordinances did not mention the procedure to be followed in the case of the Zehntrechnung is that it was not necessary. The administrative techniques used by mining officials were based on traditional bookkeeping routines that we know from various other fields of accounting and that had been adapted to the specific needs of the mining economy (e. g. Mersiowsky 2000, 337– 348; Sladeczek 2015, 116).

 Territorial BO 1554, §60, edited in CA, cols 117– 150.  Territorial BO 1554, §§11, 60, edited in CA, cols 121– 122, 135.  See Laube (1974, 59 – 63); Kaiser (1953, 255 – 269); Kaden (2003, 26; 2007, 166 – 167); Schirmer (2003, 328 – 329); Bamberg (1940, 43 – 45); Hahn (1932, 35 – 50).  Although the procedure had been carried out since 1488, there are no references within the mining ordinances prior to 1509. See BO Annaberg 1509, §72, edited in CA, col. 89. But the regulations provided by this ordinance are not very specific: “so uff angetzeigt bergkwergken gemacht wirdt, trewlich einfordern und uffsehen, das furstlicher gebuer unnd den gewergken daran nichtts entzohen werde, von demselben irem einnehm sie ordenlich rechnung halten”, meaning that the accounts of the Zehntrechnung should be made up appropriately.

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A further and complementary interpretation can be found by examining the recipients of mining ordinances. Mining ordinances did not just present a framework for the mining administration. To a greater degree, these ordinances created a specific symbolic representation of the mining economy and were important tools in a form of impression management. Mining ordinances created an image about how the mining system functioned in an ideal way. This hypothesis is strengthened if we observe the development of regulations concerning the accounts of the pits in the mining ordinances. There is a certain shift noticeable in the last decade of the fifteenth century. The early mining ordinances of the mining town of Schneeberg dating back to 1477, 1479, 1487, and 1492 were quite vague concerning the procedure³². They just state that the accounts should be drawn up by the shift foreman (Schichtmeister) of a pit, and that this person should be pious (fromm) and fit for the task (tauglich). More detailed regulations can be traced first in the Schreckensberg (Annaberg) ordinance from 1499/1500³³. This ordinance offers the first detailed description of the course of actions to be followed, the accounting techniques, the storage of the records, and the control mechanisms. This ordinance then became the model for later ordinances, like the Annaberg mining ordinance of 1509 or the general mining ordinance for the Albertine territory of 1554. The mining ordinances now focused heavily on the rationality and security of the procedure itself, and not, as the Schneeberg ordinances had previously done, on the trustworthiness of a single person. This change can be interpreted as a shift from a more personal form of trust to a more generalized form of trust in the system itself. It is not only the descriptions of the procedure itself but also the vivid descriptions of chests, locks, and restricted access to the records that constitute a case in point. As Megan Williams has shown in a study of the Habsburg Chancellery, one of the most important functions of early modern offices was to be seen as a “chamber of secrets” (Williams 2015, 346 – 352). Limited access, as well as locked doors and chests, solemn vows, and formal rules and policies were vital parts of a restricted system of access. According to Williams, the major function of this regime of restrictions was to guarantee the integrity and validity of the archival records. At first glance, this interpretation fits perfectly with the detailed description of the accounts of the pits: mining ordinances made it clear that all books and registers were protected against manipulation – or at least, that they should be. Given the usual, and usually unproblematic, practice of storing account books and registers in the private apartments of pub-

 Edited in Ermisch 1887, 82– 88, 89 – 97, 98 – 101, 102– 111.  Edited in Ermisch 1887, 112– 144.

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lic officials, this shows that the provisions of the mining ordinances were not a detailed reflection of administrative practices.³⁴ Therefore, it is more accurate to say that these regulations did not guarantee the integrity of the records but instead created a specific representation of safety and trustworthiness (see Luhmann 1995, 111– 112). Further sources support this interpretation, including a collection of customary law from the mid-sixteenth century.³⁵ This document also contains vivid descriptions of the final accounts of the pits. But the author, a mining official called Simon Bogner, emphasized again and again that certain activities were prohibited to mining officials or should be exercised by them in a certain way, so that the foreign investors should “not have cause for complaint or suspicion”.³⁶ For Bogner, it was crucial not to dissuade the shareholders from engaging with the Saxon mines. Ex negativo, Bogner saw the rule-compliant behaviour of mining officials as a trust-building measure. The mining ordinances chose a completely different rhetorical approach: they did not speak at all of mistrust and suspicion. Rather, they constructed an image of the administration in which the mining administration served the common good and the particular interests of the shareholders. The mining ordinances symbolically portrayed the integrity and the security of the bureaucratic system, be it through the detailed description of procedures and their performative staging of security (such as the lockable chest, keys, and locks); by describing the rights, but also the duties, of mining officials; by invoking control mechanisms; and not least by highlighting the written nature of administration. The mining administration, as represented in the mining ordinances, appears indeed as a trustworthy organization. This image, however, referred only to those aspects of mining that touched on the interests of the Gewerken. This does not mean that mining regulations were purely fictional, or that those areas that were not regulated in the mining regulations were irrelevant. Rather, the selective description of administrative processes in the medium of mining ordinances makes it clear that in early modern mining, efficiency and formal regulation were not necessarily linked. It is

 Traces of this can be found when there was a change of personnel, for example in Sächsisches Staatsarchiv, Bergarchiv Freiberg, 40001 Oberbergamt Freiberg, Nr. 2321, fols 6a, 8a; Sächsisches Staatsarchiv, Bergarchiv Freiberg, 40011 Bergamt Geyer (mit Ehrenfriedersdorf), Nr. 256, fol. 1b; Sächsisches Staatsarchiv, Hauptstaatsarchiv Dresden, 10036 Finanzarchiv, Loc. 36077, Rep. IX, Sect. 1, Nr. 604, fols 331a–332a. As Ulrike Ludwig (2015) has shown, this was not unusual.  Bogner’s Berggebräuche was probably written between 1554 and 1568. The text is edited in Löscher (2003, 141– 220).  Berggebräuche, §69. For further examples, see §§13, 36, 129, 139, 140, 205, 283.

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therefore not implausible to assume that the mining ordinances had a medial function and created an image of mining and its administration directed at the economic environment of the mining administration, i. e. the investors. It was only in relation to the investors that the mining administration represented itself as a trustworthy organization based on rules, hierarchies, and membership rather than personal networks and individual skills. In contrast to the unpredictability of the future, mining ordinances served as a medium for creating an image of the mining system in general as a safe and secure investment. This representation is a more positive counter-image to the imaginary of the Gewerken, who could withdraw their money from mining. The key to understanding the importance of imaginations within the mining administration is the creation of trust. The whole Kux trade system relied on trust. If investors had no faith at all in a paper-based system like Kuxe, they could simply withdraw their money and invest in other mining areas within the Holy Roman Empire. But what is trust and how does one generate it? For Sheilagh Ogilvie, trust is fundamentally the “confidence in or reliance on some quality or attribute of a person or thing”.³⁷ There are two different categories “of what may be an object of trust” as Ogilvie argues: persons and institutions (2005, 18). Trust in persons is highly particular and depends on specific personal attributes or group affiliations.³⁸ Typically, early modern economic ventures relied heavily on trust in persons. The social capital of a merchant, his individual honour and credibility, was crucial for economic practices, as Mark Häberlein and other scholars have shown.³⁹ Trust in institutions, on the other hand, can be described as a more generalized kind of trust that allows one to enter into transactions even with strangers – people of unknown character. In this case, the “institution can be trusted to enforce anyone’s rights and privileges in an impartial way, regardless of personal attributes” (Ogilvie 2005, 19). System trust (Systemvertrauen) is more abstract than personal trust. People do not trust one person, but the basic procedures of a system, which at best leads to a more stable set of expectations. Persons are regarded as representatives of the institution without having to be attributed special characteristics or special credit individually. Agents do not have to know one another or have precise knowledge of the character or personal traits of a person, but to have confidence in the system

 An etymological approach to the German verb vertrauen can be found in Frevert (2003, 13 – 19); more specific for the sixteenth century, Ziegler (2017, 35 – 43).  Ogilvie argues that trust in persons can be differentiated into particularized and generalized trust in persons. While particularized trust in persons is linked to specific persons or groups, generalized trust allows interactions even with strangers (Ogilvie 2005, 18).  See for example Häberlein (1998, 274– 282; 2016); Fiedler (2001); Gorißen (2003).

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itself.⁴⁰ Therefore, the individual person is just an exchangeable part of a greater system. The credibility of a person, his individual honour or social capital, is not essential. We know a lot about the mechanisms of authority and administration in early modern settings. As recent research has emphasized, the exercise of power relied heavily on acceptance and empowering interactions (Blockmans et al. 2009; Brakensiek 2009, 2014; Brakensiek and Wunder 2005; Asch and Freist 2005). Early modern officials were embedded in various social networks. The way territorial bureaucracies gained acceptance was closely connected to local political cultures, family networks, friendship, and a society that was based on presence and face-to-face interaction (Emich et al. 2005; Emich 2001, 2010, 2011; Asch et al. 2011; Reinhard 1974, 2000; Kettering 1986; Thiessen 2010). But how did an early modern bureaucracy react to a situation where most of those with whom it dealt were not subjects of the princes, not resident or indeed present in their area of influence – to a situation where those ties did not play a role? Under these circumstances, the traditional mechanisms of gaining acceptance were stretched to their limits. Mining ordinances formed one crucial cog in the creation of trust in the system under the specific economic conditions of early modern mining. They were used as a medium to create trust in the institution of the mining administration. Again we do not know if the representations in the mining ordinances actually created trust. We cannot know why Gewerken invested in a particular area or pit. But what we can determine is that mining officials reflected on the contingency of investment behaviour, and that they created different imaginaries that were connected to this contingency: first, the topos of the fremder Gewerke, and second, their self-representation as a formal organization based on impersonal and regulated decision-making processes. Contrary to the logic of a society of ranks in which the prestige and status of the person was of central importance, Kux-based mining was based on an impersonal and objective institutional framework that applied equally to all, be they noblemen or peasants – at least in the medial representation set out in the ordinances. The purpose of this paper was to analyse the interactions between different market agents in the early modern mining economy. As I have shown, thinking about agents must not be limited to the investors but also has to take into account the mining administration and, not least, the imagined investor. Hearsay and rumours could have a devastating impact on the whole mining industry. But

 Niklas Luhmann described this as Systemvertrauen, which could be translated as “general trust in the system”. See Luhmann (1995, 71– 73, 190).

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did the investor actually listen to rumours and adjust his investment behaviour accordingly? We do not know. There is simply no way to see into the actual economic decision-making processes. But what we do see is that this specific economic situation was anticipated and reflected on by the mining administration. This context shaped the way in which the mining administration represented itself as a formal organization regulated by membership, hierarchies, safety, and rationality. This representation worked as a “display” for its economic environment: it was only when confronted with investors, particularly non-resident investors, that the mining bureaucracy represented itself in this fashion. This image of administration was not a way to rationalize administration or to improve its efficiency. Rather, representing it as a formal organization reflected the hybrid character of the mining economy. It was one of the strategies developed by administrators to create trust in the system itself. Thinking from this point of view allows us to get a better understanding of the dynamics of early modern markets, agents, and the influence of imaginations.

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Stollberg, Jochen, and Angela Hüttig. “Zwei Bände aus dem Besitz des kurfürstlich sächsischen Kammermeisters Hans Harrer im Bestand der Sächsischen Landesbibliothek”. Zentralblatt für Bibliothekswesen 97 (1983): 545 – 547. Stollberg-Rilinger, Barbara. “Die Frühe Neuzeit: Eine Epoche der Formalisierung?” Die Frühe Neuzeit: Revisionen einer Epoche. Ed. Andreas Höfele, Jan-Dirk Müller, and Wulf Österreicher. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2013. 3 – 27. Stoob, Heinz. “Frühneuzeitliche Stadttypen”. Die Stadt: Gestalt und Wandel bis zum industriellen Zeitalter. Ed. Heinz Stoob. Cologne: Böhlau, 1979. 195 – 228. Suhling, Lothar. “Entwicklungen in der Montantechnik der Frühen Neuzeit”. Montantechnologie an historischen Schnittstellen. Ed. Werner Kroker. Bochum: Georg Agricola Gesellschaft, 1996. 52 – 64. Thiel, Ulrich. “Die Bergstädte des sächsischen Erzgebirges”. Glaube und Macht: Sachsen im Europa der Reformationszeit: Aufsätze. Ed. Cecilia Hollberg and Harald Marx. Dresden: Sandstein Verlag, 2004. 91 – 102. Thiessen, Hillard von. Diplomatie und Patronage: Die spanisch-römischen Beziehungen 1605 – 1621 in akteurszentrierter Perspektive. Epfendorf: bibliotheca academica, 2010. Thomas, William I., and Dorothy S. Thomas. The Child in America: Behavior Problems and Programs. New York: Knopf, 1928. Unger, Manfred. Stadtgemeinde und Bergwesen Freibergs im Mittelalter. Weimar: H. Böhlaus Nachfolger, 1963. Wagenbreth, Otfried, and Eberhard Wächtler. Der Freiberger Bergbau: Technische Denkmale und Geschichte. 2nd ed. Berlin: Springer Spektrum, 2015. Werner, Theodor Gustav. “Der Annaberger Bürgermeister und Bergbauunternehmer Caspar Kürschner und die Himmlisch Heer Fundgrube: Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte des erzgebirgischen Bergbaues im 16. Jahrhundert”. Mitteilungen des Vereins für die Geschichte von Annaberg und Umgegend 7.24 (1935): 5 – 91. Werner, Theodor Gustav. “Das fremde Kapital im Annaberger Bergbau und Metallhandel des 16. Jahrhunderts mit Berücksichtigung der Kuxspekulation und der Verhältnisse in anderen erzgebirgischen Bergstädten”. Neues Archiv für Sächsische Geschichte 57.2 (1936): 113 – 179. Werner, Theodor Gustav. “Das fremde Kapital im Annaberger Bergbau und Metallhandel des 16. Jahrhunderts (Fortsetzung)”. Neues Archiv für Sächsische Geschichte 58 (1937): 1 – 47, 136 – 201. Westermann, Angelika. “Montanverwaltung”. Enzyklopädie der Neuzeit. Vol. 8. Stuttgart: Metzler, 2008. cols 743 – 745. Westermann, Ekkehard. “Silberproduktion und -handel: Mittel- und oberdeutsche Wirtschaftsverflechtungen im 15./16. Jahrhundert”. Neues Archiv für Sächsische Geschichte 68 (1997): 47 – 65. White, Harrison C. “Where Do Markets Come From?” American Journal of Sociology 87.3 (1981): 517 – 547. Williams, Megan. “‘Zu Notdurfft der Schreiberey’: Die Einrichtung der frühneuzeitlichen Kanzlei”. Diskurse – Körper – Artefakte: Historische Praxeologie in der Frühneuzeitforschung. Ed. Dagmar Freist. Bielefeld: transcript Verlag, 2015. 355 – 373. Ziegler, Hannes. Trauen und Glauben: Vertrauen in der politischen Kultur des Alten Reiches im Konfessionellen Zeitalter. Affalterbach: Didymos-Verlag, 2017. Zycha, Adolf. “Das Wort ‘Kux’”. Zeitschrift für Bergrecht 62 (1921): 407 – 412.

