Great Wave

by Fischer, David Hackett;

  For England in the fifteenth century, see F. R. H. Du Boulay, An Age of Ambition: English Society in the Late Middle Ages (New York, 1970); R. M. Hilton, The Economic Development of Some Leicestershire Estates in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries (London, 1947); J. A. Raftis, the Estates of Ramsay Abbey (Toronto, 1957); J. W. F. Hill, Medieval Lincoln (Cambridge, 1948); idem, Tudor and Stuart Lincoln (Cambridge, 1956); A. L. Rowse, Tudor Cornwall (London, 1941).

  In Scandinavia, a great classic of local history is A. Holmsen, Eidsvoll Bygds Historie (2 vols., Oslo, 1950–61).

  On the low countries, see H. van der Wee, The Growth of the Antwerp Market and the European Economy, Fourteenth-Sixteenth Centuries (3 vols., Louvain, 1963).

  For the rise of the Ottoman Empire, see Franz Babinger, Mehmed the Conqueror and His Time (Princeton, 1978), 431; a lively survey in English is Patrick Balfour, Baron Kinross, The Ottoman Centuries: The Rise and Fall of the Turkish Empire (New York, 1977).

  Biographical approaches to economic history in this period include Frederic C. Lane, Andrea Barbarigo, Merchant of Venice, 1418–1449 (Baltimore, 1944); Iris Origo, The Merchant of Prato: Francesco di Marco Datini, 1335–1410 (London, 1957); Gene Brucker, ed., Two Memoirs of Renaissance Florence: the Diaries of Buonaccorso Pitti and Gregorio Dati (New York, 1967); Florence de Roover, “Andrea Banchi, Florentine Silk Manufacturer and Merchant in the Fifteenth Century,” Studies in Medieval and Renaissance History 3 (1966) 223–85; Henri Lapeyre, Une famille de marchands: Les Ruiz (Paris, 1955); Gotz Freiherr von Pölnitz, Die Fugger (Frankfurt am Main, 1960).

  On price movements, in addition to general works listed above by Elsas for Germany, Pribram for Austria, Verlinden for Belgium, and Beveridge and Rogers for Britain, there is also a monographic literature specific to this period. For Britain it includes D. L. Farmer, “Prices and Wages, 1350–1500” in Edward Miller, ed., The Agrarian History of England and Wales, vol. 3, 1348–1500 (Cambridge, 1988), 431–525.

  For France, there are “La prix du froment à Rouen au XVe siècle,” Annales E.S.C. 23 (1968) 1262–82; J. Meuvret, “Les prix des grains à Paris au XVe siècle et les origines de la mercuriale,” Paris et Ile-de-France 2 (1960) 283–311; M. Baulant, “Le prix des grains à Paris de 1431 à 1788,” Annales E.S.C. 23 (1968) 520–40; Guy Bois, “Compatabilité et histoire des prix: Le prix de froment à Rouen au XVe siècle,” Annales E.S.C. 23 (1968) 1262–68.

  For Belgium, there is G. Sivéry, “Les profits agricoles au bas Moyen Age,” Annales E.S.C. 31 (1976) 626.

  The classic work on Spanish prices in this period is Earl J. Hamilton, Money, Prices, and Wages in Valencia, Aragon, and Navarre, 1351–1500 (Cambridge, Mass., 1936). Also helpful is Boaz Shoshan, “Money Supply and Grain Prices in Fifteenth-Century Egypt,” Economic History Review” 36 (1983) 47–67.

  On wages, in addition to works of Abel, Beveridge, d’Avenel, Elsas, Farmer, Phelps-Brown, Pribram, and Scholliers cited above, see E. Perroy, “Wage Labour in France in the Later Middle Ages,” Economic History Review 2d ser. 8 (1955) 232–39; R. H. Hilton, The Decline of Serfdom in Medieval England (London, 1969).

  On the fall of rent, there is C. A. Christensen, “Krisen pa Slesvig Domkapitels jordegods,” Historisk Tidsskrift 11th ser. 6 (1960) 161–244.

