commerce-msg - 12/25/09 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 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 To: sca-arts at raven.cc.ukans.edu Subject: Re: Usury Actually, an archaic use of the word usury is interest charged or paid on a loan. The amount of interest was not a spedific concern becasue any interest gained off of a loan was usury. But, it was not just the Jewish bankers who stood to gain profit in the handling of money. Christian bankers also charged interest in the middle ages, but used sanctioned procedural rules to "disguise" it. I don't know if it really was unknown the clergy of the time, but the methods used gave at least a sense of propriety and didn't overtly contradict canon law. For an exaple, take the Bill of Exchange. What the Italian bankers started to do, and what others adopted, was to specify trade on paper in terms of different governments' money systems. A Bill of Exchange would be written for a specified amount of money to buy a particular good, say a bolt of wool cloth, on a given day, say at a fair. At some stated point in the future, payment would be made in a specified amount of a specified governments currency. The banker's prediction that the currency picked would be more valuable at the specified payment time, could speculate on the profit they would make from that cloth. It might appear to be risky, but the seaonal fluctuation of currency was fairly predictble from one government to the next. So in fact the bankers could make profit from loaning money by taking in a greater amount than was loaned. Even better for the banker was the fact that the exhange took place without having to pass money from hand to hand, only a document. See: Spufford, Peter. Money and its use in medieval Europe. Cambridge ; New York : Cambridge University Press, 1988. Pounds, Norman John Greville. An economic history of medieval Europe. London ; New York : Longman, 1974. Lane, Frederic Chapin. Money and banking in medieval and Renaissance Venice. Baltimore : Johns Hopkins University Press, c1985. Tryffin ap Myrddin Shadowdale, Calontir Date: Mon, 16 Jun 1997 21:11:13 +0000 From: "James Pratt" To: sca-arts at raven.cc.ukans.edu Subject: Re: Usury "Marisa Herzog" said: > The Templars also practiced usury. I don't remember how they got around the > laws, but it was one of the things that got them all lynched in the end. Well, have you ever heard the term "carrying charges"? It seems that while the charging of interest was anathema, the charging of monies to facilitate and safeguard its transfer was not. Hence the Lombard bankers, the Fuggers and others of their ilk added stiff "fees" for the oversight and transfer of monies to third parties from both their own funds and those on deposit in their care. Part of the money was retained for costs while the rest went as a bonus to the principal. Cathal. Date: Tue, 17 Jun 1997 09:24:57 -0500 From: epinegar at juno.com To: sca-arts at raven.cc.ukans.edu Subject: Re: Usury On Tue, 17 Jun 1997 08:28:31 -0500 Tim Weitzel writes: >I don't want to be necessarily contrary, but I think the idea of a >check is >post-period. I'm sorry - i wasn't clear. A bill of exchange is a negotiable demand for payment, as is a check. There are examples of these instrments prior to period, actualy, which take the form of modern checks, although I'm sticking my neck out here since my references are in storage (sounds like ":the dog ate my homework, doesn't it? 8)). There are certainly technical differences between checks and bills of exchange, but both entitle the holder in due course to demand payment from the entity on which it is drawn and obligate the drawee to make the payment provided any prerequisite terms and conditions are met Bills of exchange are used today both as freestanding payment mechanisms for commercial transactions or in conjunction with letters of credit. Elina Date: Tue, 17 Jun 1997 10:01:10 -0400 From: Barbara Nostrand To: sca-arts at raven.cc.ukans.edu Subject: Re: Usury Noble Cousins! Lady Elina wrote: >Thanks! This should be required reading for all those people who believe >that "coin of the realm" is THE period way to make payments in the SCA. >The bill of exchange, still used today in international commercial >transactions, is a negotiable demand instrument, same as a check. Checks >were period. Not quite. It is rather more complicated than that. A lot of transactions in period (including taxes) were "in kind". There was only a limitted monetary economy until fairly recently. The Talmud even views money as being a kind of good rather than as a purely abstract entity. The Talmud says that "silver aquires copper and gold aquires silver". That is, what is going on in changing money was a sale of a good (which happened to look like money) for money. Letters of credit and letters of transfer (or exchange) were developed by about the High Middle Ages (if my memory serves me correctly), but you should not presume that these were commonly seen. Personal checques were really only popularized in North America during the late 1950's and 1960's. Prior to that, people used Postal Money Orders or purchased goods C.O.D. Technically, the personal cheque is an I.O.U. instructed to be paid by a specific transfer agent. Prior to the Personal Cheque, people generally used currency (which were generally either demand certificates or some sort of I.O.U.) U.S. Silver Certificates and Gold Certificates were each supposed to