Eva Brugger

The “destroyers of trade”, “our good and dear Inhabitants”, and “all persons of what quality or nation however they may be”: Early Modern Colonial Market Culture 1 Introduction The famous Dutch-American illustrator and writer Peter Spier – known for his detailed and historically accurate illustrations and descriptions – shaped the image of the capital of New Netherland with his children’s book The Legend of New Amsterdam, published in 1979. He conveys the image of a hard-working and peaceful society with a prospering economy that paved the way for today’s New York City. You would have called it a village, but the people who lived here, and had built every bit of it with their own hands, grandly called it ‘de Stad’: The City. […] In the first years the newcomers lived like moles in shallow pits roofed over with tree trunks and branches, covered with dirt. But in 1660, New Amsterdam was quite a town with its three hundred buildings, and nearly fifteen hundred people. […] First of all there was the gristmill, worked by Jacob Kip, covered with flour dust, white as a ghost. Nearby, within Fort Amsterdam, were the Church of Saint Nicholas, the Company soldiers, and on the ramparts, the great guns, each with a neat stack of shot beside it. Across from the Market Field was the town: homes, taverns, offices, shops, and the New Hospital. More? Of course: there was the Weighting House with its enormous scales and iron weights, and its busy pier where the ferries of Breuckelen and its island tied up. There was the sawmill, where huge logs were cut into beams and planks by blades with vicious teeth like a shark’s. […] There were the shipyard, the ropewalk, the breweries, and the warehouses, some filled with mountains of stinking otter and beaver pelts, or with bundles of tobacco leaves, or stacked barrels. It was always amazing to watch Evert Dyckingh blow glass bottles, or to hang around Jorrisen’s smithy for a while, and see the sparks fly off the anvil like shooting stars. Hendrick Spiers would forever be making something new in his carpenter’s shop, and in summer the Company gardens and the farms beyond the wall were worth the trip. In the bay there were merchantmen riding at anchor, and at times a visiting warship, bristling with cannon and men. It was a wonderful city. Saturday was Market Day, a very special day. The field was crowed with townspeople, farmers, cattle, booths, and visiting Indians. Even better was the ‘Kermi’ in the fall, the annual Fair, with a merry-go-round, games, stalls, music, and boat races – and no school that day. (Spier 1979, n.p.)

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In fact, Spier lists all the important components of the New Amsterdam economy: he mentions the marketplace, which was located at the southern tip of Manhattan Island – close to the port of Fort Amsterdam and surrounded by shops and warehouses. He mentions the weighing house of the West India Company (WIC), where all imported and exported goods were weighed, measured, and evaluated in order to determine taxes and duties. Spier shows that New Amsterdam was more than just a trading hot spot for the WIC; it was the centre of life for settlers who had decided to live permanently in the New Netherland colony in the middle of the seventeenth century. He lists a sawmill, rope-making, and a shipyard, which enabled local people to build an infrastructure for themselves with houses and ships. Breweries and taverns, houses, a church, and a hospital complete the picture of an early modern city where Company soldiers, craftsmen, and merchants lived together. New Amsterdam’s food supply came from farmers who cultivated their fields outside the city wall in the area of today’s Central Park on the island of Manhattan. In the 1660s, they offered their goods weekly at a market in New Amsterdam. At this market, the inhabitants of New Amsterdam were able to meet Natives to exchange consumer goods, food, and tools. Once a year, a fair took place in New Amsterdam. The fair was a meeting place for everyone in and around New Amsterdam. Above all, cattle could be bought and sold. Contacts were made and long-standing relationships cultivated. It is doubtful, however, that New Amsterdam already had a merry-go-round in the seventeenth century. In summary, it can be said that Peter Spier describes economic life in New Amsterdam as a harmonious interaction of different market actors. Everyone knew what he or she had to do, what he or she was allowed to trade where, and at what time of the year with whom. By shaping New Amsterdam as a marketplace, Spier transferred a regulated and orderly early modern market to a modern economy that is inextricably linked to New York City. Such a representation, which emphasizes the Dutch heritage in New York, is not only found in the children’s book entitled The Legend of New Amsterdam. Modernization narratives in popular literature and historical research envisage early modern colonial markets in North America as markets which promoted economic growth with new forms of trade, new techniques of resource extraction, and innovations in the field of infrastructure. In particular, they describe New Amsterdam as a place where markets emerged that opened up previously unknown opportunities for individual entrepreneurs to increase their profits (Rink 1986; Spufford 2016). However, colonial markets can only be grasped to a limited extent with linear narratives that tell the story of a smooth emergence of a modern market economy (Syrett 1954, 536). In order to avoid such a narrative of progression, my approach is based on the following basic assumptions markets and their actors are

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concrete, not abstract, and they are historically specific, not generalized. At the same time, however, I pursue more general cognitive interests and try to combine empiricism and theory. In this respect, I am interested in markets from a general perspective that questions different influencing factors, institutionalization processes, and changing material arrangements. However, this is always done on the basis of historically specific situations and times, which are used to gain representative insights. The focus on markets and their actors, as I show in my paper, emphasizes that all those who were excluded from them, who were perceived as a threat to public order and yet found a way to trade their goods and interests on markets, are hidden in linear stories that understand early modern markets as a static and clearly regulated component of early modern societies. Based on the Laws and Ordinances of New Netherland (1629 – 1674) (O’Callaghan 1868), I reconstruct New Amsterdam as a marketplace that was shaped by different actors with different interests and rights. The Laws and Ordinances are a compilation of all recorded administrative regulations issued in the colony of New Netherland. They were translated and published by E. B. O’Callaghan, the keeper of historical manuscripts for the State of New York. The publication is still considered a well-founded translation today and serves as the main source for this paper. Recently published research, for example on early modern sumptuary laws, reveals the potential value of ordinances and regulations for economic, cultural, and social history (Riello and Rublack 2019). For historical research, ordinances and regulations do not represent a past actual state but rather provide information on how controversial the negotiation and establishment of social order was in the early modern period. Studying the Laws and Ordinances from New Netherland enables me to challenge widespread economic-historical explanations of the conditions for economic growth in colonies in the seventeenth century. The upcoming section (2) starts with a short overview of the history of the colony of New Netherland. I identify the main trading places and describe the population of New Netherland. In particular, I focus on the different competing interests that shaped economic, political, and social life in this North American colony in the middle of the seventeenth century. My approach profits from research in the field of political and economic history that develops new perspectives on early modern mercantilism and the expansion of European empires (Stern and Wennerlind 2013). On the basis of historical-anthropological studies from the 1970s (Ray and Freeman 1978; White 1991), current economic studies (Carlos and Lewis 2010), and studies from the field of material culture (DuPlessis 2015; Gerritsen and Riello 2015; Lemire 2018), I refute the classical thesis of triangular trade and thus, for example, the assumption that indigenous people were merely suppliers of resources on the global luxury and consumer markets in the seven-

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teenth and eighteenth centuries. Other research emphasizes the importance of intimate networks and personal relations for transatlantic and global trade (Romney Shawn 2014), or understands colonial marketplaces as transcultural meeting zones for consumers, producers, and distributors (Carlos and Lewis 2014; Sleeper-Smith 2009). Taking up this research, the next section (3) examines who was allowed to trade, and prohibited from trading, in the colony – regardless of gender, cultural background, origin, or social status. On the basis of the Laws and Ordinances, I demonstrate that the boundaries between those who had permission to trade at the official marketplaces and those who were temporarily or completely excluded from trading there cannot primarily be found between settlers and Natives, between men and women, or between national borders. Instead, the greatest threat to the social order was considered to be those who stayed in the colony for short periods or traded outside the city walls. This section focuses on the contemporary categorization of market actors around 1650, and sheds light on hitherto rarely studied locations of trade: places of exchange in small bays or in the forest outside the city wall. These places and their actors play an important role in the Laws and Ordinances because they enabled and fostered the smuggling and pre-emption of goods beyond official markets and price regulations. Analysing actual marketplaces and their actors opens up new perspectives on economic practices in an early modern colonial setting and questions stereotypical and dichotomic narratives like the distinction between Europeans and Natives, between men and women, or between the Dutch and the English. By adapting recently developed concepts from the field of early modern economic history, like Laurence Fontaine’s moral economy (2014), as well as concepts from the field of anthropology (Hixson 2013; Veracini 2010), this paper links my observations on the New Netherland markets and their actors to more general reflections on early modern colonial moral economies in section 4. But first we have to clarify who had interests in the Dutch colony in North America in the first half of the seventeenth century, and why.

2 Markets and their actors: Competing economic interests in New Netherland The beginnings of the Dutch colony go back to Henry Hudson. In 1609 the Englishman Hudson set sail to the North American continent under Dutch orders. When he came back, he described the territories alongside the river that bears his name today as a promising province. Shortly after his return, the first mer-

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chants sailed to Manhattan equipped with a trading monopoly from the WIC. In particular, they were interested in participating in the promising fur trade. But in the beginning, life for the people in New Netherland was not easy. The living conditions were hard. There was no infrastructure, and the colony was supplied almost exclusively from the motherland. Profits from the fur trade were also limited. The WIC had a twenty-four-year monopoly on the fur trade from 1621. Not least because of this monopoly and the poor supply situation, the opportunities for living and earning money in the colony were simply too unattractive for Dutch citizens (Middleton 2006, 13). Compared to France, England, and other European countries, the Dutch had little incentive to leave their economically prosperous and relatively tolerant homeland. At the beginning of the 1620s, thirty Walloon families, religious refugees from the Thirty Years War, were sent to New Netherland as the first settlers (Jacobs 2009, 86). Both decisions, the fur-trade monopoly for the WIC and the attempt to build up a permanent settlement in North America (and thus to mark themselves off from the English), characterized the early years of the colony. However, these interventions also show that the economy in New Netherland in particular was marked by competing interests from the very beginning. Regardless of whether the people in New Netherland were refugees who wanted to settle permanently, or Company members who used the island of Manhattan and the territories alongside today’s Hudson River as trading posts, the restrictions in the fur trade and the high prices for imported everyday and consumer goods, which were only allowed to be sold in the Company’s shops, prevented many from coming to the colony (Middleton 2006, 16). Around 1630 only three to five hundred inhabitants were living in New Amsterdam (Jacobs 2009, 86). The Dutch colony experienced its first boom in the late 1630s. Following the introduction of patroonships, the fur-trade monopoly was relaxed and private investment became more lucrative. Through the “Charter of Freedoms and Exemptions” of 1629, the WIC enabled private investors to found settlements in New Netherland and to profit from the beaver trade (“Charter” 1908). In return, the patroons undertook to pay for the relocation and care of their settlers. The WIC initiative attracted settlers and capital. In 1640 the WIC finally repealed the fur-trade monopoly. By this time, the colony numbered between fifteen hundred and two thousand inhabitants. Until about 1650, the number of inhabitants remained relatively constant at around two thousand. Above all, repeated armed conflicts with England and various tribes prevented further Dutch people from boarding WIC ships in Amsterdam as future settlers. The economic and political situation in the colony stabilized only under Peter Stuyvesant’s government. In 1646 Stuyvesant became director-general of

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the WIC. He took over a promising but risky project. In the years before, he had served as the WIC’s director of the Dutch colonies in the Caribbean. In 1644 his troops attacked the island of St Martin but found the Spanish territory well defended. Stuyvesant was wounded and his leg had to be amputated. After his convalescence in the Netherlands, he took on the additional post of director of the WIC in New Netherland. Because of this double function as director of the WIC for Curaçao and the Caribbean islands and director of the WIC in New Netherland, he was given the title of director-general (Frihoff and Jacobs 2009, 41). In early spring 1647, he decided to cross the Atlantic again. He was headed for the North American continent, more precisely the capital of New Netherland, New Amsterdam. When Peter Stuyvesant took up his role as director-general of the WIC in 1646, New Netherland had already evolved from a small trading post where only a few hundred colonists lived into a settlement colony. The period of prosperity in the 1650s is often considered the main achievement of his tenure. The New Netherland historian Jaap Jacob dates the heyday of New Netherland to the time after 1654, when returning WIC employees from the then-lost Dutch Brazil were granted land in New Netherland by order of Stuyvesant. In 1664, seven thousand to nine thousand colonists lived in two major settlements, Beverwijck and New Amsterdam, two patroonships, Rensselaerswijck and the city-colony New Amstel on the Delaware River, fifteen towns with a court of justice, including the English villages under Dutch jurisdiction on Long Island, and several small settlements without jurisdictional powers as yet. (Jacobs 2009, 86)