  Money and interest in the fifteenth century is the subject of John Day, “The Great Bullion Famine of the Fifteenth Century,” Past & Present 29 (1978) 3–54; see also N. J. Mayhew, “Numismatic Evidence and Falling Prices in the Fourteenth Century,” Economic History Review 2d ser. 27 (1974) 1–15; H. A. Miskimin, “Monetary Movements and Market Structure—Forces for Contraction in Fourteenth- and Fifteenth-Century England,” Journal of Economic History 24 (1964) 470–490; J. Schreiner, Pest og Prisfall i Senmiddelalderen (Oslo, 1948); H. van Werveke, “Essor et déclin de la Flandre,” in Studi in onore di Gino Luzzato (Milan, 1950); Harry A. Miskimin, Money and Power in Fifteenth-Century France (New Haven, 1984); idem, Money, Prices, and Foreign Exchange in Fourteenth-Century France (New Haven, 1963); A. Mackay, Money, Prices, and Politics in Fifteenth-Century Castile (London, 1981); P. Spufford, Monetary Problems and Policies in the Burgundian Netherlands, 1433–1496 (Leiden, 1970); John H. A. Munro, Wool, Cloth, and Gold: The Struggle for Bullion in the Anglo-Burgundian Trade, 1340–1478 (Brussels and Toronto, 1972); J. Richards, ed., Precious Metals in the Later Medieval and Early Modern Worlds (Durham, 1983); Raymond de Roover, The Bruges Money Market around 1400 (Brussels, 1968); and F. C. Lane and R. C. Mueller, Money and Banking in Medieval and Renaissance Venice (Baltimore, 1985), with a good bibliography of the vast literature on monetary history in this period.

  Banking is the subject of Raymond de Roover, The Medici Bank: Its Organization, Management, Operations, and Decline (New York, 1948); and idem, The Rise and Decline of the Medici Bank (Cambridge, 1963); and on northern Europe, Richard Ehrenberg, Capital and Finance in the Age of the Renaissance (New York, n.d.).

  For political economy and fiscal movements, see Josef Rosen, “Prices and Public Finance in Basel, 1360–1535,” Economic History Review, 2d ser. 25 (1972) 1–17; Anthony Molho, Florentine Public Finances in the Early Renaissance (Cambridge, 1971); political structure is the subject of Nicolai Rubenstein, the Government of Florence under the Medici, 1434–1494 (Oxford, 1966).

  On social structure, see Samuel Cohn, The Laboring Classes of Renaissance Florence (New York, 1980); E. Powell, The Rising in East Anglia in 1381 (Cambridge, 1896); M. M. Postan, Medieval Economy and Society, 173; T. W. Page, The End of Villeinage in England (New York, 1900); R. H. Hilton, The English Peasantry in the Later Middle Ages (Oxford, 1975); C. C. Dyer, “A Redistribution of Incomes in Fifteenth Century England,” Past & Present 39 (1968) 11–33; G. A. Holmes, The Estates of the Higher Nobility in Fourteenth-Century England (Cambridge, 1957); Brian Pullan, Rich and Poor in Renaissance Venice: The Social Institutions of a Catholic State, to 1620 (Oxford, 1971).

  On cultural trends during the Renaissance, see Ernst Cassirer, Paul Oscar Kristeller, and John Herman Randall Jr., The Renaissance Philosophy of Man (Chicago, 1948), 225; and Hans Baron, The Crisis of Early Italian Renaissance (2d ed., Princeton, 1966) Many scholars before Baron had anticipated this interpretation; one of the first was William Shepherd, The Life of Poggio Bracciolini (Liverpool, 1837), 458–461.

  On the relationship between economic and cultural history in the Renaissance there are two books by Richard A. Goldthwaite: Private Wealth in Renaissance Florence: A Study of Four Families (Princeton, 1968) and The Building of Renaissance Florence: An Economic and Social History (Baltimore, 1980).

  The Price Revolution of the Sixteenth Century

  The idea of a price revolution in the sixteenth century was developed by German historians in the late nineteenth century. The pioneering works are Georg Wiebe, Zur Geschichte der Preisrevolution des XVI. und XVII. Jahrhunderts (Leipzig, 1895) and Julius Moritz Bonn, Spaniens Niedergang während der Preisrevolution des 16. Jahrhunderts (Stuttgart, 1896). This idea has spawned a very large literature, in which one finds the same array of interpretations as in other great waves: monetarist, market-centered, Malthusian, Marxist, climatological, ecological.