be backed by specific pieces of Gold and Silver held by the U.S. Treasury. The Federal Reserve Note was an inflationary partial backing scheme. The United States Note (Green Back) operated solely upon the "Faith and Credit of the United States Government" and the legal requirement that these notes be accepted as payment for debts. Paper money of any type has a long and somewhat uncertain history. The Chinese were problably the first to circulate a paper currency, but they eventually had to resort to perfuming the bills in an attempt to compell people to take them. More recently, Banque notes appear to somewhat predate Government treasury notes. For example, there are two banques in Hong Kong which produce banque notes, two (if I recall correctly) in England and one in Scotland. (A Scotts friend of mine was complaining that the Japanese banques were not exchanging his Scott's Pounds.) Commercial banquing practices involving partial liquidity and clearing times are inherently inflationary and lead to vulnerability of the settlement currency as the banques create virtual money. (This is where a lot of those Eurodollars come from. They are created by banquing activity in Europe independent of any direct U.S. Federal action.) Regardless, currency appears to be the successor for for the letter of exchange while there are still letters of credit. Letters of credit work a bit differently in that they can be drawn upon. Neither were financial instruments in common use and acceptance outside of international trade during most places and most times during period. 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 | +-------------------------------------+-------------------------------------+ Subject: Re: ANST - re: templer inovations Date: Mon, 02 Feb 98 07:11:12 MST From: Baronman at aol.com To: ansteorra at Ansteorra.ORG In a message dated 98-02-01 20:53:38 EST, Wolf writes: >and "checks " (personal promisary notes backed and honored by some >central financial authority ... in europes case, the banks ... in >chinese case, the government) and Sir Cian writes >The chinese may have been first, but it is easier to trace the lineage from >european Orders to european banks. Not the first, just the first (t)here. Since my area of research only encompasses the East and European scopes, I may very well be mistaken about the FIRST to invent checks, but if Wolf is right, it appears that the Chinese were first with checks through a government agency. However- the Templars not only dealt with Monarchs but with individuals too- giving thr traveler the ability to deposit money in a English or French depository maintained by the Temple and withdrawing it by presenting the proper coded writing to the Templar depository - say, in Jerusalem. This was the first time travelers could move freely through troubled areas and not worry about being robbed of ALL their money. This also neccessitated the keeping of large sums of money in these depositories, which is what got the attention of Phillip the Fair of France, who tried to suppress the Templars with trumped up charges of heresy while in cahoots with his puppet Pope, so that he could borrow the money in the French depository. This attempted to liberate money from the Temple ( BTW- money the Temple refused to loan to Phillip, because he was a bad risk) occured on a Friday the thirteenth, and since that day, has been considered unlucky. Just a little side bar-- when Phillip's men finally broke into the Templar's depository, the money was gone. Must have been a leak somewhere- guess things have not changed too much over the years. Baron Bors of Lothian Subject: [SCA-U] Medieval Economics Date: Mon, 27 Dec 1999 11:26:44 -0800 From: Pat Reed To: SCA-UNIVERSITAS at LIST.UVM.EDU You might also look at: The Role of Precious Metals in European Economic Development by S.M.H. Bozorgnia, Contributions in Economics and Economic History, Number 192, Greenwood Press, Westport, Connecticut, 1998. ISBN 0-313-29445-3 It has a great deal of information about trade and industries in relation to economic values. Patricia of Leicester Date: Mon, 31 Jan 2000 10:23:47 -0600 From: "Decker, Terry D." Subject: RE: SC - 16th Century recipes a few questions. . . > >Parmesan cheese is definitely period and was very likely available to the > >Welsers as they were one of the major German banking families in the > >international trade. > > The following is said as a generalization from my readings, not a specfic > source. When looking at German Cooking, remember the Emperiors lived in > the south and in italy. Also one had the Hanse league in the north moving > goods from central europe, northern lands, british isle etc. I would have > to say that if it existed in a large city anywhere in the known world, it > could have been traded for throughout Europe and especially the Germanic > lands. > > Now I will sit back and listen and learn from the experts in these areas > for specifics. > > Frederich Sabina Welser's cookbook was written in Augsburg and is dated 1553 (IIRC). The comments I made were specific to this cook book and not to German cooking in general. As a small historical note, the Hanse was essentially defunct by the 15th Century, although it formally disbanded in the 17th Century (1669). The English and the Dutch were taking over the Baltic and Russian trade. Augsburg is a southern German city and was probably little affected by the Baltic trade. It originated as a Roman garrison