But who were the people living in New Amsterdam? During the 1630s and at the beginning of the 1640s, it was mainly soldiers and refugees from the Thirty Years War in the German states who came with their families to the Dutch colony. In the 1650s, the WIC “started a policy of recruiting soldiers specifically for New Netherland on a short contract, with the understanding that they would subsequently take up another occupation” (Jacobs 2009, 88). Meanwhile, more and more independent farmers and craftsmen came with their families: Tailors, carpenters, shoemakers, surgeons, masons, and coopers for the most part fall in the category of nuclear family migration in the 1650s. Contract laborers were mostly male, hired for three to six years, with the younger men getting a longer contract and a lower yearly salary. Maidservants for domestic work made up about 20 percent of the contract laborers. (Jacobs 2009, 88)

With the loosening of the fur-trade monopoly, there were more merchants among the new settlers in New Netherland. The merchants were

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split between minor and major merchants. Minor merchants were dominant in the 1640s, after the Company relinquished the fur-trade monopoly. They were itinerant traders, originating mostly from North Holland above the IJ and West-Friesland. They traveled to New Netherland with trade goods in spring, conducted business with colonists and Indian traders in Beverwijck in summer, and returned to the Dutch Republic in fall. In contrast, the major merchants resided in New Netherland. Most of them began their career for one of the larger merchant houses in Amsterdam, which regularly sent them on overseas assignments to trade goods. Gradually, these agents, who generally were from Haarlem and Amsterdam, started trading for their own profit. After New Amsterdam acquired city rights in 1653, they became the elite from which the members of city government were recruited. (Jacobs 2009, 88)

Researchers today estimate that in 1664 “between 1’750 and 2’500 [Dutch people], not including slaves and free blacks”, lived in New Amsterdam (Jacobs 2009, 86). In addition to Dutch settlers, English, Swedish, German, and French people, among others, lived and traded in New Amsterdam. From an economic-historical point of view, the liberalization of trade through the abolition of the fur trade monopoly and the promise of local rights and administration under Stuyvesant’s government transformed New Amsterdam “into a bustling seaport and center for a seasonal fur trade” as well as an attractive settlement (Middleton 2006, 19). The everyday lives of different people who stayed in New Amsterdam for different reasons and for different spans of time were shaped by competing economic ideas. The profit-oriented WIC wanted a trading port, while permanent settlers looked to establish a local economy. Hence, the difference in their risk aversion led to tensions. At the WIC’s headquarters in Amsterdam, the New Netherland colony was regarded as a promising market in which all commercial monopolies had been abolished at the end of the 1640s. Everyone, regardless of race, religion, or nationality, had the right to seek their fortune in free trade. The WIC in the Netherlands saw New Amsterdam primarily as a strategic hub for people and commodities. As long as it was guaranteed that the WIC would earn money from taxing the export of fur, its market ideas were as free as possible from restrictions and regulations. But the success of the Company was dependent on the permanent settlers in the colony. The director-general of New Netherland, the burgomasters, the schepens, and the inhabitants established a local infrastructure for the fur trade. Those who had decided to stay permanently in the colony wanted to raise their standard of living. They claimed that the settlement of artisans and craftsmen, and the construction of an urban infrastructure for families including schools, churches, and hospitals (Middleton 2006, 16 – 17), was important. In the 1640s, the call for local administrative and political structures became louder. Merchants and traders demanded the establishment of civil and municipal rights.

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They “secured civic privileges protecting their occupations from competition by strangers and accepted duties to pay taxes, work on public projects, and defend the city as members of the militia” (Middleton 2006, 14). Their vision of a promising economy differed from that of the WIC. The desire for security and stability often outweighed the potential profits from a less regulated market. The inhabitants of New Amsterdam and their political representatives “proceeded on the assumption that New Amsterdam had a more or less static economy and that it was essential that the existing supply of necessities be made available to all on a uniform, although not equal, basis” (Syrett 1954, 539). Important political decisions, in particular the lifting of the beaver-trade monopoly and the implementation of patroonships, as well as Stuyvesant’s government, led to the economic stabilization of the colony. In the 1650s, men and women, Europeans and indigenous people, WIC soldiers and permanent settlers, merchants and craftsmen, the Dutch and people from other European countries, former slaves, and free burghers were buzzing around at the New Netherland marketplaces. However, the economic upswing also brought tensions and differing interests to light. The different interests were represented by different market actors. The following section reveals that the different interests cannot be explained on the basis of national, ethnic, or gender-based concerns. Rather, it was the length of stay in the colony that had a significant influence on the possibilities of trading in official marketplaces.

3 The “destroyers of trade”, “our good and dear Inhabitants”, and “all persons of what quality or nation however they may be”: Market regulations in New Netherland Peter Stuyvesant’s mission was to stabilize the colony economically and politically. In doing so, he continued the work of his predecessor, William Kieft, who was director from 1638 to 1646. In May 1647, aged thirty-seven, the director-general reached New Netherland together with four ships of soldiers, his political advisors, and his four-months-pregnant wife, Judith Bayard. Thanks to the work of Kieft, New Netherland slowly began to change from a trading post to a settlement colony. Kieft pushed forward the expansion of the administration, invested in the exploitation of natural resources, and forced the creation of urban settlements. But the wars with Natives in 1643 and 1644, which Kieft mainly ini-

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tiated, destroyed his efforts and brought to light serious differences between the interests of the Company and the permanent settlers. When Peter Stuyvesant arrived in New Netherland, he suddenly enacted new ordinances.¹ On 10 March 1648, the director-general and his council published the “Ordinance for the regulation of trade and navigation, the establishment of a weekly market and an annual Fair” as well as an ordinance “declaring the East river free to all nations”. As already mentioned above, economic and political stabilization was one of the greatest challenges in the history of the small Dutch colony of New Netherland. The preamble of the “Ordinance for the regulation of trade and navigation, the establishment of a weekly market and an annual Fair” elucidates the efforts of the director-general and his council to “promote [nothing] more readily than the prosperous increase and peopling of this Province of New Netherland and the general good and welfare of the worthy Inhabitants thereof” (O’Callaghan 1868, 86). The “daily decline and violation of Trade and Navigation” gave particular cause for concern. The prosperity of the inhabitants was threatened by the “underselling, frauds, smuggling perpetuated by one against the other” (O’Callaghan 1868, 86). These Frauds, Smuggling, abuses and illegalities have for sometime past crept in and are taking deeper root daily, through the illicit gain by which many, being misled, abandon their usual business, occupation, employment and trade, and invest all their means in one or another vessel, in which they not only lodge and board, without conferring any benefit on this place, or country, but under pretext of procuring Maize or other Grain, corrupt, defraud and ruin the trade both in Wampum and Peltries with the Natives, to the great loss and damage of the honest Traders, Merchants and Inhabitants of this place. (O’Callaghan 1868, 89)

Those responsible for these attacks on the economic order are those who “take little or no interest in this new growing Province and feel little concern and care for its prosperity and welfare” (O’Callaghan 1868, 87). The accused did not own real estate or produce or manufacture goods for the colonial community. They were “solely applying themselves, with small capital and cargoes (for which they hire for a brief period only one room or house) to the Beaver and Fur trade” (O’Callaghan 1868, 87). By practicing pre-emption and smuggling, the petty traders found ways to buy fur and other commodities at low prices from the Natives and sell them at a great profit in New Amsterdam. They did not adhere to the admissible places or the admissible times of trade, but rather trans-

 By far the most laws and ordinances were enacted under Stuyvesant’s reign. Between his arrival in New Amsterdam in 1647 and the hostile takeover of the colony by the English in 1664, 259 ordinances were issued. Until 1647, by comparison, only 54 ordinances had been issued.

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ported their commodities “by night and at unseasonable hours […] without paying the proper duty thereon” (O’Callaghan 1868, 87). All their actions were geared to achieving the highest possible profit – and motivated by the wish to leave New Netherland as soon as possible: after “having enriched themselves by these and other illicit practices and means, they take departure and go back home without conferring or bestowing any benefit on this Province or the Inhabitants thereof” (O’Callaghan 1868, 87). The pursuit of economic profit “by underselling and fraudulent trade”, as Stuyvesant put it, injured the economic expectations of the permanent settlers (O’Callaghan 1868, 87). In order to establish a “more stable course of Commerce and mutual Trade”, the director-general and his council decided to enact the ordinance in question (O’Callaghan 1868, 87). From this day on, it was forbidden “to keep a public or private Shop on shore, in cellar or garret […] within our Government in the Province of New Netherland” (O’Callaghan 1868, 86). Only “our good and dear Inhabitants” who “own real estate at least to the amount of two to three thousand guilders and have promised to reside, or at least to keep fire and light in their own House, here in the land within this Province during four consecutive years” were exempt from this new ordinance (O’Callaghan 1868, 86 – 87). According to the law, only permanent settlers who owned a shop were allowed to trade. Excluded from this regulation were those who, although they did not sell their goods in a shop, at least undertook to remain in the colony for four years. Anyone who wanted to trade, offer, and sell goods in New Amsterdam in future was to undertake to continue to use the standardized Dutch weights and measures. To provide the people in New Netherland with their daily supplies, the ordinance continued to allow foreign and local traders – “whether Merchants, Factors or Scotch from Fatherland and elsewhere” or “our neighbors from Virginia and New England, etc.” – to trade “daily, Sundays excepted […] goods in large and small quantities from their ships, Yachts and Sloops” (O’Callaghan 1868, 87). However, it was to be ensured that all duties and taxes on goods were properly levied and that “in the buying and selling no other Weight, Measure nor Ell be used than that in use here” (O’Callaghan 1868, 87). The employees of the WIC, in particular the commissioners who supervised customs duties, were dependent for the enforcement of the regulations. In order to prevent future abuse, the director-general also ensured that ships, boats, and yachts could only be built for or sold to inhabitants of New Netherland who owned real estate. In order to foster trading, but also to allocate a fixed location to it and thus increase control over goods and practices, the ordinance further announces that a weekly market on Monday and an annual fair that is to last ten days are to be

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established. With the establishment of the weekly market and the fair, Stuyvesant and his council aimed to stabilize the supply of food. Therefore, “Neighbor and Stranger, as well as the Inhabitant, are allowed and permitted to supply the purchaser from a Booth” (O’Callaghan 1868, 89). Outside these places and times, however, especially along the North (Hudson) and South (Delaware) Rivers with their bays and creeks, trade would be more strongly regulated in future. Only people who were permanently in New Netherland and owned real estate in New Amsterdam where they could sell their goods in shops would be allowed to trade in these areas. However, the East (Connecticut) River would be “left open and free as heretofore, to all persons of what quality or nation they may be” as long as they had a permit (O’Callaghan 1868, 88). Furthermore, the ordinance regulated trading hours. For “the prevention of scandalous Smuggling”, it was henceforth forbidden to “go on board of, or leave any Vessel, or discharge or land any Goods or Merchandize” after sunset or before sunrise in the morning (O’Callaghan 1868, 88). Peter Stuyvesant’s efforts to stabilize the economy in New Netherland and to give permanent settlers preferential access to the market were met with only limited understanding at the WIC’s headquarters in Amsterdam. The directors of the WIC in Amsterdam assessed the situation differently. Of course, they also wanted to avoid smuggling and protect the colonial consumers against fraudulent practices. But with this ordinance, the members and soldiers of the WIC were excluded from promising markets in New Netherland and were no longer allowed to bring the highly demanded consumer goods to the colony without regulation: “The regulation of local trade in the residential interest flew in the face of the Company’s declared commitment to free trade which the shareholders believed was responsible for the recent expansion and trickle of revenue via imposts on imported supplies and exported furs” (Middleton 2006, 22). At the urging of the WIC, regulation was relaxed in the coming years. In a letter to Peter Stuyvesant from 27 January 1649, the WIC directors in the Netherlands wrote: Your Honor proposes that no person ought to carry on any business there, except those who are willing to oblige themselves to continue to reside there 3 – 4 years, and that no person should sell any thing there by small measure, except on the same. Also, that no person shall navigate the river with any vessel except Burghers who have permanent residence there, and have real estate to the amount of 3 – 4 thousand guilders. We will observe thereon, that we should greatly desire that the Company were in such a position as to be able to prevent, according to your good intention, all these private extortioners; but we find it for the present impracticable. Therefore, your Honor must, in the first place, temporize on all these points, until more favorable circumstances. (O’Callaghan 1868, 92)

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However, the need of the official colony to strengthen the participation of the permanent settlers in the market and to confine trade to the urban area of new Netherlands remained. The reasons for this stronger regulation were – according to the director-general in the ordinance – tangible in day-to-day trade and had massive consequences for the inhabitants. The ordinances enacted applied to everyone who was involved in the fur trade: Europeans and Natives, men and women, permanent settlers and Company soldiers alike. Several tribes were in charge of hunting and preparing the beaver felts. Brokers and petty traders connected them to merchants with good access to European consumer goods, in particular textiles, tools, and metalware. A single coat of the best quality was extremely valuable and was equivalent to about three months’ wages in New Netherland. A family could survive for almost a year on ten skins (Merwick 1990, 96 – 97, 205). Control of the beaver trade was therefore an important concern of the local government. It is striking that classical historical categories, such as differing opportunities for indigenous peoples and Europeans to participate in the market, hardly played a role in the ordinance. On the contrary, in ordinances like the “Ordinance for the further regulation of the fur trade” published on 29 January 1648, “Christians and Heathens” are equally addressed (O’Callaghan 1868, 83). The distinction was between those who stayed in the colony only for a short time and those who decided to live there permanently. In particular, “Merchants, Scots and Petty traders who come over in any Ship from Patria with intention to trade here either with Christians or Heathens by the large and small Measure, Ell and Weight”, as another ordinance, published on 18 September 1648, puts it, are said to be threatening the regulations that have been enacted (O’Callaghan 1868, 101– 102). They are therefore only allowed to trade in New Amsterdam if they can prove that they have lived in the colony for at least three years (or can give credible assurances that they will do so in the future). Some years later, at the beginning of the 1660s, the director-general and his council tried to further reduce the influence of middlemen. In an ordinance from 1 June 1660, they enacted “that no brokers be allowed in the Indian trade, but the Indians be allowed to offer their beavers for sale in town” (“Directing that in future” 1660). At first, for one year the city of Beverwijck (modern Albany) provisionally decided “that no brokers, whether Christians or Indians, shall be employed” (“Directing that in future” 1660). In turn, the Natives were allowed to offer beaver skins for sale anywhere in the city – regardless of place and time. The inhabitants of Beverwijck, for their part, got permission to buy beaver fur from Natives directly on the beach or in the woods and hills on the outskirts of the town.

