Economies, public finances, and the impact of institutional changes in interregional perspective the low countries and neighbo

Economies, Public Finances, and the Impact of Institutional Changes in Interregional Perspective SEUH 36 Studies in European Urban History (1100–1800) Series Editors Marc Boone Anne-Laure Van Bruaene Ghent University Economies, Public Finances, and the Impact of Institutional Changes in Interregional Perspective The Low Countries and Neighbouring German Territories (14th‑17th Centuries) Edited by Remi van Schaïk H F  Cover illustration: after Quinten Metsys, The moneylender and his wife, sixteenth century © [Koninklijke Musea voor Schone Kunsten van België, Brussel / foto: J Gelyns/ Ro scan] © 2015, Brepols Publishers n.v., Turnhout, Belgium All rights reserved No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher D/2015/0095/40 ISBN 978-2-503-54785-5 (printed) ISBN 978-2-503-54823-4 (online) Printed on acid-free paper  Contents Personaliavii Acknowledgementsxi Introduction Remi van Schaïk Economies, Public Finances, and the Impact of Institutional Changes in Interregional Perspective: Some Introductory Remarks Peter Hoppenbrouwers Three Decades of Economic and Social History of the Medieval Low Countries: A Summary Survey 11 Marjolein ’t Hart Coercion and Capital Revisited Recent Trends in the Historiography of State-Formation 23 Industry and Trade Tim Soens, Peter Stabel & Tineke Van de Walle An Urbanised Countryside? A Regional Perspective on Rural Textile Production in the Flemish West-Quarter (1400‑1600) 35 Job Weststrate The Impact of War on Lower Rhine Trade from the Fifteenth to Seventeenth Centuries 61 Finances and Politics David Kusman & Jean-Luc Demeulemeester Connecting Regional Capital Markets in the Late Medieval Low Countries: The Role of Piedmontese Bankers as Financial Pathfinders and Innovators in Brabant, Guelders, Flanders and Hainaut (c.1260‑1355)83 Bart Lambert The Political Side of the Coin: Italian Bankers and the Fiscal Battle between Princes and Cities in the Late Medieval Low Countries 103 v Contents Rudolf A.A Bosch The Impact of Financial Crises on the Management of Urban Fiscal Systems and Public Debt The Case of the Duchy of Guelders, 1350‑1550 113 Jelle Haemers A Financial Revolution in Flanders? Public Debt, Representative Institutions, and Political Centralisation in the County of Flanders during the 1480s 135 Evaluation Wim Blockmans Regional Interactions Some Afterthoughts vi 163  Personalia Wim Blockmans (1945) is emeritus professor at Leiden University He mainly worked on state formation and representative institutions in late medieval Europe, and the Burgundian Netherlands in particular His most recent books include Metropolen aan de Noordzee (2010) and Emperor Charles V 1500‑1558 (2002), revised as Karel V, Keizer van een wereldrijk (20124) Rudolf A.A Bosch (1984) recieved his MA degree in History at the University of Groningen Between 2008 and 2014 he was preparing his PhD thesis on the impact of political and economic transformations on urban societies and public finances in the Duchy of Guelders between c 1350 and 1580 at the Groningen Research Institute for the Study of Culture He has published on several aspects concerning the urban history in the Low Countries, more specifically the socio-economic history of towns in the Eastern Netherlands and the financial relations between the Duchy of Guelders and the German Lower Rhine area Jean-Luc Demeulemeester (1965) is professor at the Université Libre de Bruxelles, at the Solvay Brussels School of Economics and Management, the Political Science Department and at the Arts and Humanities Faculty At Solvay Brussels School of Economics and Management he is the co-director of the Centre for Economic and Financial History (joint with K Oosterlinck and J.J Heirwegh) of the Emile Bernheim Research centre CEB He is the co-founder and co-editor (with Dora Costa, Berkeley, and Claude Diebolt, CNRS Strasbourg and Humboldt Universität zu Berlin) of Cliometrica A Journal of Historical Economics and Econometric History Jelle Haemers (1980) was trained as an urban historian at the University of Ghent He is professor at the department of Medieval History of the University of Leuven since 2010 and a member of the Jonge Academie of Belgium since 2013 He wrote his first book on the Ghent revolt of 1449‑1453 (2004) In recent years his research interests have widened to encompass other kinds of social and political conflicts in the late medieval town, notably in the Low Countries (1100‑1600) He also published on the use of social theory and auxiliary sciences in history, the late medieval nobility and the financial history of court and towns He has completed his second book, on the political conflict between the Flemish cities and Maximilian of Austria in the 1480s (For the Common Good State Power and Urban Revolts in the Reign of Mary of Burgundy, 1477‑1482 (2009)), which was awarded with the prestigious “Frans van Cauwelaert-prize” of the Royal Academy of Arts and Sciences of Belgium Most recently his De strijd om het regentschap over Filips de Schone Opstand, geweld en facties in Brugge, Gent en Ieper (1482‑1488) was published (2014) His current major research project is a study of popular politics in the late medieval town Marjolein ’t Hart (1955) specialised in early modern social and economic history After her graduation and PhD she held positions at various universities (Groningen, Leiden, Erasmus Rotterdam, VU University Amsterdam, University of Amsterdam, New School for Social Studies New York, Trinity College Dublin and Columbia vii Personalia University New York) and in various disciplines (history, sociology, political sciences) Her main publications include The Making of a Bourgeois State War, Politics and Finance during the Dutch Revolt (1993); A Financial History of the Netherlands 1550‑1990 (1997); De wereld en Nederland Een sociale en economische geschiedenis van de laatste duizend jaar (2011), and The Dutch Wars of Independence Warfare and Commerce in the Netherlands 1570‑1680 (2014) Presently she is head of the research department