Power and Profit: The Merchant in Medieval Europe - Hardcover

Spufford, Peter

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0500251185 ISBN 13: 9780500251188

Publisher: Thames & Hudson, 2003

Synopsis

European historian Spufford has written widely about money in the Middle Ages, and here describes the enormous expansion in European trade at local, regional, national, international, and even intercontinental scales during the 13th century, sparked by increases in population and money supply. Courts and consumers, helps and hindrances, manufactured goods, foodstuffs, slaves, and trade imbalances are among his topics. Annotation (c) Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

About this title

About the Author:

Peter Spufford was until 2001 Professor of European History, University of Cambridge, and is the author of definitive studies of money in the Middle Ages.

From The New Yorker:

This accessible study charts the so-called "commercial revolution" of the thirteenth century, a period of rapid expansion which created much of the economic landscape we know today: holding companies, corporate shares, insurance, personal checks, and double-entry bookkeeping. Concentrations of wealth in aristocratic courts and capital cities stimulated a spectacular trade in luxury goods, and Spufford traverses Europe along the ancient trade routes by which Asian spices and Venetian glass, furs from Russia and falcons from Iceland, wines from Bordeaux and tapestries from the Netherlands were distributed. Appropriately, the book itself is opulently produced, illustrated with details from the backgrounds of altarpieces and the margins of illuminated manuscripts, depicting bankers, goldsmiths, tailors, dyers, farmers, or chandlers. Visually as well as verbally, Spufford conveys the irrepressible energy of medieval trade.
Copyright © 2005 The New Yorker

About this edition

• Publisher: Thames & Hudson
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 0500251185
• ISBN 13: 9780500251188
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 432