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The court records from Fort Orange, the court responsible for Beverwijck, show that the implementation of the ordinance was anything but smooth. In August 1660, Johannes La Montaigne summoned Adriaen Jansen van Leyden to trial (“Directing that in future” 1660). The Frenchman La Montaigne, who came to New Netherland in September 1636 on a ship belonging to the patroon Kilian van Rensselaer, served on the New Netherland Council in the 1660s and was first councillor to both director Kieft and director-general Stuyvesant. He accused Jansen, who was not appearing for the first time, of repeatedly sending middlemen to the Natives to achieve better prices in the beaver-fur trade. In this case, Adriaen Jansen’s broker had intercepted an indigenous trader who had been on her way to the house of his rival Volkert Jansen, and lured her and her furs into his house. When the woman refused to trade her furs with Adriaen Jansen, as she described before the court, the broker threw her out and locked the door, but kept the furs. The woman then turned to La Montaigne, “who went to the defendant’s house and ordered him to restore the Indian woman’s beavers, which the defendant’s wife refused to do” (“Complaint” 1660). In court, the accused Adriaen Jansen denied that he sent a middleman into the surrounding woods and that he had taken the woman’s furs against her will. He claimed to have evidence at his home for his testimony. However, he never showed it in court. The examples in this section underline that classical categorizations do not work for the case of New Netherland. The analysis shows that the efforts of Peter Stuyvesant, the director-general of New Netherland from 1646 onwards, and his council to create a stable economy were linked to the establishment of shops, property ownership, and permanent settlement. In particular, the way in which the ordinances emphasize immovable shops is at odds with classical narratives in historical research that explain economic growth and the birth of consumer society with the establishment of shops in early modern cities (Brewer et al. 1992; Stobart and Howard 2019). In the case of New Netherland, immovable shops took on a different role. They were used by the authorities to control trade and thus restrict the market to those who were permanent residents. In this way, attempts were made to stop the “destroyers of trade”, who were constantly finding new ways to obtain the desired beaver furs as cheaply as possible (O’Callaghan 1868, 101). The treatment of indigenous traders, foreigners, and/or women in particular in efforts to achieve this goal and control the market shows that social distinctions between Europeans and indigenous people, between men and women, receded into the background. The distinction between temporary visitors and permanent inhabitants shaped the market culture on a much more fundamental level. Furthermore, the sources suggest that social distinctions in the New Netherland colony were far less static and categorical than research has assumed.

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Building on these empirical findings, the next section links the case study of New Netherland to more general and conceptual reflections on colonial economies in the seventeenth century.

4 Market actors beyond classical categories: Reflections on a colonial moral economy in the seventeenth century This section emphasizes how the case study of New Netherland can be placed in a broader conceptual framework of colonial economic history in the seventeenth century. Following Laurence Fontaine’s concept of the moral economy (2014), early modern markets were shaped by political interests as well as by the “behaviour of economic actors” (Middleton and Shaw 2017, 1). The French economic historian reveals the deep embeddedness of economic practices in social and institutional contexts. Taking up her research, my paper focuses on economic actors from a cultural-historical point of view. By analysing the practices of preemption, smuggling, and underselling, I try to understand “the rules of the game” (Zahedieh 2010, 94) in the fur trade and the ways in which actors on early modern colonial markets cooperated and competed (Middleton and Shaw 2017, 9). Laurence Fontaine’s concept of the moral economy, and other concepts that focus on the culture of early modern markets, build on ethnological and anthropological studies. Since the 1970s and 1980s, anthropological approaches have dealt with the negotiation of value across cultural borders, and have closely examined the North American beaver-fur trade in particular (Ray and Freeman 1978; White 1991). These approaches have to date received only little attention in early modern colonial economic history. Ann Carlos and Frank Lewis, with their research on the Hudson’s Bay Company in the eighteenth century, are an important exception. In several studies, they have shown the important impact of different cultural, ethnic, and linguistic backgrounds on buying and selling (Carlos and Lewis 2010). By examining the creation of early modern transatlantic textile markets, Robert DuPlessis combines cultural and economic behaviour with the above-mentioned “rules of the game” (2017, 187). With his focus on “cross-cultural market codes”, he reveals inherent tensions in “any commercial transaction as trading partners negotiate such matters as price, quality, and credit arrangements while jockeying among contending imperatives of self-interest and mutual advantage, immediate returns and longer-term prospects” (DuPlessis 2017, 186).

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Another important addition to the history of early modern markets and their actors comes from the field of ethnology, more precisely the concept of settler colonialism (Hixson 2013; Veracini 2010). Recent studies have pointed out the importance of examining the history of the people who decided to stay in a colonial environment. Mostly, these people came to unknown places, but they imagined them as free or uninhabited territories. Research on indigenous cultures has known for a long time that this idea brought many problems with it. However, so far the explanations have mostly been based on the clear distinction between colonialists and Natives. This is where research on settler colonialism picks up the thread. It tries to develop a new perspective that aims to overcome this binary difference. Consequently, this research emphasizes the ahistorical use of the terms: “‘Indians’ have never existed as a single coherent entity”, but “rather Europeans invented the homogenizing trope” (Hixson 2013, 26). This applies in particular to New Amsterdam. As shown in the previous sections, it was not only Dutch people who lived on the island of Manhattan in the seventeenth century. Europeans from other nations, settlers from the surrounding colonies, and slaves from the Caribbean were also part of the cityscape. The same applies to the indigenous inhabitants of North America. Different tribes, like Algonquins, Mohacins, Mohawks, Wecquaesgeeks, Hackensacks, Raritans, Canarsees, and Tapans, lived on the island of Manhattan and all the way up to today’s Albany (Ruttenberger 1992). Although the Dutch called the different tribes along what is now known as the Hudson River collectively the River Indians, numerous disputes between different tribes and/or between Europeans, settlers, and indigenous peoples in North America show that there was a need to distinguish between individual groups at the time. In a recently published paper, Robert DuPlessis describes the idiosyncrasy of the fur economy in North America. For him, the culture of the fur trade “comprised a hybrid of practices and ethics, of accumulated experience and expectations old and new” (DuPlessis 2017, 186). The market was shaped by “non-market social, cultural, and political values, habits, and institutions”, and by the North American context (DuPlessis 2017, 186). But the fur-trade market culture was not dissociated from its connection to Europe. It was “partially directed by more purely economic forces – supply and demand, profit and loss, credit and debt”, and at least temporarily “dictated by the Europe-centered merchant economy into which this branch of commodity exchange was firmly integrated” (DuPlessis 2017, 187). The culture of the fur trade was “subject at once to global as well as local factors”, and dependent on specific hunting, processing, and trading practices:

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traders seeking a raw material, available from only one type of supplier, for processing and sale in distant markets, and indigenous hunters, the sole source of that prized peltry, desirous of – over time, increasingly reliant on – imported producer and consumer goods that they likewise could obtain from no other kind of provider. (DuPlessis 2017, 187)

The diverse actors who were involved in the fur trade were mutually dependent on one another. These actors were dependent on the expertise, the contacts, the commodities, or the money of others. National, ethnic, or gender differences were pushed into the background when “Europeans, Euroamericans, and métis” tried to profit from the fur trade (DuPlessis 2017, 187). This interdependence is magnified if the market actors elude a clear categorization. With her concept of a moral economy, Laurence Fontaine has shown that social distinctions were fluid and permeable on early modern markets. Instead of unambiguous demarcations between poor and rich or local and external, the early modern market in France, as Fontaine has shown, had rather the characteristics of a bazaar where the different actors tried to establish contacts, relationships, and dependencies. The question of when and whether a bill was actually paid played something of a subordinate role (Fontaine 2016). The same can be said for the colonial context in New Netherland. A large part of the court records handed down deals with outstanding payments. In particular, the dual currency system in New Netherland ensured that goods, invoices, taxes, and debts were often paid in mixed forms. Smaller amounts were mostly paid in shell beads called sewant, larger amounts in beaver furs. Both currencies were produced by the Natives (Schmidt 2015). Dutch guilders could not assert themselves in the colony as a currency, since the value of metal and silver coins did not coincide with the local currencies. Furthermore, a clear categorization of market actors in New Netherland is difficult simply because many – if not most – had multiple identities or belonged to different social and economic groups at a particular time or over the course of their lives. Once again this shows how important the distinction between permanent and temporary settlers was at the time. Most men came from Europe to New Netherland on behalf of the WIC. They were soldiers or employees of the WIC or journeyed on a WIC ship. But once they had settled in the colony, they considered themselves as free people and demanded burgher rights (Middleton 2006, 19). Many men who came to New Netherland as craftsmen also tried to participate in the profits of the fur trade. When things went well, they usually gave up their original craft, which in turn could lead to a shortage of everyday items. Tradesmen divided their engines between skilled work and all manner of commercial enterprise, relying on credit to pursue whatever opportunity offered the best return. They participated in the export of furs, tobacco, and plantation supplies and purchased imported cloth

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and household goods for resale in the city and the environs. They financed speculative ventures, and bought, sold, and rented property; they farmed […] and provided food, drink, and lodging for paying guests. […] Skilled practitioners working in all areas experienced success and failure, and their commercial strategies seemed to be directed more toward the short-term opportunism of the economy of a bazaar then the orderly pace of craft work usually associated with preindustrial colonial towns. (Middleton 2006, 2)

But not only the Europeans had multiple identities in the economy of New Netherland. The indigenous fur traders took over various roles on the beaver fur market. They were hunters, brokers, and traders. They produced consumer goods in demand on the global market and desired European consumer goods likewise. Permanent shifts can also be observed in the interaction of different social groups. While indigenous people could trade relatively freely as suppliers of the desired beaver fur, they were prohibited from consuming alcohol and visiting taverns in the urban area of New Amsterdam (O’Callaghan 1868, 34, 53, 64, 100, 182, 204, 258, 310, 383, 446). Adapting Fontaine’s concept of the moral economy and recent ethnological studies, particularly from the field of settler colonialism, puts the case study of New Netherland in a broader conceptual framework and enables further refinements: among both permanent and temporary market actors, there are differentiated categorizations. Specialization in one market does not stand in the way of the informal market according to Fontaine, but is one of its integral components.

5 Conclusion In his 1954 paper “Private Enterprises in New Amsterdam”, Harold C. Syrett turns the modernization narrative upside down (1954). In contrast to Peter Spiers’s children’s novel The Legends of New Amsterdam, the historian from Columbia University in New York City sees the emerging markets in New Amsterdam not as the birthplace of modern capitalism but rather as a step backwards in development. For him, the first signs of a free, global market had already developed in European metropolises such as Amsterdam. In contrast, the strong regulation of the economy in New Amsterdam indicates for Syrett a return to medieval, urban trade ideas. Taking up this research, my paper has linked the case study of New Netherland to a broader conceptual discussion on colonial economic history in the seventeenth century. With its focus on the market actors, my paper has discussed several market regulations. But, and I consider this to be an important new aspect of the market culture of the Dutch colony, the sources clearly show that social, political, and economic categorizations are only conditionally applicable to

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the case of New Netherland. In the seventeenth century, New Amsterdam laid the foundations for a global metropolis in which the distinction between social and ethnic groups receded into the background. The difference between temporary visitors and permanent residents was much more important for contemporaries. This cultural distinction shaped the market. The extent to which it promoted the emergence of capitalism remains to be examined.

References Archival sources “Complaint against Adriaen Jansen from Leyden, for sending an Indian broker into the woods to trade with Indians, and for taking beavers from a squaw by force and thrusting her out of doors; case put over”. 13 August 1660 (NYSA_A1876 – 78_V16_pt3_0203). “Directing that in future no brokers be allowed in the Indian trade, but that the Indians be allowed to offer their beavers for sale in town wherever they please”. Ordinance. 31 May 1660, New York State Archives (NYSA_A1876 – 78_V16_pt3_0155).