and trade town dealing in salt with the Salzkammergut. Later it became a textile manufacturing town. The wealth and connections from the textile trade were used to create an international banking empire. Trade requires that the the people receiving the goods be able to pay for them. As the Fuggers, Hochstetters and Welsers controlled much of Europes mining, manufacture and trade, this is not a particular problem. The Welsers could afford the best goods and since Sabina calls for parmesan cheese in some recipes, I'm fairly certain they had parmesan cheese available. How it was transported there is open to question, since it could have been brought up the Danube, up the Main, or transported overland from Italy. As for the Emperors, Augsburg didn't worry much about them, they bought them. The Emperor at this time was Carlos V (Carlos I of Spain). A financial coalition of the Fuggers, Hochstetters and Welsers put up the money to bribe the electors to put Carlos on the throne. For their part in this, the Welsers received a Venezuela and Colombia as a herditary fief in 1528, after Carlos captured Rome and the Pope. The monopoly was revoked in 1546, a hard blow but not completely destructive. In 1550, the Fuggers missed monopolizing the tin mines in Bohemia and Saxony, started a panic and went bankrupt. This event marked the decline of the Augsburg bankers and the rise of the Dutch and English banking and trade empires fueled by loot from the Indies. Bear Date: Mon, 22 May 2000 22:15:10 -0400 From: grizly at mindspring.com Subject: Re: SC - FW: Spices Used as a Form of Currency? I got it! You'll find many references in _Medieval Trade in the Mediterranean 13...." (dont have title right in fron tof me. There are references to merchants paying port taxes using grains [of paradise], cinnamon, long pepper and a couple other tax spices. I seem to recall the references for Naples in the 14th century showed persian traders coming in and paying with pound of spice. It is an indispensable resource as it lists cargo manifests from and to different locations as well as commentary on some obscure substances. niccolo difrnacesco From: Beary, Karen [mailto:kbeary at usatoday.com] >I've run out of ideas and am hoping someone from the list will be able to >help me out. Is there someone (anyone?) making up the list who may have >run across documentation sources for spices used as currency by Arab >merchants? > >In my research into spices and trade, I've seen evidence (several places) >that Europeans used spices -- peppercorns, for example -- as a form of >currency. But nowhere have I found references to Muslim merchants using >spices as "legal tender." > >The value placed on spices was often greater than that given to gold or >jewels and I know that ancient cities were founded on the wealth of >Muslim spice merchants. Does anyone out there know how to find out if Arab >merchants used spices as a form of currency as well as a tradable >commodity? >Izdihara al Hakima bint durr Date: Mon, 22 May 2000 22:21:08 -0400 From: grizly at mindspring.com Subject: Re: Re: SC - FW: Spices Used as a Form of Currency? Medieval Trade in the Mediterranean World copyright 1955 Columbia University Press New York, NY author last name:Lopez ISBN 0-231-01865-7 Libr of Congr # HF395.M43 1990 I found the listing in my 'card catalog'. niccolo Date: Tue, 23 May 2000 13:14:32 -0500 From: "Decker, Terry D." Subject: RE: SC - Good speculation. The Augsburg bankers were involved with funding the spice industry in the 16th Century. The Fuggers, in particular, were deeply involved in the Portuguese spice trade. I haven't read them but you might try Victor Von Klarwill's Fugger News-Letters (1924), The Fugger News-Letters: Second Series (1972) and Unpublished Letters from the Correspondents of the House of Fugger During the Years 1586-1605 (1977). There are also some collections of Italian trade documents and correspondence which may address the issue. Bear > TOTAL SPECULATION MODE ON: > > I wonder if there exists, anywhere, records of trade in spice > futures/options. We do have records of such ventures being > insured, and > > TOTAL SPECULATION MODE OFF... > > Adamantius Date: Wed, 24 May 2000 13:59:58 -0400 From: "Jeff Gedney" Subject: Re: SC - > TOTAL SPECULATION MODE ON: > > I wonder if there exists, anywhere, records of trade in spice > futures/options. We do have records of such ventures being insured, and > I would not be at all surprised if people were trading stock in > corporations created for such ventures, formally or otherwise. If, say, > Cedric were able to buy "call" options on grains of paradise scheduled > to arrive in Bristol by ship in July, he'd be guaranteed the right to > purchase them from this ship at a previously agreed-upon quantity and > discounted price. Such options were probably transferable. Wouldn't that > amount to almost the same thing as trading in spices as a medium of exchange? Venturing in spices was common. This is how most of the Expeditions of the English East India company were funded. Actually, not just with Spices and hte Eastern India trades, BTW, but also the Muscovy Company, and a lot of the voyages of expedition were funded by "venture capital" A "company" or set of partners would pay to outfit a ship ( representatives of the company would often go on the trip as well, to ensure the captian and crew were not skimming) and they would get a predefined share in the cargo upon return. (this was all "futures trading", since the ship was not even outbound at this point.) Persons in the exchange company would be allowed to speculate on the venture by buying "shares" in the cargo. It was not impossible that one could "opt out" of a shares contract on a single voyage by transferring the shares to Cedric, but what was more common was that the person would "cash out" of the company, selling his shares back to the company. Brandu Date: Wed, 24 May 2000 14:04:50 EDT From: allilyn at juno.com Subject: Re: SC -spice and economics There's an oldie but goodie book, Pirenne, Henri. ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL HISTORY OF MEDIEVAL EUROPE. Harcourt, Brace and Co., New York,. It is old, but probably still reliable, since he is considered the seminal historian of medieval economics. One note for the person doing the Carolingian feast, the spice trade was not available. "The Western peoples who, from the end of the Merovingian era, had left off using spices, welcomed them with growing eagerness. They soon recovered their place in the diet of the upper classes of society, and the more commerce exported them noth of the Alps, the more the demand for them increased." p. 144. The section is on the re-establishment of trade after navigation was re-established between the Tyrrhenian Sea, Africa, and the ports of the Levant during the 11th C. However, in another portion of the book, he discusses coinage vs. barter The establishment of a Fair, under Royal Charter, also granted the freedom to coin money. Money [coins] was used in the market places, references to prices were given in monetary terms in documents, and everything remaining shows clearly the expected giving and recieving of actual money. Which, of course, is not to say it never happened--just wasn't the norm. On the estate, 'in kind' was used rather than coin: day's labor, so many baskets of apples, etc. No reference was given to using spice as money, but it's a small book. Maybe the Arabic resources would have something. Allison, allilyn at juno.com Date: Thu, 25 May 2000 08:23:53 -0500 From: "Decker, Terry D." Subject: RE: SC -spice and economics This point is open to question. In 716, Chilperic II the King of Neustria, abated the taxes on one pound of cinnamon, two pounds of cloves and 30 pounds of pepper for the monastery of Corbie in Normandy. And in 745, the archbishop of Mainz, Wynfrith Boniface, received a gift of pepper from the Roman deacon Gemmulus. There are a number of references which suggest the spice trade did not disappear, but continued through Byzantium into Europe at a slower and more costly pace. Bear > There's an oldie but goodie book, > > Pirenne, Henri. ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL HISTORY OF MEDIEVAL EUROPE. > Harcourt, Brace and Co., New York,. > > One note for the person doing the Carolingian feast, the spice trade was > not available. "The Western peoples who, from the end of the Merovingian > era, had left off using spices, welcomed them with growing eagerness. > They soon recovered their place in the diet of the upper classes of > society, and the more commerce exported them noth of the Alps, the more > the demand for them increased." p. 144. > > Allison, allilyn at juno.com Date: Thu, 25 May 2000 18:28:13 -0400 From: Darice Moore Subject: Re: SC -spice and economics "Decker, Terry D." wrote: >> This point is open to question. In 716, Chilperic II the King of Neustria, >> abated the taxes on one pound of cinnamon, two pounds of cloves and 30 >> pounds of pepper for the monastery of Corbie in Normandy. And in 745, the >> archbishop of Mainz, Wynfrith Boniface, received a gift of pepper from the >> Roman deacon Gemmulus. >> >> There are a number of references which suggest the spice trade did not >> disappear, but continued through Byzantium into Europe at a slower and more >> costly pace. I've been doing quite a bit of research on the Franks (my persona is Frankish) and I recall from one book that throughout the Merovingian era, there was quite a lot of squabbling among the Frankish kings as to who would "get" Provence included in their holdings. Provence was the import/export center, and whoever controlled it received the extensive importation duties on such items as silk, spices, et al. Importation continued, though it may not have been practiced as frequently as before. - - Clotild Date: Mon, 29 May 2000 22:12:29 -0700 From: "David Dendy" Subject: Re: SC - FW: Spices Used as a Form of Currency? Greetings from Francesco I don't call to mind any reference to spices as currency among the Mediterranean or Middle Eastern Arabs (which doesn't mean it doesn't exist -- just that I haven't hit upon it -- but I don't read Arabic). However, in the Islamized area of the medieval Sudan, the vast strip across Africa from the Atlantic nearly to the Indian Ocean, south of the Sahara desert, spices do seem often to have been used as a means of exchange (in that area they did not use coined money, but there were certain goods, such as cowrie shells, which were accepted as payments at fairly standardized values in a way which rather set them above normal barter). Ibn Battuta, the famous Muslim world-traveler of the 14th century (the Arab world's answer to Marco Polo), found when he travelled in this area of black Africa that spices were what he should carry to make purchases. On a trip eastward from Timbuktu, for example, he says: "Every night we stayed in a village and bought