  For many years the conventional wisdom was predominantly monetarist, as a consequence of work by American price historian Earl Hamilton. His major studies were American Treasure and the Price Revolution in Spain, 1501–1650 (Cambridge, Mass., 1934) and Money, Prices, and Wages in Valencia, Aragon, and Navarre, 1651–1800 (Cambridge, Mass., 1947). A respectful critique appears in Fernand Braudel, “En relisant Earl J. Hamilton: De l’histoire d’Espagne à l’histoire des prix,” Annales E.S.C. 6 (1951) 202–06.

  Fernand Braudel himself used a monetarist model in The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II 2 vol. (1946, tr. Reynolds Sian, London, 1972–3; Berkeley, 1995). He revised this interpretation in favor of a more market-centered approach in F. P. Braudel and F. Spooner, “Prices in Europe from 1450 to 1750,” The Cambridge Economic History of Europe (Cambridge, 1967), 4
:378–486.

  A major study that qualifies the Hamilton thesis in important ways is Michel Morineau, Incroyables gazettes et fabuleux métaux; Les retours des trésors américains d’après les gazettes hollandaises (XVIe-XVIIe siècles) (Paris, New York, and London, 1985); idem, “Des métaux précieux américains et de leur influence au XVIIe et XVIIIe siècle,” Bulletin de la Société d’Histoire Moderne et Contemporaine 15 (1977) 2–95; idem, “Histoire sans frontières: prix régionaux, prix nationaux, prix internationaux,” Annales E.S.C. 24 (1969) 403–21; and other essays listed in the excellent bibliography to Incroyables gazettes.

  Other historians in the mid-twentieth century preferred a Malthusian explanation, in which the growth of population was thought to have driven the revolution in prices. Two useful collections of articles on this debate are Peter Burke, ed., Economy and Society in Early Modern Europe: Essays from Annales (New York, 1972) and Peter Ramsay, ed., The Price Revolution in Sixteenth-Century England (London, 1971). Critiques of the literature include D. O. Flynn, “The ‘Population Thesis’ View of Inflation versus Economics and History,” in Eddy van Cauwenberghe and Franz Irsigler, eds., Münzprägung, Geldumlauf und Wechselkurse (Budapest, 1982) 362–82; and idem, “Use and Misuse of the Quantity Theory of Money in Early Modern Historiography,” ibid., 382–418. Also helpful is H. A. Miskimin, “Population Growth and the Price Revolution in England,” Journal of European Economic History 4 (1975) 179–86.

  Marxist models include Robert Brenner, “Agrarian Class Structure and Economic Development in Pre-Industrial Europe,” Past & Present 70 (1976) 30–75; and Trevor Aston and C. H. E. Philpin, eds., The Brenner Debate: Agrarian Class Structure and Economic Development in Pre-Industrial Europe (New York, 1985). A sociological model with a strong Marxist interpretation appears in Immanuel Wallerstein, The Modern World-System: Capitalist Agriculture and the Origins of the European World Economy in the Sixteenth-Century (New York, 1974).

  Other useful works from various perspectives include Alexandre Chabert, “Encore la révolution des prix au XVIe siècle,” Annales E.S.C. 12 (1957); A. V. Judges, “A Note on Prices in Shakespeare’s Time,” A Companion to Shakespeare Studies (Cambridge, 1934); Walter Achilles, “Getreidepreise und Getreidehandelsbeziehungen europâischer Raüme im 16. und 17. Jahrhundert,” Zeitschrift für Agrargeschichte und Agrarsoziologie 7 (1959) 32–55.

  Few major processes in modern history have been better documented than the price revolution of the sixteenth century. Even so, there are inevitably a few academic unbelievers. Various expressions of skepticism appear in M. Morineau, “D’Amsterdam À Seville: De quelle realité l’histoire des prix est-il le miroir?” Annales E.S.C. 23 (1968) 178–205; Carlo Cipolla, “La prétendu ‘révolution des prix’: réflexions sur l’ expérience italienne,” Annales E.S.C. 10 (1955) 212–16; an expanded English version appears in Burke, ed., Economy and Society in Early Modern Europe, 43–54.