Source editions “Charter of Privileges and Exemptions of the Dutch West India Company: June 7, 1629”. Van Rensselaer Bowier Manuscripts. Trans. Arnold J. F. Van Laer. Albany: University of the State of the New York, 1908. O’Callaghan, Edmund Bailey, trans. Laws and Ordinances of New Netherland 1638 – 1674. Albany: Weed, Parsons and Company, 1868.

Secondary literature Brewer, John, Neil McKendrick, and J. H. Plumb. The Birth of a Consumer Society: The Commercialization of Eighteenth-Century England. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1982. Carlos, Ann M., and Frank D. Lewis. Commerce by a Frozen Sea: Native Americans and the European Trade. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2010. Carlos, Ann M., and Frank D. Lewis. “Native Americans and Exchange: Strategies and Interactions before 1800”. The Cambridge History of Capitalism. Ed. L. Neal and J. Williamson. Vol. 1. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2014. 455 – 490. DuPlessis, Robert. Material Atlantic: Clothing, Commerce, and Colonization in the Atlantic World, 1650 – 1800. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2015. DuPlessis, Robert. “Commercial Practices at the Margin of the Merchant Economy”. Market Ethics and Practices, c.1300 – 1850. Ed. Simon Middleton and James E. Shaw. London: Routledge, 2017. 184 – 201.

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Fontaine, Laurence. The Moral Economy: Poverty, Credit, and Trust in Early Modern Europe. English ed. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2014. Fontaine, Laurence. “The Market in Early Modern Europe: Fixing Prices under the Community’s Eye”. http://www.booksandideas.net/The-Market-in-Early-Modern-Europe.html. Books and Ideas 22 January 2016 (5 June 2020). Frihoff, Willem, and Jacobs, Jaap. “Introduction: The Dutch, New Netherland, and Thereafter (1609 – 1780s)”. Four Centuries of Dutch–American Relations 1609 – 2009. Ed. Hans Krabbendam, Cornelis A. Van Minnen, and Giles Scott-Smith. Albany: SUNY Press, 2009. 31 – 49. Gerritsen, Anne, and Giorgio Riello. The Global Lives of Things: Material Culture of Connections in the Early Modern World. London: Routledge, 2015. Hixson, Walter L. American Settler Colonialism: A History. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013. Jacobs, Jaap. “Migration, Population, and Government in New Netherland”. Four Centuries of Dutch–American Relations 1609 – 2009. Ed. Hans Krabbendam, Cornelis A. Van Minnen, and Giles Scott-Smith. Albany: SUNY Press, 2009. 85 – 96. Lemire, Beverly. Global Trade and the Transformation of Consumer Cultures: The Material World Remade, c.1500 – 1820. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2018. Merwick, Donna. Possessing Albany, 1630 – 1710: The Dutch and English Experiences. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1990. Middleton, Simon. From Privileges to Rights: Work and Politics in Colonial New York City. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2006. Middleton, Simon, and James E. Shaw. “Introduction: Markets, Ethics, Practices”. Market Ethics and Practices, c.1300 – 1850. Ed. Simon Middleton and James E. Shaw. London: Routledge, 2017. 1 – 20. Ray, Arthur J., and Donald B. Freeman. ‘Give us Good Measure’: An Economic Analysis of Relations between the Indians and the Hudson’s Bay Company before 1763. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1978. Riello, Giorgio, and Ulinka Rublack. The Right to Dress: Sumptuary Laws in a Global Perspective, c.1200 – 1800. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019. Rink, Oliver A. Holland on the Hudson: An Economic and Social History of Dutch New York. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1986. Romney Shawn, Susanah. New Netherland Connections: Intimate Networks and Atlantic Ties in Seventeenth-Century America. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2014. Ruttenberger, Edward Manning. Indian Tribes of Hudson’s River: 1700 – 1850. Saugerties: Hope Farm Press, 1992. Schmidt, Mario. “Entangled Economies: New Netherland’s Dual Currency System and its Relation to Iroquois Monetary Practice”. Ethnohistory 62.2 (2015): 195 – 216. Sleeper-Smith, Susan, ed. Rethinking the Fur Trade: Cultures of Exchange in an Atlantic World. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2009. Spier, Peter. The Legend of New Amsterdam. Garden City: Doubleday & Company, 1979. Spufford, Francis. Golden Hill. New York: Faber and Faber, 2016. Stern, Philip J., and Wennerlind, Carl. Mercantilism Reimagined: Political Economy in Early Modern Britain and its Empire. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013.

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Stobart, Jon, and Vicki Howard. The Routledge Companion to the History of Retailing. New York: Routledge, 2019. Syrett, Harold C. “Private Enterprise in New Amsterdam”. William and Mary Quarterly 11.4 (1954): 536 – 550. White, Richard. The Middle Ground: Indians, Empires, and Republics in the Great Lakes Region, 1650 – 1815. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1991. Veracini, Lorenzo. Settler Colonialism: A Theoretical Overview. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010. Zahedieh, Nuala. The Capital and the Colonies: London and the Atlantic Economy 1660 – 1700. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010.

Maria Aleksandrova

Markets and their Agents in History: Some Theoretical Reflections 1 Introduction In contemporary scholarship, the “market” in any historical epoch is treated as something self-evident and not requiring special investigation.¹ It is understood as a public space where interaction of equal exchange through the mediation of money takes place. Following Adam Smith, markets have been regarded as quasi-natural phenomena, while swapping has been seen as something that people are naturally inclined to do (Smith 2012 [1776], 17, 52; Graeber 2011, 44– 45, 260). Although mercatus is an ancient term, today its interpretation is monopolized by economists followed by political scientists, but not historians. More generally, economic history is currently viewed as a subfield of economics. It usually extrapolates contemporary economic models to analyse historical data. When a historian comes across any source data that can be labelled as “economic”, they tend to switch their language and research perspective to those of economics. The mainstream neoclassical economics hinges upon market exchange in the post-Smithian sense. This approach prevents us from questioning the very existence, the essence, and the social and political implications of the market in general, and historical markets in particular ; it also does not allow us to detect other forms of exchange, not necessarily equal and not necessarily with the use of money, that could have coexisted in some societies and communities with centralized markets. In 1969, Quentin Skinner denounced historians attempting to ascribe to past actors any deeds or thoughts that they could not have done or thought due to epochal differences (Skinner 1969).² Today it seems to be accepted that an anachronistic approach is not appropriate, at least in some areas of historical studies, such as, for instance, the history of science (Jardine 2000). Economic history re-

 This article discusses ideas that were initially presented as concluding remarks at the conference on the theme of “Markets and their Agents”. The conference, organized by the University of Basle and the “Arbeitskreis für spätmittelalterliche Wirtschaftsgeschichte”, was held in Basle on 21−22 June 2018. The article refers to the papers planned for and presented at the conference. I am grateful to Ilya Afanasyev, Elena Kuzmenko, Artem Anokhin, Ulla Kypta, and Julia Bruch for thoroughly reading this article and proposing valuable corrections.  This thesis was widely discussed (e. g. Boucher 1985; Tully 1988). https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110643756-006

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mains a field of study where a great deal of anachronisms survive. Generally, economic reality is considered to be a stable phenomenon naturalized as a rational manifestation of innate human qualities, to be studied according to its own laws beyond human reach. It is wrong to say, though, that economy is universal. It changes through time. Therefore, markets are historical. Moreover, the forms of exchange are historical. It is actually the historian’s job to explore this “unsameness”, “otherness”. In short, there is a pressing need to historicize markets. The situation in economic history is precarious because contemporary politics relies heavily on economic research; the latter is important for some quantifiable data but often does not take into account social reality, specific circumstances, and cultural differences between societies. This can cause harm if such recommendations are realized in practice. The response to the economic understanding of markets did not come from historians, but from anthropologists. David Graeber insists that markets (as economists understand them today) were historically closely connected to states. Created by states, they cannot exist without state support (Graeber 2011, 44– 45, 260). According to Graeber, not all human societies had markets in the modern economic sense, and markets are not “eternal”. The importance of his book lies not only in the articulation of these ideas, but in its publicity, in its open appeal to an academic and political audience. Without such explicit statements, important findings will remain unheard, because any attempt to change the hegemonic paradigm in our thinking about how the world works is generally met with reluctance and even resistance, as it implies conscious steps towards changing our lives, or at least attitudes. Graeber’s book is devoted to the evolution of the notion and practices of debt over five thousand years, and touches upon the history of markets in a global perspective from an anthropological point of view. The current volume focuses mostly on pre-industrial European markets (extended to the New World). However, even in this relatively short chronological and geographical span, different manifestations of the market and exchange occurred. The relevant question here is how to study these manifestations. When a historian is asked to address preindustrial markets in Europe, what exactly are they going to talk about? This volume contains a collection of articles whose authors responded to a call for papers about “Markets and their Agents”. By looking at the contributors’ choices of differents aspects of the market as subjects of study, one can reveal methodological issues present in current historical research on the market. In the following sections, I consider general methodological issues of studying markets, discuss selected theories of the market, and review the approaches to researching pre-industrial markets and their agents in the papers prepared for

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the “Markets and their Agents” conference (see note 1 above), including those published in this volume. Finally, I suggest an alternative comprehensive approach to the study of historical markets.

2 Methodological implications From the neoclassical economic perspective, what is important about markets is the conditions for their growth and development. Within the economic paradigm, markets are abstract, representing a category that describes natural exchange arrangements between people. The questions of what leads to the creation and necessity of exchange between fellow citizens in the form of market exchange, and what forms exchange takes in different historical circumstances, presumably fall to the other social sciences. However, the spell of neoclassical economics is so charming that other social scientists may well forget about this task, harnessing themselves to the research agenda of colleagues from economics. Historians may even criticize an ahistorical approach of economists in discussions, but happen to reproduce the same metanarrative of the market in their own texts. To make particular markets an object of historical research, one should deconstruct “the market” and remove its aura of objective and ever-existent social reality. Historians have tried to define the role of markets in the lives of people in different epochs. Without discussing the accuracy of the argument, one may quote Robert Brenner, who wrote that “only under conditions of free wage labor will the individual producing units (combining labor power and means of production) be forced to sell in order to buy, to buy in order to survive and reproduce” (1977, 32). Another example of a theoretical historical approach to studying markets can be found in Ghosh: I believe it is necessary to understand not only the causes for the rise of market-dependent societies, but also to examine the differences in the levels and qualities of market-dependence. There is a potentially important difference between, for example, a household dependent on the market for all its inputs, and one that is dependent on realizing a profit on the market in order to be able, in the long term, to retain either an above-subsistence standard of living, or direct access to means of subsistence, but is not dependent on the market on an everyday level for that subsistence. (2015, 39 – 40; emphasis in original)

Thus, when studying markets in different historical periods and areas, it is first of all important to understand for what purpose people attended markets in these periods. What kind of social and, most importantly, political dynamics made them participate in the market exchange? What made people dependent

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on markets and how? There is an obvious connection between the development of markets and the emergence of capitalism in the late medieval and early modern periods. Without plunging into theoretical discussions on this issue, one can note that it is important to understand what structural changes resulted in markets becoming a mechanism of profit-maximization: how the structure of elites and their income changed, how their power over producers changed, how the relationship between the elites and the authorities shifted, and so on. One needs to examine the dynamics of the connection between rulers and traders; the increase in rulers’ need for money; the processes of money-creation through markets and the creation of markets for this purpose; the role of producers in this process and how they were drawn into market exchange inspired by those on whom they were dependent; and, finally, the politics that lay behind all these processes. In other words, I suggest that before studying the integration, growth, and development of markets, one should investigate the politics of markets. In the middle of the twentieth century, the anthropologist Karl Polanyi introduced a substantivist approach to economics (1944), as opposed to the neoclassical one. The substantivist approach implies that economic behaviour is conditioned by the material and social context, embedded in it, and has no abstract logic of maximization that could be measured by models as is done in neoclassical economics. The concept of embeddedness is applied to premarket economies, whereas the economy of market societies is different: “instead of economic life being submerged in social relations, these relations become an epiphenomenon of the market” (Granovetter 1985, 481). The sociologist Mark Granovetter recast the concept of embeddedness in the vein of new economic sociology, stating both that the level of embeddedness of economic action in premarket societies was less than had been claimed, and that it “continues to be more substantial than is allowed for by formalists and economists” (1985, 482– 483). The formalist–substantivist debate is an important attempt to relativize markets. However, it highlights the relationship of economic activity and forms of exchange with the social context only. What is still lacking when it comes to historicizing markets is their connection with and dependence on politics in different historical periods. There exists no strong historical narrative in which markets would be regarded as a product of a certain balance of power rather than as a neutral space for ordinary exchange. What could a historian do to fill this gap? Most imortantly, they would have to disclose the connections between market and political contexts in history. To gain knowledge about a certain phenomenon in the past one must consider a large amount of cases either in one locality, or in one period, or in different pe-

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riods and different locations. A single historian can study just one or a few cases, bigger or smaller, but that is not enough to let us speak of a phenomenon at a theoretical level. This is why we can so frequently hear historians speaking of the lack of a comparative analysis of this or that topic. History as a discipline operates through cumulative knowledge upon which theory can be constructed. I claim that a new metanarrative of markets in history based on the cumulative historical knowledge gained from a new research perspective of the politics markets is required.

