Edward Miller

The Organization of Trade

A General Picture From the point of view of business organization, the Middle Ages present no uniform picture either in time or in space. During the so-called Dark Ages, the manorial economy was dominant and most landed estates were relatively self-sufficient. Exchange, at any rate, was reduced to a minimum, and trade, while it did not disappear altogether, fell to a low ebb. What little survived was carried on by groups of travelling merchants who catered for the rich by selling them luxuries or who exploited the poor by charging high prices for necessities in times of famine or distress. A real revival did not occur until the eleventh century with the cessation of the Norman invasions and the decline of feudal anarchy. In Italy urban life regained vigour; in Flanders it sprang up anew. From these two centres, the movement spread and gained momentum. The Crusades gave it further impetus. Latin merchant colonies were established all over the Levant. Soon the Venetians, the Genoese and the Pisans controlled the foreign trade of the Byzantine Empire. Methods of business organization made steady progress, but the merchants continued to be peregrinators, moving constantly about in unending pursuit of profit. They and their servants still accompanied their goods either by land or by sea. In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, the travelling trade of western Europe gravitated to the fairs of Champagne, and their rhythm regulated the coming and going of the merchant caravans from Italy, Flanders, Germany and all corners of France.

Markets and Fairs

Early Fairs and Markets It is no longer possible nowadays to take the view that the Germanic invasions put an end to the commercial life which still characterized the last centuries of the Roman Empire. The new states which arose on all sides upon the ruins of Romania were still the scene of relatively intensive trading operations. Foreigners as well as natives took part in this economic activity. Among the former the Syrians especially attract attention. They were already to be found everywhere during the Imperial period: from Egypt to the Danube, from Spain to England. M. P. Charlesworth, among others, has fully demonstrated this point. In the fifth century Salvianus speaks of the negociatorum et Syricorum omnium turbas quae majorem ferme civitatum universarum partem occupant . These ‘Syrians’ are, however, at least in part, Greeks, and in their ranks should no doubt be included those Greek merchants of Orleans mentioned by Gregory of Tours who received a visiting Merovingian sovereign to their town with songs. In the Midi towns especially the population was a cosmopolitan one. At Narbonne, in 589, it comprised Goths, Romans, Jews, Greeks and Syrians; certainly these three last groups lived primarily by trade. The Jews, who were numerous throughout Gaul and in Spain, were frequently forbidden to possess and to traffic in Christian slaves, a fact which is proof that they did play an important role in this trade. Port organization continued to follow the Roman pattern, witness the catabolus or cataplus of Marseilles found in Gregory of Tours and in a document of Clovis III dated 692. Further evidence is to be found in the thelonearii who welcomed to Visigothic Spain the transmarini negociatores