what we were in need of in the way of wheat and butter for salt, spices and glass trinkets." [quoted in Ross E. Dunn, *The Adventures of Ibn Battuta* (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986), pp. 304-305. There are more similar examples in the complete memoirs of Ibn Battuta, but I have only this selection at hand] Such a custom of payment continued for centuries in sub-Saharan Africa, and will be found in the accounts of nineteenth century travelers. For example, Gustave Nachtigal, a German who in 1869-74 was one of the first Europeans to cross the African continent, found that from Bornu eastwards through to the Nile spices of one sort or another were used for payments. For example: "Strips of cotton cloth were the usual medium of exchange, along with *kohol*, *kimba* pepper, glass beads and the like" [Gustav Nachtigal, *Sahara and Sudan, Volume 4: Wadai and Darfur*, trans. by Allan G. B. Fisher and Humphrey J. Fisher (London: C. Hurst and Co., 1971), p. 26] "In Bornu . . . the favourite mediums of exchange were *kimba* pepper, cowrie shells and *kohol* . . ." [vol. 4, p. 31] " As mediums of exchange in the Fitri region paper, red Sudan pepper, *kimba*, salt, cowrie shells and beads are much in demand, but onions and garlic are also used." [vol. 4, p. 37] Kimba pepper is *Xylopia aethiopica*. It is a pod off a tree which grows only in Africa south of the Sahara. The taste is like a very pungent black pepper, even a little numbing on the taste buds. I've managed to get hold of a supply, and will soon have it in the web-catalogue, once I've calculated a price. Red Sudan pepper is the hot African variety of capsicum pepper (African bird pepper). David Dendy / ddendy at silk.net Date: Tue, 20 Jun 2000 18:55:06 -0500 From: david friedman Subject: RE: SC - Columbus' chilies At 1:11 PM -0500 6/20/00, Decker, Terry D. wrote: > > Could be--but you don't need conquest for trade. Gold was coming up > > long before that. > > > > David Friedman > >Do you have any dates on the trade? A lot of things came from the >Trans-Sahara in Antiquity, when the Sahara was still a grassland and travel >was relatively easy. After it turned to desert, the trade route between >Mali and the Mediterranean became one of the deadliest in the world and it >was essentially abandoned. IIRC, it became a major slave trading route only >in the 17th and 18th Centuries as the supply of slaves from Europe was cut >off. E. W. Bovill, _The Golden Trade of the Moors_, provides a pretty extensive history of trade between the Maghreb and subsaharan Africa. He quotes Ibn Haukal in the 10th century as describing Sijilmasa, in an Oasis just south of the Atlas mountains, and connecting it to the gold trade. He does say that the way to the mines is "dangerous and troublesome." The author comments that "Early writers are unanimous in attributing the city's wealth to the gold trade with Ghana, ... ." He also describes salt as coming from Taghaza, twenty days' march south towards Ghana. The author writes: "The gold trade with Ghana was probably well established before the coming of the Arabas. ... Some time between A.D. 734 and 750 ... they sent an expedition down the Sijilmasa-Taghaza road to attack Ghana. ... it reached the Sudan and obtained a lot of gold, but it failed in its purpose." He mentions that Masudi, tenth century, describes the "silent trade" in gold in the Sudan. The general impression I get from him is that cross Saharan trade, mostly under Tuareg control, continued pretty much from Roman times on. David/Cariadoc http://www.daviddfriedman.com/ Date: Fri, 27 Oct 2000 09:22:36 -0400 (EDT) From: Jenne Heise Subject: Re: Meats/spices in MA (was Re: SC - I am So Ashamed! (long)) > > Well, I don't thein the tax spices were so much in special regard as of a > > set, constant value, like salt. It's posisble that the use of peppercorns, > > in particular, in rents meant that people of lower means had access to > > that spice. > You lost me on the 'rents' thing; don't know where that came in. Using > spices as tax payment and tribute suggest that they were a combination > of valued, expensive, rare and desired by nobility. All of these suggest > it could be intentionally limited for low classed peasant types. Do you > have positive reference to purchase or use by working class farmer > types? I don't say it never happened, but my readings suggest very > limited access to 'luxury spices' by any save nobility and later (post > 1300) merchant classes in Italian regions, France and England. Cannot > speak for Germany et al. That would be for the appropriate scholars to > comment. Lots of viable replacements spices and herbs were readily > available, as in the aforementioned ubiquitous mustard. There are certainly references to peppercorn rents. Remember that the terms 'taxes' and 'rents' are messy. However, C. Ann Wilson says, "But pepper had become common again" by the 11th c. "and was cheap enough to be within reach of the small manorial landlord". She also mentions late period peppercorn rents. The price given for later period: "Dame Alice de Bryene in 1419 paid two shillings and a penny per pound for pepper in london, but only one and eleven a pound when it was bought at Stourbridge fair" and a pound of pepper goes quite a way. By contrast, mustard was sold for "less than a farthing a pound for the household of Dame Alice de Bryene". One thing I find interesting in this discussion is that the idea of the