3 Different levels of the market The category “market” is a varied one. This section will discuss the different ways in which an economic category “market” can be represented and how different levels of the market can be studied historically. The first level is that of individuals going to a market to buy necessary things. This can be a marketplace or retail trade outside marketplaces, comprising individual shops and pedlar trading. Another level is exchange between privileged groups of people. For instance, in the Middle Ages, producers and craftsmen who were traders themselves gathered in guilds. Later, some of these guilds and trading towns were incorporated into the Hanseatic League. During the Middle Ages, merchants united in bodies that received privileges from rulers, for example the English Company of Merchant Adventurers. Another illustrative source of information about grouptrade markets can be found in seventeenth-century joint-stock companies such as the Dutch East India Company, English Virginia Company, and so on. The third level is the governmental one. An obvious example of interaction between rulers and traders is kings and queens’ borrowing. Royal borrowers received credit from market participants or group traders everywhere in Europe (and beyond) in the pre-industrial era. These levels might seem unrelated, and researchers in many cases are generally interested in just one of them.³ I contend that this is not the case. Possible connections between them could be as follows. Rulers’ need for credit and money induced them to grant privileges to merchant groups in exchange for financial services; privileged merchant groups gained power to dominate produc There are studies of everyday exchange practices (e. g. Cavacciocchi 2001; Blondé et al. 2006b) and changing attitudes of individuals to buying and selling (e. g. Britnell 1993; Britnell and Campbell 1994), literature on the activity of trading groups (Freeman 2013), and literature on governmental debts (Ashton 1960; Bonney 1991; Boone et al. 2003).

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ers and their networks, imposing certain conditions for swapping their produce; those elites who had a monopoly on political power and judicial immunities imposed specific tax regimes that forced producers to use the market to gain cash for paying taxes;⁴ and so on. These are only a few relationships that could have given rise to markets and supported their development in different contexts. Empirically markets are also different from one another. They vary in – periodicity: whether it is a regular market for the exchange of particular kinds of produce, say agrarian for domestic produce, or a permanent marketplace for the sale of all kinds of goods , or else; – the main actors/participants: whether they are producers themselves, or pedlars, or professional merchants, or trading groups; – the purpose for which the buyers buy and the sellers sell: for satisfying basic needs; for getting cash to pay taxes, rent, or tribute; for getting rid of excess products; and so on; – the object of trade: markets for goods, financial assets, services, and so on; – the regulating bodies: the community (who exactly in the community?); the local, regional, or national authorities; and so on; – the source of trading privileges: politically enforced monopolies in early modern times or opportunities for the sale of mass quantities at low prices in modern times (Adams 2005, 24); and – the scale: local, interregional, or international. The list could be extended. All of these features belong to the concept of the market comprising equal and depersonalized exchange undertaken according to the objective and natural laws of supply and demand. Since everyone agrees on the universal existence of market exchange, it is not customary to go further and research the particular organizational features of the market. Meanwhile, they are not simply manifestations of equal exchange but the results of complex social and political relationships. These relationships are very rarely given attention because it is considered unconventional to question markets (this is how the power of paradigms works), but I contend that this is exactly what should be revealed and thoroughly studied. Two examples will illustrate how a categorial understanding of the market prevents us from analysing deeper social processes. Numerous references throughout the Cambridge Economic History of Europe (Postan 1987) show that fairs in the Middle Ages were strictly controlled by the authorities. However, re-

 For discussion of the tributary mode of production, see Amin (1980); Haldon (1993); Wolf (2005).

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cent research also reveals that in this period, fairs coexisted with individual shops: In Italy, for instance, civic authorities sometimes had to force shopkeepers to shut their shops in order to safeguard the primacy of the fair. In late sixteenth-century Venice mercers proved unwilling to sell on the marketplace, in spite of a prohibition to sell from their shops during the period of the fairs. (Blondé et. al. 2006a, 13)

So, if we try to define economic parameters for markets in the situation mentioned in the quotation, which type of market do we mean: the fairs comprising regional networks of trade or the individual shops for local needs? This example underlines the need for an accurate definition of a specific market whenever it becomes the object of research. A second, completely different, example can be found in research on the early Middle Ages. According to Chris Wickham (2016), following the fall of the Roman Empire in the West and the establishment of the barbarian kingdoms in Europe, ex-soldiers settled on the land and the tax system fell into decay because there was no army to pay. The rulers were fed from the land, not from taxes. The economy became simpler. The possessions of the landowners contracted. As Wickham reminds us, by the beginning of the eighth century interregional trade in the Mediterranean was limited to luxury items relevant only to the nobles, and this trade eventually declined, too. On the other hand, he continues, the decline of the nobility was paralleled by the strengthening of the position of land-owning peasants. They became more well-off and more numerous. But they bought less than the nobility and did not help the economy recover from the simplification process. Can we say here that with the fall of the Roman Empire the market in Europe declined and that this led to the contraction of the economy? In relation to the nobility, yes – in relation to the peasantry, hardly. Apparently, there was exchange on the local – producers’, peasant – level. We know less about this level of exchange simply because the concept of declining interregional trade is taken as representative for the condition of the economy as a whole. Meanwhile, the improvement in the standing of peasants may well have resulted from, or at least depended on, the contraction of interregional trade, followed by the decline of a tax-raising system that could have been established for extracting money to support luxury trade with the East. This is just a hypothesis, but, evidently, such connections need to be studied. Economic decline can no less be a categorial notion than the market, for decline in one sphere may be followed by advances in the other and/or reconfiguration of social relationships, not necessarily negative.

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4 Market economy: An institutional perspective One of the key questions in contemporary economic history concerns the institutional foundations for the economic growth (North and Weingast 1989; North 1990; Greif 2000, 2006; Acemoglu et al. 2005; Acemoglu et al. 2019) achieved by the “Western countries” in the last three hundred years or so. Economic historians working in the tradition of the new institutional economics uncover and explore the institutions that have helped promote “market expansion”, reduce transaction costs, and place “credible restrictions on the state’s ability to manipulate economic rules to the advantage of itself and its constituents” (North 1989, 808). In this tradition, market expansion is opposed to the arbitrary behaviour of rulers and is possible when the latter is restricted. This restriction is provided by an unspoken agreement between the state and its constituents. This agreement, or “constitution”, secures “property rights, protection of […] wealth, and the elimination of confiscatory government” (North 1989, 803). The key feature of a constitution that fosters an environment in which a market economy can develop continually and provide constant growth is its self-enforcement, which is achieved by the establishment of political institutions that allow for it. The institutional order that placed constitutional restrictions on the state is claimed to have appeared as a result of the so-called financial revolutions in Europe. Allegedly, the most significant financial revolution occurred in England in the late 1680s and early 1690s, after the Glorious Revolution of 1688 and the creation of the Bank of England in 1694 (Dickson 1967; North 1989). The new selfenforcing institutional order restricted the state’s ability to renege on its own commitments (North 1989, 808), especially ones of debt. As North put it, “the ability of a government to commit to private rights and exchange is thus an essential condition for growth” (1989, 808). Thus, in this paradigm, the “advanced” societies are believed to have achieved their high level of development historically through the creation of particular political institutions that have provided conditions for individuals to safely participate in market exchange and benefit from the objective laws of supply, demand, and price behaviour operating in the market. The view of positive social development caused by “good” institutions has been contested by the literature on inequality (Stiglitz 2012; Piketty 2014; Ghosh 2015). This literature shows that the growth of economic parameters in some countries has been accompanied by a severe increase in inequality both within these countries and between these countries and the rest of the world. I contend that one of the problems of the institutional perspective on economic history is an understanding of the market as a tool that, if not abused

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by the intrusion of arbitrary rulers, allows exchange relationships between people to be equalized. All participants in the market are believed to be equal when using this instrument. This is a mechanistic view of social reality, deprived of the human dimension. What happens if one adds people to this picture? For instance, the examination of the list of subscribers of the Bank of England at its creation shows that many of those bringing in the biggest capital were connected both to the state Exchequer and the privately owned bank. The bank controlled state debt, and its owners indirectly controlled taxation to service it (Hodgson 2017; Ivanov 2019). This undermines the idea of an opposition between the state and the people in whose interests the power of the ruler is restricted through the mediation of political institutions. Such connections should be studied further by historians. Tom Cutterham (2018) presents another example: he shows how the informal institution of trust associated with the development of the market and capitalism, and regarded as a source of organizational efficiency, was actually supported by problematic and harmful social practices such as deceit and theft. As has been said above, studying the politics of markets in history is crucial to deconstructing and better understanding them. In the new institutional economics paradigm, politics plays a vital role. But what kind of politics is it? How is it defined? North writes: A critical role of the constitution and other political institutions is to place restrictions on the state or sovereign. These institutions in part determine whether the state produces rules and regulations that benefit a small elite and so provide little prospect for long-run growth, or whether it produces rules that foster long-term growth. Put simply, successful long-run economic performance requires appropriate incentives not only for economic actors but for political actors as well. (1989, 805 – 806)

In this passage, North differentiates between political actors and economic actors. By political actors, he means the state and state-associated individuals. They are his “small elite”. Long-term growth ostensibly beneficial to all, on the other hand, can be achieved only if political actors are given a particular stimulus to secure property and other rights of economic actors (i. e. all those who participate in market exchange and are not associated with the state). This rigid model eliminates the very possibility of researching the politics of markets in history. First of all, in reality, political and economic actors are pretty much the same. Politics is not what is done by rulers. Politics is the interaction between people at all levels defined by collective agreements and the current balance of power in a given society. The market is an example of such interaction. Second, following the discourse of inequality, one can argue that those who designed the “constitution” during the financial revolution were part of

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the elites and that many of them were already associated with the state. The Glorious Revolution and the financial revolution resulted in the state legitimizing and securing new means of wealth accumulation, and helped transform the composition of the elites in whose favour state economic policy was formulated – that is not the same as portraying these changes as the establishment of equalizing non-elitist institutional arrangements. Third, economic growth as such cannot tell us anything about past societies.⁵ This is a parameter that can be used for a limited number of research tasks, but it cannot characterize a society in general. Proponents of the new institutional economics approach would say that everybody will have an advantage from long-term growth in the long run. However, immediate disadvantage to certain people should also be researched – not as a collection of occasional misfortunes of unlucky people, but as a structural development in the course of history conditioned by a certain balance of power in the society under consideration. This implies that the influential narrative of economic history introduced by the new institutional economics school should be reconsidered and modified. According to Graeber, before money economies there existed human economies. In them money was used “to create, maintain, or sever relations between people rather than to purchase things” (Graeber 2011, 158). Graeber states that in the last five thousand years, commercial, or market, economies are relatively new; “for most of human history, human economies predominated”, but at some point human economies were incorporated into larger commercial economies (2011, 130). The question is why institutions were created to support market arrangements and secured the domination of maket economies rather than human ones.

5 Market economy: A Braudelian approach The “market economy” usually refers to capitalism, that is still conventionally associated with free markets. Fernand Braudel contested this view (Braudel 1982; Wallerstein 1991). His theoretical framework is one of the few, if not the only one, where the notion of the market is deconstructed to a certain extent. He regards human economic activity, starting from at least the fifteenth century, as a house with three storeys. The ground floor is the level of material life; the second is the level of economic life, or market economies; the third is that of cap For a recent critique of the explanatory potential of the methodology of the new economic history, or cliometrics, that appeared in the second half of the twentieth century, still shapes the field of economic history, and considers economic growth as “the prime issue worthy of historical research – one is tempted to say the only issue”, see Sewell (2010, 149 – 150, passim).

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italism, or true capitalism (the second storey embodies micro-capitalism with small profits). Braudel places markets and capitalism on different storeys because for him, capitalism is necessarily the zone of monopolies and lobbyist regulation, i. e. the antimarket. At the same time, he separates ordinary people’s quotidian life from regular economic life, or the market economy, that works according to the transparent laws of supply and demand coordinated by prices. For Braudel, before the nineteenth century the state comprised the forces of the antimarket while regulating prices, and at the same time it acted as a guarantor, and moreover the creator, of monopolies. According to Braudel, the ground and third floors were historically opaque: the third because of the intentions and methods of capitalists, the ground because of the lack of historical sources. The second storey at the same time was transparent and gave birth to the “language of economic science”. Braudel distinguishes the open market, the traditional one (where a producer encounters a consumer), from the market that constitutes the second storey (where a merchant plays a vital role, pushing aside the producers). Wallerstein calls this picture “upside down” because both liberal and Marxist approaches, first, acknowledge the concordance of capitalism and the free market, whereas in his concept these are two separate storeys, and second, recognize specialization as a feature of capitalism, whereas on the third storey in the Braudelian picture specialization is excluded. Despite its ostensible simplicity, this model explains many things. It shows that the market is not an integral part of the material life of people. It views the market only as something built up on material life in the capitalist mode of production. It asserts the role of ruling bodies and regulation in the maintenance of capitalism. At the same time, the model raises further historical questions. What is the interconnection between all the three storeys? Is it possible to detect the process of the third storey determining the others? Was there a resistance to the imposition of the rules of the market on ordinary people in pre-industrial Europe? What were markets before the fifteenth century, and before capitalism? All in all, this model seems to be a useful working framework for studying markets in history.