  Many studies of sixteenth-century price movements have been made of national economies. For Spain, they include in addition to the work of Hamilton cited above, J. Nadal Oller, “La revolución de los precios españoles en el siglo XVI: Estado actual de la cuestión,” Hispania 19 (1959) 503–29; J. H. Elliott, Imperial Spain, 1469–1716 (New York, 1966); idem, The Old World and the New, 1492–1650 (Cambridge, 1970); idem, “The Decline of Spain,” Past & Present 20 (1961) 52–75; Jaime Vives Vicens with Jorge Nadal Oller, An Economic History of Spain (Princeton, 1969); idem, Approaches to the History of Spain (Berkeley, 1967); Earl J. Hamilton, “American Treasure and Andalusian Prices, 1503–1600: A Study in the Spanish Price Revolution,” Journal of Economic and Business History 1 (1928) 1–35; Pierre Chaunu and Huguette Chaunu, Seville et l’Atlantique (1504–1650) (Paris, c1977); a summary of findings in this vast work appears in Pierre Chaunu and Huguette Chaunu, “Économie Atlantique, économie mondiale (1504–1640),” Journal of World History (1953–54) 91–104, tr. as “The Atlantic Economy and the World Economy,” in Peter Earle, ed., Essays in European Economic History, 1500–1800 (Oxford, 1974), 113–26; Renate Pieper, Die Preisrevolution in Spanien, 1500–1640: Neuere Forschung-sergebnisse (Wiesbaden, 1985).

  For the price revolution in Portugal, see V. M. Godinho, Prix et monnaies au Portugal (Paris, 1955); Damaio Peres, Historia monetária de D. Joo III (Lisbon, 1957).

  On Italy, there are Gino Parenti, Prime ricerche sulla rivoluzione dei prèzzi in Firenze (Florence, 1939); idem, Prèzzi e mercato del grano a Siena (Florence, 1942); Lucien Febvre, “La révolution des prix à Florence,” Annales d’Histoire Sociale 2 (1940) 239–42; Richard A. Goldthwaite, “I prèzzi del grano a Firenze dal XIV al XVI secolo,” Quaderni Storici 10 (1975) 5–36; Amintore Fanfani, “La rivoluzione dei prèzzi a Milano nel XVI e XVII secoli,” Giornale degli Economisti e Rivista di Statistica 72 (1932) 465–82; idem, Indagini sulla rivoluzione dei prèzzi (Milan, 1940); Henri Hauser, “La révolution des prix à Milan au XVIe et au XVIIe siècle,” Annales d’Histoire Économique et Sociale 4 (1934) 465–82; Giuseppe Coniglio, Il regno di Napoli al tempo di Carlo V (Naples, 1951); idem, Il viceregno di Napoli nel secolo XVII (Rome, 1955); idem, “La rivoluzione dei prèzzi nella città di Napoli nei Secoli XVI e XVII,” Atti della IXa riunione scientifica della Società italiana di statistica (Roma, 7–8 gennaio 1950) (Spoleto, 1952); Jean Delumeau, vie économique et sociale de Rome dans la seconde moitié du XVIe siècle (2 vols., Paris, 1957–59); Gabriele Lombardini, Pane e denaro a Bassano: Prèzzi del grano e politica dell’ approvigionamento dei cereali tra il 1501 e il 1799 (Venice, 1963); D. Bartolini, “Prèzzi e salari nel Commune di Portugruaro durante il secolo XVI,” idem., Contribuzione per una storia dei prèzzi e salari; “La metida del frumento, vino ed oglio dal 1670 al 1685 nel commune di Portuguaro,” all cited above; I. Jacobetti, Monete e prèzzi a Cremona dal XVI al XVII secola (Cremona, 1965); Ubaldo Meroni, Cremona Fedilissima, studi di storia economica e amministrativa di Cremona durante la dominazione spagnola (Cremona 1951); Gianluigi Barni, “Prèzzi, mercato e calmiere del pesce al principio del secolo XVI,” La Martinella di Milano 11–12 (1957); Gino Barbieri, “L’introduzione del mais dall’America e la storia dei prèzzi in Italia,” Saggi di storia economica italiana (Bari and Naples, 1948); Jacopo Stainero, Patria del Friuli restaurata (Udine, 1595); Giuseppe Mira, “I prèzzi dei cereali a Como dal 1512 al 1658,” Rivista Internazionale di Scienze Sociali 12 (1941) 195–211.