prosperous peasant seems to be being ignored. Over and over again, the economic history texts mention the idea that, depending on the laws, peasants worked hard to have enough grain, etc. to sell after paying their rent, taxes or tithe. Such might not have a lot of spending cash, but the assumption that the Grocer's guilds and the itinerant chapment catered only to merchants and the aristocracy seems to be an illogical leap. - -- Jadwiga Zajaczkowa, mka Jennifer Heise jenne at tulgey.browser.net Date: Fri, 27 Oct 2000 18:51:39 -0400 (EDT) From: Jenne Heise Subject: Re: SC - Re: Meats/spices in MA > I think we have a time as well as money division between our opinions. My > basic viewpoint is very early period, when there was much less of the > in-between class. I agree that the later we go, the more people had spice, > that is common knowlege. But we can't say that that medieval peasants had > spices without making clearer WHEN and WHICH of them had spices. C. Ann Wilson points out that in Britain between the 5th and 11th centuries, spices in general were a rare commodity. (I'm summing up the entirety of pg 279 and 280 which I'm too lazy to copy here.) Now, about the state of spice selling in Late medieval England, without reference to peasants... "Outside London spices could be obtained periodically at the great regional fairs; and the commoner and cheaper ones, such as pepper and ginger, were sold by itinerant chapmen. Prices at the fairs were sometimes keener than those of London. Dame Alice de Bryene in 1419 paid two shillings an a penny per pound for pepper in London, but only one and eleven a pound when it was bought at Stourbridge Fair. But London could supply the rarer, more exotic varieties, and moreover they were available there throughout the year. So when a member of a household had to go to London on business, he was often commissioned to send or bring back several different spices. The Grocer's Company encouraged this state of affairs, and for a time in the fifteenth century even tried to ban its members from selling spices at the fairs, lest trade should thus be diverted from London. In country towns the shopkeepers, who acted as agents for members of the Company, charged prices even higher than the London ones. A few Landowners had another source of spices in rents, which were occasionally paid in agreed weights of pepper. A peppercorn rent was, of course, insignificant in this context, but a fixed rent of a larger quantity could supply a household for most of the year. The two priests living at Munden's Changry in Bridport in the mid-fifteenth century recieved half a pound of pepper among their rents." p 283. -- Jadwiga Zajaczkowa, mka Jennifer Heise jenne at tulgey.browser.net From: Mark Mettler [mailto:mettler at bulloch.net] Sent: Friday, November 03, 2000 4:51 AM To: sca_moneyer at egroups.com Subject: [sca_moneyer] Spur Money And the trivia question of the day is: What is 'spur money'? Clue 1: 17th Century From _Dictionary of Phrase and Fable_ (1898), by E. Cobham Brewer: Spur Money: Money given to redeem a pair of spurs. Gifford says, in the time of Ben Jonson, in consequence of the interruptions to divine service occasioned by the ringing of the spurs worn, a small fine was imposed on those who entered church in spurs. The enforcement of this fine was committed to the beadles and chorister-boys. If I recall, that is also where we get the phrase "to dog one's heels" - the chorister boys would "dog the heels" of the spur-wearers until the spur money was paid. Malachias Date: Fri, 12 Dec 2003 16:03:27 -0500 (EST) From: Subject: [Sca-cooks] an article about food & market To: Just came across this: F. J. Fisher, "The Development of the London Food Market, 1540-1640," in E.M. Carus-Wilson, ed., Essays in Economic History, I (London, 1954), p. 135-151. Charts of how much was imported, market gardening info, etc. -- Pani Jadwiga Zajaczkowa, Knowledge Pika jenne at fiedlerfamily.net Date: Mon, 16 Feb 2004 15:45:31 -0600 From: "Terry Decker" Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Partly OP: Brown vs. white rice? To: "Cooks within the SCA" One might try the London Public Records Office (as the gentleman who wrote this http://www.economics.utoronto.ca/munro5/SPICES1.htm did) or possibly even try the Royal London Archives. Shipping manifests (other than those in the Archives of the Indies in Seville) might be a little hard to find. Port records, on the otherhand, especially those in England, should be fairly plentiful. There are also some excellent sources in various economic history papers, but most of those aren't webbed and have to be located and ordered from academic publishers. Johnna might prove more useful than I in finding such sources. Bear Date: Tue, 17 Feb 2004 09:05:52 -0500 (EST) From: Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] shipping manifests and port records To: Cooks within the SCA > A shipping manifest is the record of what items were shipped on one > voyage of a ship, correct? How detailed are these? Do they actually > detail what was shipped? Or just a general description or maybe only > the shipper and the amount of cargo shipped? Usually they are very detailed, in order to prove that the same stuff came off the ship at the end of the journey as at the beginning. > What do you mean by port records? And how do these differ from a > shipping manifest? How far back do such records exist? I'm not sure how far back records exist, but