6 Empirical evidence of markets in history Having discussed the methodological and theoretical background, let us turn to the empirical material presented in the papers that were discussed at the conference devoted to markets and their agents in pre-industrial Europe on which the present anthology is based. They touched exclusively on the European experience (including that extended to the New World) in the later Middle Ages,

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early modern and modern periods, and did not claim to provide a global perspective. There was also no unity in the choice of aspects of the market to be considered. On the contrary, each paper dealt with different regions, subperiods, and market features. Thus, we obtained a patchwork that partially characterized market activity in a given period. Generalizations were confined to each single paper. In the following paragraphs, I shall discuss how markets were presented and approached in each of the papers delivered at the conference, and suggest further research questions in the framework of the politics of historical markets outlined above. Franziska Quaas considered the semantics of “market” in the early Middle Ages. She focused in particular on the specific meaning of the market that involved the exchange of earthly for heavenly goods, the sacrum commercium. She suggested that the medieval concept of the market had above all an eschatological dimension of meaning. Her paper presented a case in which a term was used in a particular kind of medieval literature with a meaning different from what it has today. This meaning cannot be revealed by recognizing a common phenomenon and without semantic analysis. Further research on this topic would probably involve answering the question of how market terminology entered biblical commentary. How did the language of debt/tax/tribute influence theological texts in the highly monetized economy of the late Roman Empire, which in turn legitimized sovereign practices of wielding power both in parishes and lay politics? In his recent book, Devin Singh has explored the “impact of monetary economic ideas and institutions upon early theological formulations” (2018, 193) and presented some of his observations on these connections. He prompts further research on these questions with his analysis of Christian practices and contexts entangled with the ancient economy. Franziska Neumann investigated the form of management of the Saxon ore mines in the sixteenth century and revealed that these mines were regulated by a “hybrid” bureaucracy. On the one hand, it acted on behalf of, under the control of, and in the interest of the Saxon rulers; on the other hand, it was dependent on the external investors who bought shares in the mines. This case study is a particular example of how rulers in the sixteenth century gave up part of their sovereignty under the pressure of the capital interests that shaped markets. It is very important to further understand what social dynamics, for example the transformation of the sources of income of the elites, led to such developments and made them possible precisely in the sixteenth century, and how markets helped and were used in this process. Eva Brugger suggested in her paper that, despite the common view of the seventeenth-century New Amsterdam colonial market as promoting economic growth and leading to the development of capitalism, in reality it was highly

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regulated and thus at an “earlier” stage of development compared to European markets of the time. She explained the application of the regulated market arrangements by the clash of interests of different social groups: the Dutch West India Company were interested in the “free” market, but the permanent colonial settlers urged for stability, which made the director-general of the Company resort to regulations. However, from the perspective of the Braudelian three-storey-building concept, the regulated markets were closer to the idea of capitalism. Moreover, it is difficult to deny the exclusive resources, financial and political, of the West India Company that allowed it to dominate trading arrangements in the region. The important question is not whether the market was free or regulated (because allegedly all markets are regulated), but who – which groups of people – had access to this market and on what terms, and how the limited access influenced in the long run those who did not have such access. Heinrich Lang focused on the sixteenth-century financial markets where the French king borrowed money from Florentine bankers. He dealt with the mechanisms used in financial markets created by bankers in the early modern period. He depicted financial markets as by-products of the financial activity of the merchants, since these markets emerged on the side of general commercial activity and were ignored by royal authorities in terms of taxation. Capital markets comprise a particular phenomenon defined by what was being traded – obligations. Further research would have to reveal what social and political developments made possible the emergence of such financial markets; what alternative benefits the authorities had from such financial markets if not taxes. Klemens Kaps prepared a paper on the influence of internal and international markets on economic development in the Habsburg Monarchy in the eighteenth century through the case study of the Milanese Greppi Marliani company, which operated on both levels. Kaps assumed that the internal market system in the Habsburg Monarchy developed not only due to cameralist, mercantilist, and protectionist sovereign policies but also due to the influence of the international market and capital accumulated in international trade. It would be important to understand how the company’s influence on the market was intertwined with state policies and how this connection influenced social development in the area. Maria Cieśla focused on Jewish traders in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, namely the brothers Shmuel (Szmojło) and Gdalye (Gdal) Ickowicz in the eighteenth century. They, being the bankers of the Radziwiłł family, traded in the key centres of Eastern and Central Europe, but were less dominant on the international level as opposed to the regional one. Cieśla employed network analysis and examined the commercial networks that the brothers were part of. Network

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analysis might be accompanied by the study of the privileges the merchants received from rulers and the social and political effects of these privileges. Eva Trein Nielsen dealt with the methods of facilitating international trade in Scandinavia in the twelfth to fourteenth centuries. She focused on the protective regulations of the Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish ports in favour of foreign merchants. She interpreted this example as characteristic of how mutual trust was created through control and regulations “to the benefit of all”. But who stood behind these regulations and who were the beneficiaries of such rules? What was the pressure of the international merchant community on the local authorities and local merchants, or what was the interplay between them? How did this interplay influence local producers and common people (in terms of taxes/ rents/tributes)? Who is included in the notion of the “all” to whose benefit the regulations were issued? The concept of trust as an institution built on a strictly defined set of conditions and providing a secure environment for trading activity has recently been contested in the literature (e. g. Cutterham 2018; Forrest and Haour 2018). What, then, were the specific circumstances that provided secure modalities to foreign merchants? In the papers presented, one can see a reflection of the following tendencies: on the one hand, the historical narrative is distinctly influenced by the concepts of economics, where markets seem to be objectified and studied without taking into account the political circumstances of their creation and functioning; on the other hand, the basic principle of historical criticism in researching individual cases allows us to see the potential for deconstruction of the category of the market and to regard markets as a result of certain social relations beneficial to particular groups of people.

7 Market agents The substance of a phenomenon, in our case the market, can be examined through its actors, or agents. An abstract (economic) understanding of agents in the market implies that they are simply the buyers, sellers, and brokers, in other words, those who perform and facilitate the exchange. Moreover, in a neoclassical economic perspective, an agent is always rational from a single-rationality point of view. This perception has recently been contested by a behavioural economics that rejects idealized subjects, takes into account the human factor, and asserts the irrationality of human choices (Diamond and Vartiainen 2007; Tomer 2017). From a historical perspective, as well as from a philosophical one, the agents of the market are rational but their motives differ. To understand the phenomenon of the market better, it is necessary to consider multiple ration-

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alities and try to understand them based on the sources and not on the mathematical forms of theory. If we see “market” not as an abstract category but as a result of certain social and political relationships, we will find ourselves dealing with agency of another kind, different from the one in economic understanding. We will have to understand who promoted the market ideology in particular social contexts,⁶ who supported the existence of markets in a certain form and defined the rules of the markets. It would be important to identify such agents or promoters so as to understand more about the markets’ historical development. “Agency of another kind” may be illustrated as follows. In the Middle Ages, rulers could easily get rid of distasteful creditors who wanted their money back. However, in the sixteenth century this turned out to be impossible, which, apparently, indicated a certain social and political change (the nature of which is still to be researched). This change did not come by itself, but had its own agents, most probably unconscious ones, who used the momentum of, let’s say, changing patterns of incomes of the elites and lobbied for new ordinances that could legalize new rules of the game in which the rulers had to be interested as well, for they had to secure their income, too. At that moment, they all hardly thought about future systematic changes. Such unconscious agents, who, in their actions within the old paradigm, occasionally gave way to the new social reality, are exactly the objects of interest for economic historians.⁷ What kinds of agency did speakers at the conference detect? Franziska Quaas concluded that, within the early medieval discourse where the market in one of the meanings represented the exchange of earthly for heavenly goods, everyone could have been an agent of the market. This holistic formulation may well refer to the market economies where all people are dragged into market exchange, upon which a certain ideology is built. Both the circumstances of engaging people in the game of exchange, either heavenly or earthly, and the ideologies built thereupon are to be thoroughly studied. Franziska Neumann detected a twofold agency on the market where the mining-industry assets of the Saxon rulers circulated in the sixteenth century. On the one hand, the agents were the investors who compelled the rulers to regulate trade as the market rules required. On the other hand, the rulers were agents who created an administrative tool (a bureaucracy) in order to abide by the external market rules and at the same time to make the internal, local executives  By “ideology” I mean a set of ideas about the subject matter of a phenomenon that express normative judgements about it and make social reality subject to those judgements.  The theme of how historical actors not intending to break any social order change social paradigms with their actions is covered in Wickham (2015).

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follow the rules that the Saxon princes themselves had set. Those rules were based on the ideology of the royal authority. The two ideologies – that of investors and that of the rulers – were transmitted by the agents of the market. The social and political connections of these two agencies require further investigation. Eva Brugger stated that the actors, or agents, of the colonial market in New Amsterdam in the seventeenth century (conventionally buyers, sellers, and brokers) were defined rather by their relation to the local trading community than by ethnicity. She contended that it is impossible to categorize the agents, since they all had mixed social identities. Some other types of agent are also interesting in this case. First of all, the authority that wielded power and issued ordinances was the Dutch West India Company (WIC) – the collective agent promoting Braudelian-type capitalist arrangements in situ. The company possessed a monopoly on political power in New Amsterdam, which enabled it to develop capitalist practices there. Notable in this case is the story of the “destroyers of trade” whom the WIC director banned, only to let them squeeze in through the regulations. It is important to further understand the circumstances that pulled middlemen into searching for cash through banned practices. They might be connected with tribute arrangements, but it is evidently not a case of a universal human inclination to trade and make a profit. Heinrich Lang showed in his presentation that the Florentine bankers in the sixteenth century had to translate their financial relationship with the king into market language in order not to lose opportunities for profit. Namely, they “tended to create market transactions from the payments of the composed loans and their repayments. Thus, the Florentine bankers are claimed to have been the creators of the new type of market. It is important to explore how this agency became possible socially and politically. Klemens Kaps aimed at detecting what “influence the [Milanese Greppi Marliani] company had on setting prices at home and on international markets”, thus adding subjective agency to the operation of different levels of the market. Kaps recounted the agents who were able to transmit the pressures of the international market on the local level. They could do so because they were part of an international trading network that was beyond the reach of any sovereign. It is worth asking through what levers of the international trading network the Milanese Greppi Marliani merchants gained the power to exert such influence and how it is connected with political authority. Maria Cieśla explored the market agents, brothers Shmuel and Gdalye Ickowicz, who were associated with rulers and connected them to local and regional markets. It is important to investigate how exactly the proximity of the brothers to the ruling family influenced their standing in the local market, and how local

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producers paying taxes in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania were influenced by the debts of the Radziwiłł family. Eva Trein Nielsen highlighted the significance of trading-port services and, consequently, workers and officers in attracting foreign merchants in Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish ports. The authorities regulating trade in Scandinavian ports favoured international merchants and recognized the importance of offering better conditions to them. We see here the disciplining power of the international market. It is worth asking who the agents who transferred this disciplining power to Scandinavian rulers were and by what means they exerted their influence.

8 Hermeneutics of economic history In the preface to his collection of essays Economic History and the Historian, Charles Wilson noted that the function of most of these papers has been to question assumptions that seemed out of date or unsatisfactory in the age in which we live. You cannot go on referring students of mercantilism living in the century of Schacht, Keynes, the New Deal, the Russian or Indian plans etc., etc., to economic history written in the full faith of classical economics. The historic antecedents of economic nationalism, protection, tariffs, bounties, conscious import substitution, labour training, export drives and the like deserve to be examined seriously, if only because so many of them ended in disillusion with government intervention and the rise of the grand vision of universal harmony and progress that would be the reward for ‘leaving things alone’. (1969, x)

In this approach, economic optics is important to a historian for understanding economic history. The contemporary development of economic theory helps a historian to reveal the motives for the economic policies of the past. However, such economic history again turns economic phenomena like the market into categories. I contend that another approach to economic history is possible. I would call it a hermeneutic approach. It will not rely on economic theory in studying the past, and will not equate economic history with the economic policy of governments. It will rather aim at studying historical phenomena, such as markets, from the perspective of ordinary people, of how they live through the economic reality. A hermeneutics of the market implies that a scholar does not limit their research to the apprehension of universal quantifiable macro-processes, but interprets people’s position in the market, and more broadly in the economy, focuses on how their economic behaviour is conditioned not only by personal,

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subjective motivations, but mostly by structural developments in societies and politics, understood as the balance of power between different social groups. In 1970 the “interpretive turn” transformed the discourses of most social sciences and humanities. The “hermeneutics debate” (Albert 1988; Rothbard 1989; Lavoie 1990; Kidder 1997; Madison 2001; Perrin 2005; Lagueux 2010; Harris 2016) is claimed to have started later in the field of economics than in other social sciences – in 1985 (Storr 2011), after the publication of Don Lavoie’s working paper “The Interpretive Dimension of Economics: Science, Hermeneutics, and Praxeology”⁸, which discussed the possibility of applying an interpretive approach and subjected scientism to a critique. This approach has not been accepted by economists, on the grounds that it is unscientific (Harris 2016). It has hardly been theoretically considered for the field of economic history, with rare exceptions (Pollard 1984). At the same time, I believe that any historical investigation is interpretative and based on such an approach, without historians naming the method, just sometimes simply calling it historical criticism. As we have said above, economic topics in history are dominated by economic thinking, theoretical concepts, and language, which prevents economic historians from considering economic manifestations in the past hermeneutically, interpreting them contextually, and telling the story in a language distinct from the economic one. A hermeneutic approach leads not necessarily to the avoidance of generalizations but rather to a reconsideration of existing ones. Current generalizations in economic history “promise” a good social order and benefits for society in future. Alternative, historicized, generalizations based on a number of cases studied with the help of a hermeneutic approach would include explaining the influence that power distribution in a society, production modes, property arrangements, and so on had on creating living conditions for different social groups or individuals, not only the creators of the specific social order. Economic generalizations include the idea that institutions are positive arrangements based on the best human qualities, such as honesty and trustworthiness. These arrangements help economies grow to the benefit of society as a whole. As has been mentioned above, this idea has been contested by a number of historians writing on economic history, investigating how “honesty” and “trust” were used to deceive people and build capital on that basis, thus moving the economy forward but leaving the deceived people outside the economic achievements. There is a growing body of “nuanced historical work”⁹ complicating

 The paper was published as a journal article (Lavoie 2011).  This expression is taken from one such work (Cutterham 2018, 626n11).

