commerce-msg - 3/28/08
Commerce and trade in period. Usury.
NOTE: See also the files: guilds-msg, coins-msg, measures-art, measures-msg, occupations-msg, p-prices-msg, p-lawyers-msg, salt-comm-art, p-insurance-msg.
************************************************************************
NOTICE -
This file is a collection of various messages having a common theme that I have collected from my reading of the various computer networks. Some messages date back to 1989, some may be as recent as yesterday.
This file is part of a collection of files called Stefan's Florilegium. These files are available on the Internet at: http://www.florilegium.org
I have done a limited amount of editing. Messages having to do with separate topics were sometimes split into different files and sometimes extraneous information was removed. For instance, the message IDs were removed to save space and remove clutter.
The comments made in these messages are not necessarily my viewpoints. I make no claims as to the accuracy of the information given by the individual authors.
Please respect the time and efforts of those who have written these messages. The copyright status of these messages is unclear at this time. If information is published from these messages, please give credit to the originator(s).
Thank you,
Mark S. Harris AKA: THLord Stefan li Rous
Stefan at florilegium.org
************************************************************************
From: DEGROFF at intellicorp.COM (Leslie DeGroff)
Date: 10 Apr 91 21:48:28 GMT
Betram of Bearington asks about paper money and letters of credit...
Frederik Braudel 's books discuss a lot of the evolution of
fairs, letters of credit and the evolution of "economic circulation.
Letters of credit were in use, considerable history behind
various successes and failures but in period these were primarily
Person to Person level transactions and a number of major
interesting events as others have mentioned as Nobility would
borrow to the hilt and then default, taking the entire "trust"
build and leverage (more bills in circulation than specie to back it)
systems down.
About paper money, in use in China perhaps else where in period,
not in Europe.... one "reference event" for this is "LAW's system
in France in early 1700's... this blew up around 1715 with
major damage to France's economy. In period and continually
evolving were the notions that today have separated into
"money", "bonds", "stocks"... in period and into the 1700's
these were not really conceptualized the way we are used to today...
paper money had roots in what today we would consider to be
stocks or bonds or "certificates of deposit :) where you
deposit gold and silver, and get a signed note that says's
yup we got it, but it belongs to undersigned" Realize that
the magic (chains of trust??? :)) of specie as the only
"REAL" money was only discarded at the international level
after WWII... reading 14th to 18th century economic history
can be scary and educational for today's world on this front,
national bankruptcy, repudiation or other trust breaking
solutions to debt are all common historical patterns.
Additional comment on "checks"... the creation of banks
and such conveniences evolved with the expansions and elaborations
of trade from Medieval period on, things really exploded in
complexity and binding formality after the America's
were discoved, the around Africa routes of Far Eastern trade
was established ect.(Post period.... IMHO, may be Columbus
should be the end of period :)) The first attempts at Banks
that retain continuity with today's institutions date
from 16th century.
-------
Re paper money and the like. I think the closest it gets in period is
Persia, where there was an unsuccessful attempt, I believe under the
Ilkhans, to introduce it.
Cariadoc
From: lawbkwn at BUACCA.BITNET (Yaakov HaMizrachi mka HJFeld)
Date: 12 Apr 91 14:07:48 GMT
Newsgroups: rec.org.sca
Re Checking in period:
According to Goitien in his book about the Cairo Geniza
(*A Mediterranean Society*), the Jews had a complex
international checking system that allowed money
deposited in Bagdhad or India to be withdrawn in
Cairo or Andalus. (The Geniza contained some cancelled
checks.) This goes back to at least the tenth century.
Similarly, Jews in Europe in the eleventh and twelfth centuries
developed a complex syndicate to handle loans and loan
difficulties that was very similar to modern methods of
keeping cash flow transferable and liquid.
In Service,
Yaakov HaMizrachi
From: djheydt at garnet.berkeley.edu
Date: 21 Apr 91 04:32:59 GMT
Organization: University of California, Berkeley
Chaz.Butler at f120.n109.z1.fidonet.org (Chaz Butler) writes:
> ... At Pennsic I have seen every kind of religious
>talisman and since I am a merchant I try to have them all available, within
>period pieces where at all possible.
Which is perfectly period. There's this soapstone mold, used by a
jeweler, that was found at Birka or some similar Viking site. You
poured the molten gold (or whatever) into it to cast ornaments.