  For England, a helpful survey is R. B. Outhwaite, Inflation in Tudor and Stuart England (London, Melbourne, 1969; 2d ed., 1982); see also Frieda A. Nicolas, “The Assize of Bread in London during the Sixteenth Century,” Economic History 2 (1930–33) 323–47; Y. S. Brenner, “The Inflation of Prices in Early Sixteenth-Century England,” Economic History Review 2d ser. 14 (1961) 225–39; idem, “The Inflation of Prices in England, 1551–1650,” ibid. 15 (1962) 266–84; J. D. Gould, “Y. S. Brenner on Prices: A Comment,” Economic History Review 2d ser. 16 (1963) 351–60; idem, “The Price Revolution Reconsidered,” Economic History Review 2d ser. 17 (1964–65) 249–66; P. Bowden, “Agricultural Prices, Farm Profits, and Rents,” in Joan Thirsk, ed., Agrarian History of England and Wales, vol. 4, 593–695; C. E. Challis, “Spanish Bullion and Monetary Inflation in England in the Later Sixteenth Century,” Journal of European Economic History 4 (1975) 381–92; R. A. Doughty, “Industrial Prices and Inflation in Southern England, 1401–1640,” Explorations in Economic History 12 (1975) 177–92; John U. Nef, “Prices and Industrial Capitalism in France and England, 1540–1640,” Economic History Review 7 (1937) 155–85; P. J. Bowden, “Agricultural Prices, Wages, Farm Profits, and Rents, 1500–1640,” in Economic Change: Wages, Profits, and Rents, 1500–1750 (Cambridge, 1990), 13–115.

  An excellent study of Scottish trends in this period is Alex J. S. Gibson and T. C. Smout, Prices, Food, and Wages in Scotland, 1550–1780 (New York, 1995).

  On France, see F. Simiand, Recherches anciennes et nouvelles sur le mouvement général des prix du XVIe au XIXe siècle (Paris, 1932); André Liautey, La hausse des prix
et la lutte contre la vie chère en France au 16e siècle (Paris, 1921); Frank C. Spooner, The International Economy and Monetary Movements in France, 1493–1725 (Cambridge, 1972); P. Raveau, essai sur la situation économique et l’ état social en Poitou, au XVIe siècle (Paris, 1931); idem, “La crise des prix au XVIe siècle en Poitou,” Revue Historique 54 (1929) 1–44, 268–93; L’agriculture et les classes paysannes: La transformation de la propriété dans le haut Poitou au XVIe siècle (Paris, 1926); P. Chaunu, “Sur le front de l’histoire des prix au XVIe siècle: De la Mercuriale de Paris au port d’Anvers,” Annales E.S.C. 4 (1961) 791–803; Marcel Lachiver, “Près des grains a’ Paris et À Meulan dans la second moitié du XVIe siècle (1573–1586),” Annales E.S.C. 30 (1975) 140–150; Robert Latouche, “Le prix du blé à Grenoble du XVe au XVIIIe siècle,” Revue d’Histoire Économique et Sociale 20 (1932) 337–51; Henri Hauser, “La question des prix et des monnaies en Bourgogne dans la seconde moitié du XVIe siècle,” Annales de Bourgogne 4 (1932) 7–21.

  For the Netherlands and Belgium, see E. Scholliers, Loonarbied en Honger de Levens-Standaard in de XVe en XVIe eeuw te Antwerpen (Antwerp, 1960); J. Lejeune, La Formation du Capitalisme moderne dans la Principauté de Liège au XVIe siècle (Paris, 1939); C. Verlinden, J. Craeybeckx, and E. Scholliers, “Price and Wage Movements in Belgium in the Sixteenth Century,” in Peter Burke, ed., Economy and Society in Early Modern Europe: Essays from Annales; Jan de Vries, The Dutch Rural Economy in the Golden Age, 1500–1700 (New Haven, 1974); J. Lejeune, La formation du capitalisme moderne dans la principauté de Liège au XVI siècles (Paris, 1939).