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and challenging the classical economic view (Hartigan-O’Connor 2009; Zabin 2009; Haggerty 2012; Cutterham 2018; Forrest 2018). These works can be considered as examples of the application of hermeneutical method to the problems of economic history. An interpretative method is immanent to the historical discipline; it is not new. The Polanyian tradition in the social sciences also implies an interpretative dimension. Moreover, hermeneutic methodology has been discussed by economists. So, why does it need to be reintroduced for the study of markets and, more broadly, economic history? I can see two reasons for this. First, this need stems from the state-of-the-art in the field of economic history, which remains dominated by mathematically based economic theory (Sewell 2010) and language. Second, it results from the ambiguous standing of the humanities’ reasoning in the world of knowledge production. To overcome this domination and build alternative historical theories that will coexist with the economic ones and be enriched by quantitative findings in economic history, historians need to suggest a definite methodology (or rebrand the old and self-evident ones of historical criticism and the Polanyian tradition) that will persuade academic readers from other disciplines, including scientific ones.¹⁰ What matters is to explain why it is necessary and efficient to analyse the human dimension when it comes to studying economic history. When one speaks of a human dimension, the problem of agency arises. Exploring markets through their agents seems to be a working tool for understanding them in different historical epochs and areas. In this case, agents should not be understood as mechanical actors making rational choices for getting profit, but rather as people bound to adapt to economic circumstances caused by changing balance of power. Some of them try to influence these circumstances to their benefit by political means, others struggle for better social conditions and frequently lose these battles. Thus markets can be represented as as set of relatioships, social, political, and cultural. In the economic studies of past markets, many things are taken for granted. Some researchers tend to recognize markets in the sources based on what they know about markets from their own lives. Recognizing a familiar phenomenon in the sources may sometimes be a useful analytical tool, but in this case, it is fallacious, especially because it prevents further research and deconstruction of the phenomenon under consideration. In other words, researchers of this kind fall into a “natural fallacy”. A hermeneutic approach to the study of mar-

 The story of how “the sciences denied the humanities the ability to discern truth” is exposed in Wallerstein (2006, 3).

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kets could help avoid this. It is important to differentiate between how something worked in the past and how this or that reality is described today. We may have very little information remaining from distant periods of history to do this. That is a shame. A greater shame, though, is to substitute the lack of evidence with knowledge of contemporary developments.

9 Conclusion The articles in this volume, as well as the methodological observations in this chapter, confirm not so much that there can be no unified picture of the development of market exchange, but rather that if such a unified picture is drawn on the basis of abstract categories, most of the information about the lives of people and social organization in the past gets lost. The complexity and diversity of the development of markets in the premodern era and their connection with the major social transformations of the past are still to be studied. The political background of these connections has not been systematically taken into account in current economic-history research, due to the fact that the whole field of economic history is currently dominated by explanatory models supported by mathematically based economic theory. I suggest that the hegemonic discourse of economic history can be overcome with the help of a the new hermeneutic approach. Taking the market as an example, this would mean studying markets as relationships and not as a category. The new history of markets is to be informed by numerous case studies made within the paradigm suggested in this article. To achieve the goal of historicizing markets in particular and economic history in general, more conferences like the one behind this book should be held; a collective research project with the objective of writing a new history of exchange, and the development of capitalism more broadly, would also help. The cumulative knowledge about historical markets acquired within the hermeneutic paradigm would demonstrate, instead of linear economic development and growth, the diversity and alternative possibilities of economic development and creation of the common good, the dynamics of relationships between different groups of people reflected in market practices, the politics that formed and changed the balance of power between these groups and led to the establishment of a certain path of economic development, the changes in material conditions and sources of income that brought about structural changes in the economy and the organization of markets, and so on. These mechanisms are not clear yet and constitute a highly relevant research field. Of course, a new historical narrative of markets and economic development could be fruitfully complemented by a sporadic and ad-

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hoc application of economic theory to certain material that permits this, but not the other way round.¹¹

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List of authors Maria Aleksandrova is a junior research fellow at the Centre for Medieval Studies of the National Research University Higher School of Economics. Her research interests include royal debts in the later Middle Ages and early modern period, especially English crown borrowing on the Antwerp bourse in the middle of the sixteenth century. Julia Bruch ist a post-doc in the DFG Research Group (Graduiertenkolleg) 2212 “Dynamics of Conventionality (400 – 1550)” at the University of Cologne. She is currently working on a research project (‘habilitation’) on urban historiography in the 15th and 16th centuries. Further research interests are pre-modern economic history, materiality of manuscripts as well as history of monastic orders and digital editions. Eva Brugger is a SNSF – Ambizione Research Fellow at the Center for Economic and Social History at the University of Zurich, Switzerland. She holds a PhD in Early Modern History from the University of Constance, Germany. Her second book project “Global Material Desires. Beaver Fur and the Creation of Markets in 17th century” contributes to a new economic history, where material culture meets global perspectives. She is co-founder of the DFG-network “Promises of the Markets. New Perspectives on Early Modern Economic and Cultural History” and has published studies on the emergence of early modern markets, new history of capitalism, colonial consumer markets and early modern fashion history. Ulla Kypta is Assistant Professor for the history of the late Middle Ages and early modern history at the University of Hamburg, Germany. Her research interests include medieval economic history, trade in the late Middle Ages and administrative history. At the moment she studies principal agent relations between merchants and their representatives in late medieval Antwerp and the way how the Hanse towns organized and coordinated their economic policies in early modern Northern Europe. Franziska Neumann studied history, art history and philosophy and received her PhD degree in Early Modern and Modern History from the Technische Universität in Dresden with a thesis on the Saxon mining administration in the 16th century. Since 2017, she has worked as a research assistant and lecturer at the University of Rostock. Currently she is working on a postdoc project on Early Modern urban waste in the 18th century. Franziska Quaas is Research Assistant in the Project “Formulae – Litterae – Chartae. New edition of the early medieval formulae with an exploration and analysis of early medieval letters and charters in Western Europe (c. 500–c. 1000)” at the Academy of Sciences and Humanities in Hamburg / University of Hamburg. In this context, she also works on the development of a new digital research infrastructure enabling an exploration of formulaic writing before the ars dictaminis. Her PhD thesis dealt with Formulaic Writing in early medieval charters and formulae of the Eastern Frankish Empire. In addition to diplomatic issues, her research also focuses on English and Scottish history of the early and high middle ages and the relation of ideas of time and practices of violence in times of war. Tanja Skambraks is Assistant Professor of Medieval History at the University of Mannheim. She just finished her second book on “Charitable Credit. Monti di Pietà, Franciscan economic ethics and urban social politics in Italy (15th and 16th century)” Her research interests include

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economic and social history in the longue durée, moral economy, material culture, rituals and every-day life. She studied Medieval History, Englisch Literature and Culture as well as Communication Science at the TU Dresden and the University of Edinburgh.

Index of names Adam 42, 126 Aeschylos 32 Agricola, Gregorius 73, 77 Alighieri, Dante 53 Ambrose of Milan 33 Aristophanes 32 Aristotle 33 Arnobius the Younger 51 Augustine 35, 39, 41 f., 46 – 49 Ausonius 33 Basil of Caesarea 32 Bayard, Judith 108 Benedict IV 52 Bernardino of Siena 11 Bogner 89 Brekelvelde, Tidemann 16 Busch, Matthes 29, 78 Caesarius of Arles 35 – 37, 49 Carolingian 3, 30, 36, 38, 51 Cato 32 Chromatius of Aquileia 41 f. Church Fathers 2, 32 f., 38 Cicero 40 Cyprian of Carthage 34 Drechsel, Nicol 82 – 84 Dutch East India Company Dutch West India Company 136 Dyckingh, Evert 101

125 4, 102, 133,

Euphrasia 52 Euripides 32 Eve 8, 18, 27, 36, 42, 81 – 83, 101 Exchequer 129 Faust, Joachim Felicitas 44

80

Gallus 45 Gelasius 40 https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110643756-008

Gregory of Tours 36 f. Gregory the Great 48 f. Greppi Marliani company

16, 133, 136

Habsburg 16, 88, 133 Hale, Alexander of 11 Harrer the Younger, Hans 78, 81 Herard of Tours 37 Hieronymus 45 Hilary of Poitiers 33, 48 Hincmar of Rheims 2, 35 Holy Spirit 41 f., 44 Hudson, Henry 104, 111 Hudson’s Bay Company 114 Ickowicz, Shmuel and Gdalye, Jewish traders 133, 136 Ignatius of Antioch 43 Irenaeus of Lyon 44 Isidor of Seville 2, 31, 39 Jacobs, Jaap 105 – 107 Jansen, Adriaen 113 Jansen, Volkert 113 Jesus Christ 18, 33, 39 – 43, 47 f., 50 – 52 John, apostle 32 – 34, 46 John Chrysostom 32 – 34, 45, 49, 51 Judas 42, 51 Kieft, William 108, 113 Kip, Jacob 101 La Montaigne, Johannes Lazarus 51 Leo the Great 49 Livius 39 Luke 49

113

Marcion of Sinope 43 f. Marcus Manilius 40 Maria 40 f. Markulf 50 Martin of Tours 37, 44, 46

148

Index of names

Matthew 48 f, 55 Meltzer, Christian 77 Merchant Adventurers 125 Meyerbeck, Wolfgang 79 Milo of Amand 45 Moritz, duke of Saxony 80 Neuesser, Georg Ovid

80

39 f.

Paul the Deacon 31 Paulinus of Nola 40, 46 f. Perpetua 44 Peter Damian 49 Petrus Chrysologus 40, 42, 49 Plato 32 f. Plautus 34 Pliny the Elder 32, 39 Polycarp 44 Primasius of Hadrumetum 55 Prudentius 42 Pseudo-Ignatius of Antioch 44 Quintinus 45 Quintus Curtius Rufus Radbod of Utrecht Radulf of Bourges Radziwill, family of Ruric of Limoges Salome

39

46 38 f. bankers 46

35, 42, 47

Salvian of Marseille 47 Satan 42 Scheurl, Christof 80 Scheurl, Jörg 80 Schütz, Lukas 77 Sedulius Scotus 31, 43 Seneca 39 Sextus Pompeius Festus 31 Smith, Adam 11, 121 Spier, Peter 101 f., 117 Spiers, Hendrick 101 Stumpfelt, Georg 80 Stuyvesant, Peter 105 – 111, 113 Tertullian 34 f., 42 – 44 Theodulf of Orleans 2, 35 f., 38, 45, 51 Thomas of Aquin 11 Thomas of Chobham 11 Titus 45 van Rensselaer, Kilian 113 Varro 34 Veckinchusen, Hildebrand 15 f. Veckinchusen, Sivert 15 Velleius Paterculus 39 Venantius Fortunatus 44, 52 Vergilius 31 Victricius of Rouen 46 Virginia Company 125

133, 137 Walahfrid Strabo

45

Index of places Albany 112, 115 Albertin territory 88 Amsterdam 105, 107, 111, 117 Annaberg 73, 78 f., 86 – 88 Antwerp 7, 9, 15 f., 21 Atlantic Ocean 106 Augsburg 16, 78, 85 Babylon 55 Beverwijck (today Albany) Bohemia 73, 75 Breuckelen 101 Bruges 14 – 16, 21 Buchholz 78

106 f., 112 f.

Caribbean 106, 115 Central Europe 16, 133 Central Park, New York 102 Champagne 7, 15 Cologne 15, 78 Connecticut River 111 Cracow 21 Curaçao 106 Delaware River 106, 111 Denmark 134, 137 Dresden 78, 82 – 84, 89 Dutch Republic 107 East River, New York 109 England 9, 19, 105, 128 f. Erfurt 78 Europe 9, 12, 17, 19, 115 f., 122, 125 – 128, 131, 141 Flanders 14 Florence 133, 136 Fort Amsterdam 101 f. Fort Orange, Beverwijck 113 France 105, 116 Frankfurt/Main 7, 9, 78, 85 Freiberg 73, 76, 78 – 80, 89 Freiburg/Breisgau 9 https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110643756-009

Freising, bishopric 50 f. Fulda, monastery 50 Gdańsk 14 f. German States Göttingen 21

106

Haarlem 107 Hamburg 15, 55 Holy Roman Empire 13, 73, 77, 90, 127, 132 Hudson River 105, 115 Italy

127

Joachimsthal/Jáchymov Leipzig 75, 78 Lithuania, Grand Duchy of Long Island 106 Lübeck 15 f., 21 Lyon 7

73, 75, 76, 78, 80

133, 137

Magdeburg 78 Manhattan Island 102, 105, 115 Marienberg 78 – 80 Marienburg 14 Mediterranean 127 Milan 16, 133, 136 Mondsee, monastery 50 f. Netherlands 106 f., 111 New Amsterdam 4, 19, 101 – 103, 105 – 112, 115, 117 f., 132, 136 New Amstel 106 New England 110 New Netherland 101 – 118 New York City 101 f., 117 North America 102 – 106, 114 f. North Holland 107 Norway 134, 137 Nuremberg 14, 20 f., 77 f., 80

150

Index of places

Ore Mountains Prussia

72 – 74, 82, 85

14

Regensburg, bishopric 51 Regensburg, St. Emmeram 51 Rensselaerswijck 106 Roman Empire 127, 132 Saxony 3 f., 71 – 73, 77 Scandinavia 134, 137 Schäftlarn, monastery 50 f. Schneeberg 77, 79, 82, 84, 88 Seville 16 Smyrna 44

Southern Germany 9 Spanish empire 16 St. Martin Island, Caribbean Sweden 107, 134, 137 Tharsis

47

Venice 16, 21, 127 Virginia 110 West-Friesland Würzburg 50 Zurich

9

107

106