There's two crosses and a Thor's hammer in it. The jeweler was
selling whatever the traffic would bear.
Dorothea of Caer-Myrddin Dorothy J. Heydt
Province of the Mists djheydt at garnet.berkeley.edu
Principality of the Mists University of California,
Kingdom of the West Berkeley
Sophisticated Merchants?
Date: 11 May 92
From: tip at lead.aichem.arizona.edu (Tom Perigrin)
Newsgroups: rec.org.sca
Organization: A.I. Chem Lab, University of Arizona
Unto Bertram of Bearington, and Unto the Rialto, doth Thomas Ignatius
Perigrinus, sometimes called Doctor by the gracious, send his most humble
greetings,
My Lord Bertram,
Thy suspicions that the good author hath do ring true with me as well.
If I may beg thy indulgance to address a point or two to which I have some
trifling knowledge. I am afraid that my remarks shall have to somewhat
cursory, for I have none of the books that I shall reference to hand, and thus
I must speak from memory:
Thy author doth state that the value of money was ill defined - I'faith
this is somewhat true during the so-called "Roman Denier Discontinuity", that
period of time from 500 until 800 when no single standard did hold forth in
Europe. But even then, money was always worth it's wieght by tare and
fineness. Merchants did oft carry a scales and a touch stone. Pictures of
merchants with scales do date from the early Dynasties of Egypt. Scales
and weights have been found from such divers countries as Sumer, Phoenicea,
Rome, Greece, Celtic Britain and Gaul. I'faith, even after Charlemagne
and Offa did cause to be minted the Denier and Penny of 1.3 Gr weight, did
merchants still take payment by Tare... I have seen many portraits and
woodcuts of fine merchants of the Rennaisnace wherin scales do prominently
figure.
Thy author, being of a Germanic country, should be even less froward with his
assertion that money is of a poor and ill defined standard, for the two
greatest trading associations of the Middle Ages, to wit, the Hanseatic League
and the Augsburg League, are both German in nature, and did fix and value
money from 1000 onwards.
Next, thy author doth state that arangements for the settling of disputes which
do arise in the Market place had not yet been made... By my arm, this man
be not a goodly scholar, for every market did have precisely such arrangements,
else it would not be a chartered market! The manners of settling of
disputations were diverse, from the Mayors court, to the Bourse Court, to
Pied Powder Court, to the Justice of the Nobility who did grant the charter.
An, were it a Hanseatic or Augsburgian League town, then the Master of the
Kontor would settle the disputes. Thus, unless thy scholiard doth protest
that there was no single universal manner of settling disputes, or unless thy
Scholiard doth speak of markets without charter, then I know not of what
he speaks.
Next I should like to address the questions of the mathematical skills of
the merchants... my response must needs depend on what the good scholiard
doth mean by "limited"... The use of the casting board was well developed
by the year of our Lord 1000, and did not decline from then on. With the
counting board, one may perform all of those diverse operations which a
merchant is normall wont to do, such as addition, subtraction, multiplication,
division, interest, and ratios. It would, of course, be safe to say that
not all merchants would be au fait with all such operations, but a charter
assures that one would find a clerk or scholiard at any great and chartered
market who would perform these tasks, note and notarize the results, and
witness unto contracts and indentures.
Thus, good Bertram, I would say that although the conditions that thy Scholiard
hath described were somewhat valid for the time immediately after the great
Roman Empire had collapsed, I think it is not a fiar description of
Europe after the time of Charlemagne and Offa. An he would fain to say
such, then I must needs say that I fear me that thy Scholiard has erected
a man of straw, the easier to make his own points.
An thou wouldst to read a bit more...
Money and Its Use in Medieval Europe, P. Spufford
The Early History of Banking in Mediterranean Europe, A. P. Usher
Coinage in Mediaeval Europe, P. Grierson
The Early Growth of the European Economy, 600 - 1100, G. Duby
Counters, Jettons and the Use of the Casting Table, C. Barnard
The Hanseatic League, L. Sprague
I hope that these few notes will be of use to thee, and I remain, ever
thy humble and obedient servant,
Thomas Ignatius Perigrinus
Sophisticated Merchants?_
Date: 11 May 92
From: jtn at nutter.cs.vt.edu (Terry Nutter)
Newsgroups: rec.org.sca
Unto the good gentles of the RIalto does Lord Hossein Ali Qomi send greetings
and prayers for the blessings of Allah.