port records would indicate how much of what came in on cargoes-- they were used to track tarriffs. So they would be detailed, but government records. -- Pani Jadwiga Zajaczkowa, Knowledge Pika jenne at fiedlerfamily.net Newsgroups: rec.org.sca Subject: Re: Coins and their Commonality? From: skrossa-unn at nonsense.MedievalScotland.org (Sharon L. Krossa "No Nonsense") Organization: MedievalScotland.org Date: Wed, 21 Apr 2004 00:19:49 GMT jk wrote: > skrossa-unn at nonsense.MedievalScotland.org (Sharon L. Krossa "No > Nonsense") wrote: > >Yes, medieval and early modern people did. They lent plate, they lent > >spoons, they lent belt buckles, they lent rings, etc. I think in > >Aberdeen they may even have lent barrels of salmon... > > So they could have barrels of salmon during Lent? No, as a valuable commodity that was in effect as good as currency, not to eat. Someone asked me in private email for more information, and I'll repeat here what I replied to him: I based the comment not on any specific recollection of a case of salmon being lent but rather on the general observation by myself and, or more relevance, other historians such as Gemmill, Elizabeth, and Nicholas Mayhew. _Changing Values in Medieval Scotland: A Study of Prices, Money, and Weights and Measures_. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0521473853/medievalscotland http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0521473853/medievalscotla02 that salmon appears to have sometimes been used almost like an alternate form of currency. Or, rather, they were a thing of significant value used like other things of value, such as items made of precious metal, jewelry, etc. That is, they were given in wed (pledge/security for future payment), they were used to pay off debts, etc. And so, like other things of value used in these ways, they may even have been lent. (Thus my "I think ... may even ..." really did mean "I think" and "may" ;-) In fact, reading through Gemmill & Mayhew, they actually write (and footnote with town record entries from Aberdeen and elsewhere): -----begin quote p. 306----- From the 1420s salmon assumes an importance in the record of the commercial life of Aberdeen which it would be difficult to overestimate. Unfailing demand for this fish in thte markets of northern Europe made salmon as acceptable as ready money in trading and financial circles in the north-east. -----end quote---- and -----begin quote p. 308----- In just the same way, demand for salmon was such that ready sales on profitable terms could confidently be predicted. So long as this was so, salmon became so creditworthy as to be as good as money itself. Our price series contains plentiful records of money owing for salmon, and salmon owing for money, while in settlement of debts it seems to be almost a matter of indifference whether final payment be made in coin or fish or both. -----end quote----- and (even more clearly) -----begin quote p. 309----- Whether cash or salmon were originally advanced lenders might often secure their loans demanding pledges of land, rents, or fishing tackle as a guarantee of repayment. -----end quote----- So looks like I can amend my statement to: In Aberdeen they even lent salmon :-) Affrick -- Sharon L. Krossa "No Nonsense" skrossa-unn at nonsense.MedievalScotland.org Medieval Scotland: http://www.MedievalScotland.org/ Date: Sat, 6 May 2006 22:58:58 -0500 From: "Terry Decker" Subject: [Sca-cooks] 14th Century Food Imports To: "Cooks within the SCA" In the early 14th Century, the following items were being bought and sold in the markets of Constantinople. The containers were usually considered tare to be subtracted from the gross weight of the sale. Bear By the cantar (150 Genoese pounds) - suet in jars broken almonds in bags honey in kegs or skins rice by the bag Dried figs of Majorca and Spain in hampers Cummin in bag Pistachios in bag Saltmeat cheese chestnuts By the hunderdweight (100 Genoese pounds) - round pepper ginger sugar powdered sugar cinnamon mastic By the pound - saffron clove stalks and cloves cubebs rhubarb mace long pepper galangal nutmegs spike (spikenard?) cardamoms By other measures - dates filberts walnuts salted sturgeon tails salt oil of Venice oil of the March oil of Apulia oil of Gaeta, etc wheat barley wine of Greece wine of Turpia in Calabria wine of Patti in Sicily wine of Patti in Apulia wine of Cutrone in Calabria wine of the March wine of Crete wine of Romania country wine Date: Mon, 8 May 2006 14:37:15 -0500 From: "Terry Decker" Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] 14th Century Food Imports To: "Cooks within the SCA" La practica della mercatura by Francesco Balducci Pegolotti in the first half of the 14th Century. A partial text is available at http://depts.washington.edu/uwch/silkroad/texts/pegol.html . A full version of the manuscript text was published in 1936 under the titel La practica dell mercatura edited by Allen Evans. Pegolotti was a factor for the Florentine merchants Bardi. While he does give instructions for a trip to Cathay, it is by the Steppes route to Beijing rather than on the main silk road and it actually for the reign of Kublia Khan rather than Kublia's successors, if I have all of the facts right. The goods mentioned are for everything entering the region of Constantinople from all sources and not just that from the China trade. Bear > Source(s)??? > > Terry Decker wrote: > In the early 14th Century, the following items