Master Bertram recently posted:
>I'm in the midst of reading an academic paper entitled "Organizational,
>Institutional, and Societal Evolution: Medieval Craft Guilds and the
>Genesis of Formal Organizations" by Alfred Kieser at the Universitat
>Mannheim (which I'm assuming is in Germany). The paper is basically
>a discussion of the evolution of craft guilds into modern-style
>companies, but as far as I can tell the author seems to be
>selling the capabilities of medieval merchants a bit short.
>
>In one paragraph he states:
>
> As society evolved further, so did an institution that allowed the
> individuals' activities to be coordinated in a remarkably efficient
> manner -- the market. The early local markets, however, were severely
> hampered by many uncertainties: the value of money was ill-defined,
> formal procedures to solve conflicts arising from trade at the market
> had not yet developed, and the mathematical skills of the traders were
> very limited. Thus, only a few relatively simple goods were exchanged,
> such as agricultural and craft goods. Markets for the exchange of
> capital goods, labor, and property rights did not develop until later.
>
>The author specifies no particular time period which matches the description
>above and, later on, takes us on a whirlwind tour from the 10th century to
>the 17th. My questions, for those more learned on the subject than I,
>are related to the relative degree of sophistication of medieval and
>Renaissance merchants. I have memories of reading that an elderly
>merchant connected with the Champaigne Fairs died and left his heirs
>a strongbox filled with papers -- all promises of payments of one
>sort or another -- a veritable fortune. Likewise, I recall reading
>about the use of letters of credit and other instruments of a more
>advanced financial system. Finally, while the merchants of that
>day may not have been using linear regression and econometric
>analyses as part of their calculations I believe that complex
>triangular trading pacts, "insurance" cooperatives, and detailed
>tracking of relative profits based on bribes or taxes required
>in various markets were more the rule than an exception.
>
>Would one or more of the kind folk of the Rialto please be kind enough
>to shed some light on these issues for me? I expect that viewing our
>ancestor's economic lives as "simple" may well be inappropriate.
Without having Dr. Kieser's paper in front of me it is difficult to tell
just how short he is selling our economic ancestors. If he is describing
the situation prior to the eleventh century, then there is some basis for
his remarks, excepting the brief resurgence of trade during the Carolingian
renaissance (late eighth-early ninth centuries). He does not appear to
make the too-simplistic distinction between natural and money economies
which occasionally is made in general surveys -- certainly money was much
less central to the early medieval economy than to the later medieval economy,
but it never was entirely supplanted by the barter characteristic of
"natural" economies -- and he is right on the mark about lack of monetary
standardization being a serious impediment to trade. The peasant producer
and local artisan marketplace never disappeared during the Dark Ages, but
regional and international trade was severely diminished by the destruction
of the Roman commercial infrastructure and the insecurity of life brought
by the barbarian invasions.
As to the question of the "sophistication" of merchants and markets in the
middle ages, the matter is extremely complex and what I am about to say
here is the barest of summaries and, at that, open to controversy and
counterexample. While the peasant producer and local artisan market never
disappeared, it was not until the early tenth century (again, excepting the
brief Carolingian renaissance) that itinerant pedlars in any large numbers
are mentioned in the sources. These were almost exclusively regional in
their purview. By the late eleventh century regional trade in Italy,
France, Provence, Flanders, and the Rhineland began to be more systematically
organized as guild organizations emerged -- hanses, as they were called,
began to establish the necessary commercial infrastructure for extensive
regional trade. Lombardy, Catalonia, Provence, the Paris-Normandy-Picardy
region, Flanders, and the Rhineland began also to engage in inter-regional
trade on a regular basis. The two great fair-centers of France -- the
Ile de France and Champagne -- emerged from the organizational efforts of
these guilds. By the early twelfth century terminological distinction
between retail and wholesale trade is observed in the documentary record,
i.e., between _regratores_ and _meliores_. Between the mid-twelfth and
mid-thirteenth centuries the real rebirth of international trade, and with
it banking, began in northern Italy. The Florentines, Lombards, Genovese,
Venetians, Lucchese, and Siennese played the major role in establishing
routes, organizing transport, and arranging finance. By the mid-thirteenth
century these trading houses had become the major creditors of every
major monarch in Western Europe.
To answer your question as succinctly as possible, pre-tenth century regional
trade was extremely rare. By the early twelfth century regional and
interregional trade began to flourish and, with it, limited credit
arrangements and relatively sophisticated record-keeping. By the late
twelfth century this regional and interregional trade network had been
interfaced with an extensive international trade, primarily with the East,
mediated by Italian merchants, and an extensive network of interlocking
credit arrangements associated with sophisticated banking had emerged.
There is an enormous literature on these subjects. I would recommend the
bibliographies in the following works as a decent starting-place:
M.M. Postan and E.E. Rice, eds. _The Cambridge Economic History, Vol. II:
Trade and Industry in the Middle Ages_. Cambridge, 1952.
M.M. Postan. _The Medieval Economy and Society_. London, 1972.
C. Cipolla. _Before the Industrial Revolution. European Society and
and Economy, 1000-1700_. London, 1976.
J. Gilchrist. _The Church and Economic Activity in the Middle Ages_.
Cambridge, 1977.
T.H. Lloyd. _The English Wool Trade in the Middle Ages_. Cambridge, 1977.
P. Boissonnade. _Life and Work in Medieval Europe_. New York, 1987. This is
a reprint, but Boissonnade's work is still useful and the
bibliography is quite good for late nineteenth and early twentieth
century sources.
I hope that this is helpful. If you would like more, please email me. I
have some research interests in this area.
In Service to the Society,
Hossein Ali Qomi
Date: Sat, 14 Jun 1997 21:57:52 -0400
From: Barbara Nostrand <bnostran at lynx.dac.neu.edu>
To: sca-arts at raven.cc.ukans.edu
Subject: Re: Usury
Noble Cousins!
Lady Morgan made a number of factual errors concerning prohibitions of
usery. Unfortunately, my copies of Ha Chinuk, the Book of Mitzvot,
the Mishna, etc. are in storage so I will not be able to provide
citations at this time. However, the prohibition of "usery" is actually
found in the OT not the NT. There are a number of permitted loans which
can be made, but these are made by depositing collateral with the lender
who is responsible for returning it in good condition, but who can make a
number of legitimate uses out of it while it is in his keeping. The
legal mechanism is actually one of a conditional sale. Under Jewish law,
a sale takes place when goods are placed in the hands or upon the property
of the buyer and not one monetary compensation is paid. Actually usery
(the lending of money at interest) is permitted to non-Jews. To this day,
Jewish communities provide interest free loans to needy Jews. Regardless,
permitted loans between Jews were and are interest-free. You can enter
into a business partnership where you may have a share in earnings, but that
is a different matter as well. Finally, Torah law provides for a release
of debts every seven years and the return of land holdings every seventy years.
A direct implementation of this rule would result in nobody loaning anyone
anything immediately before the end of a cycle. The Rabbis therfore
introduced a scheme which solved this particular problem. Regardless, this
provision in Torah law is the root for modern personal bankruptcy law.
Further, Lady Morgan appears to be misreading the NT story. Jewish
sacrificial offerings had to be unblemished. Further, certain monetary
transfers (including the head tax) had to be paid with the temple sheckle.
It was very difficult for people to bring animals, etc. with them for
great distances, so the scheme for selling animals suitable for offerings,
exchanging money, etc. was established in Jerusalem. So far so good. The
problem had to do with the merchants cheating their customers. There is
a specific Torah law against cheating people in terms of weights and
measures. Regardless, the "overturning of the tables of the money changers"
has nothing to do with usery, but with this business of selling ritually
pure sacrificial animals, etc.
>This is one reason Jews in period have a bad reputation; because they lack a
>religious bar to moneylending, almost all the financiers and bankers in
>period, and even into fairly modern times, are Jewish.
Actually, Jewish bankers offered lower interest rates and an international
commercial network with letters of credit, etc. to their customers. This
is one of the reasons that princes invited Jews into their lands.
Your Humble Servant
Solveig Throndardottir
Amateur Scholar
+-------------------------------------+-------------------------------------+
| Barbara Nostrand, Ph.D. | Solveig Throndardottir, CoM |
| de Moivre Institute | Carolingia Statis Mentis Est |
| 676 Pullman Road 135 | 23 East Collings Avenue |
| Moscow, Idaho 83843 | Collingswood, New Jersey 08108-8203 |
| mailto:bnostran at lynx.neu.edu | (609) 854-8203 |
+-------------------------------------+-------------------------------------+
Date: Mon, 16 Jun 1997 12:32:06 -0500
From: Tim Weitzel <wcrobert at blue.weeg.uiowa.edu>