were being bought and sold in > the markets of Constantinople. The containers were usually considered tare > to be subtracted from the gross weight of the sale. Bear > > SNIP Date: Mon, 26 Jun 2006 09:08:32 -0400 From: rmhowe Subject: [SCA-AS] Enameling with Goldstone [glass] To: - EKMetalsmiths , - Dunstan , - SCA-ARTS , - Metallum_Lochac BTW: About post period silver standards - something I picked up earlier this year: Badcock, William; John Reynolds and William O'Sullivan: A New Touch-Stone for Gold and Silver Wares [and] A Brief and Easie Way By Tables to Cast Up Silver to the Standard of XI Ounces ij Penyweight and Gold to the Standard of XXII Carracts; William Badcock, John Reynolds and William O'Sullivan (introduction) Hard Cover, First Edition, 8vo - over 7¾" - 9¾" tall; Praeger Publishers, NY, 1971; x, [20], 218 pages followed by about 120 pages of tables. DESCRIPTION: This is a photolithographic facsimile of the Second Edition published in London in 1679. The first section of this book is a compendium of useful information written primarily to advise persons engaged in buying and selling gold and silver wares. It includes excerpts from early statutes regulating manufacture and sale of metallic wares, a description of the method of testing these wares with a touchstone, sketches of symbols used in the assay office, and an account of the legal redresses of persons who found gold and silver wares deficient. The second section offers tables that show how gold and silver could be brought up to the standard of purity then current by adding and subtracting alloy. $30.50 1/2006 Magnus Date: Wed, 20 Sep 2006 13:51:03 -0500 From: "Terry Decker" Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] 100 Mile Feasts To: "Cooks within the SCA" > Either of these could help with giving a more period feel to events by > helping the local resources use to more closely mirror the historic local > resources. I do realize that to some degree a 100 mile radius could be > historically extravagant and that 10 miles might more closely represent a > radius for an average historic market day. And I could be off on the > historic radius as I haven't researched it. I am just thinking about > descriptions of people walking/riding in with a cart/wagon of produce, > participating in the market and going back home that day or the next. > > What other kind of events or projects do you think would be fun to > do with this concept? > > Sharon Ten miles is about the average days journey for an ox cart. A trip to market would likely be no more than a couple of miles because you want the food to arrive in reasonable time to sell it and return home. Distances and times will vary depending on how perishable the food is and where the best market is. In England, bakers liked to purchase foreign wheat imported from regions that used a larger bushel than the Winchester bushel. This allowed them to squeeze out a little extra flour, which meant extra income under the Assize of Bread. Salt cod travelled hundreds of miles to market, as did oil, olives, sugar and spices. Cattle, sheep, goats and pigs were herded long distances to slaughterhouses all over Europe. If you want to get a feel for the complexities of European trade and the distances involved, I would suggest reading the works of Fernand Braudel. Even the manor system, which comes closest to the 100 mile radius idea, had a large number long distance transactions. Bear Date: Tue, 19 Feb 2008 12:00:25 -0800 From: Lilinah Subject: Re: [Sca-cooks] Book opinion request To: sca-cooks at ansteorra.org Lucrezia wrote: > Has anyone seen this book: > > The Spice Route: A History, by John Keay. Berkeley: University of > California Press, 2006, [first published by John Murray Ltd., London] It's not a history of spices per se or of exotic land cultures. It's about the spice route, which in reality was primarily by sea, and the development of navigation and exploration, economic and political competition, etc. It includes 32 color illustrations and three modern maps. And it is footnoted and has an excellent and extensive bibliography of both primary and secondary resources. As one blurb on the jacket says: "With the aid of ancient geographies, travelers' accounts, mariners' handbooks, ships' logs, and other treatises, Keay reconstructs the shifting spice routes." I picked it up recently and enjoyed it immensely. -- Urtatim (that's err-tah-TEEM) the persona formerly known as Anahita From: "Anthony N. Emmel" Date: March 29, 2008 12:38:34 PM CDT To: ansteorra at lists.ansteorra.org Subject: [Ansteorra] Amphorae From: Stefan li Rous <<< But it is a good point that amphora were used some past Classical times for transporting wine. That site seems to give 6th century as the latest, and even then only in the eastern Mediterranean. Not sure why the use of amphora seems to have dropped off in the beginning of medieval times, unless it has to do with the general demise of civilization and trade. >>> Ward-Perkins in his book The Fall of Rome and the End of Civilization uses the evidence in arachaelogical digs of pottery, inclusding amphorae, as a clue to the breakdown in trade and production after the fall of Rome. Intersting study. http://www.amazon.com/Fall-Rome-End-Civilization/dp/0192807285/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1206812096&sr=1-1 Bernhard von Bruck Rosenfeld Anthony N. Emmel Scholar & Catholic Gentleman Edited by Mark S. Harris commerce-msg Page 26 of 26