of the Huygens Institute for the History of the Netherlands in The Hague and professor History of State Formation in Global Perspective at VU University in Amsterdam Peter (P.C.M.) Hoppenbrouwers (1954) is professor of Medieval History at Leiden University He is the co-author, with Wim Blockmans of Introduction to Medieval Europe 300‑1500 (2014²) His main fields of interest are peasant communities, household and family, local lordship and military organisation, and cultures of violence in the medieval Latin West David Kusman (1969), postdoctoral researcher associated with the Interuniversity Attraction Pole Program 7/26 “City & Society in the Low Countries (1200‑1850)” at the Université Libre de Bruxelles, graduated from this university in 2008 with a doctorate in medieval history, published in 2013 in the Studies in European Urban History Series, 28, under the title: Usuriers publics et banquiers du Prince Le rôle économique des financiers piémontais dans les villes du duché de Brabant (xiiie‑xiv e siècle) His current researches focus on credit and information during the Late Middle Ages Bart Lambert (1981) was a research assistant at the University of York, working on the ahrc-funded project “England’s Immigrants, 1330‑1550: Resident Aliens in the Later Middle Ages” and is presently lecturer at Durham University He is the author of The City, the Duke and their Banker The Rapondi Family and the Formation of the Burgundian State (1384‑1430) (2006), “Pouvoir et argent La fiscalité d’État et la consommation du crédit des ducs de Bourgogne (1384‑1506)” (Revue du Nord, 2009), “Bonnore Olivier: courtier de la fiscalité bourguignonne (1429‑1466)” (Revue Belge de Philologie et d’Histoire, 2012) and “Friendly Foreigners: International Warfare, Resident Aliens and the Early History of Denization in England, c 1250‑c 1400” (English Historical Review, 2015) He is currently editing a volume on Luxury Textiles in Italy and the Low Countries during the Late Medieval and Early Modern Period, to be published with Ashgate Remi van Schaïk (1950) studied History at the Katholieke Universiteit Nijmegen and the University of Ghent After research fellowships and teaching activities at the Universities of Nijmegen, Rotterdam and Groningen, he was working as a policy advisor for research in the Faculty of Arts of the University of Groningen, and is senior lecturer in Medieval History at the same university since 1995 He is publishing on financial, economic and social history, and on socio-religious history, especially of the northern and eastern Low Countries His publications include De Tielse kroniek (1983, together with others), Walfridus van Bedum (1985), Belasting, bevolking en bezit in Gelre en Zutphen (1350‑1550) (1987), and substantial parts of Onder vele torens Een geschiedenis van de gemeente Bedum (2002), and of the Geschiedenis van Groningen, vol I (2008) Peter Stabel is professor of Medieval History at the University of Antwerp and member of the Antwerp based Centre for Urban History He publishes on the social viii Personalia  and economic history of the cities of the medieval and early modern Low Countries His recent research interests cover craft guilds, textile manufacture, labour markets, gender and princely courts in the Low Countries and he is also studying the representation of urbanity and market regulation in the cities of the medieval Islamic world Tim Soens (1977) is associate professor of Medieval and Environmental History at the University of Antwerp (Belgium) He has studied Medieval History at the University of Ghent (Belgium), where he obtained his PhD in 2006, investigating water management and the interaction of man and nature in coastal Flanders in the medieval and early modern period Within the Antwerp Department of History, Tim Soens has developed a new research line “Environment and Power”, concentrating on the historical relationship between human societies and the natural environment, and the way this interaction was steered by evolving power constellations and formal and informal institutions Tineke Van de Walle completed her MA degree in History in 2012 at the University of Antwerp She graduated on a research project concerning pilgrim accounts to Jerusalem in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries and the perception on urbanity, supervised by Professor Peter Stabel From October 2013 onwards, she is working as PhD fellow of the Research Foundation Flanders (fwo) on a project on suburbanisation in the late fifteenth and sixteenth at the Centre for Urban History (University of Antwerp) Job Weststrate (1975) studied history at Leiden University and HumboldtUniversität in Berlin from 1993‑1999 He obtained his PhD at Leiden University for his dissertation In het kielzog van moderne markten Handel en scheepvaart op de Rijn, Waal en IJssel (2007) Lastly he worked at the University of Groningen as a postdoctoral researcher within the “Cuius Regio”-Project (www.cuius-regio.eu), part of the Eurocorecode programme of the European Science Foundation His project explored the regional cohesion of the Guelders-Lower Rhine region in the Late Middle Ages and Early Modern Period ix  Jelle Haemers de ghemeene poorters ende insetene van den voorseiden drie steden Ghend, Brugghe ende Ypre ende andere van den lande van Vlaendren, huerlieder ende de incommende goeden van denzelven steden eenwaerf lasten moghen tooter voorseide somme van driehondertduust croonen ten prijse van achtendeveertich groten onser Vlaemsscher munten tstic Ende omme die te vercrighene te moghen vercopene, rente te lossene de penninc twalefve ende daerboven ende niet daeronder Ende daerinne te belastene de voornoemde poorters ende insetene van den voorseiden steden ende lande van Vlaendren ende alle de incommende goeden van dien ende elc over andere met behoorlicken brieven, obligacien ende besegheltheden ter bewaernesse, dancke ende versekerthede van den copers Ende oec dat de voorseide exposanten de voorseide somme van driehondertduust cronen de rente ende tverloop van diere zullen moghen innen, heffen ende ontfaen up ende over al tghemeene land van Vlaendren bij pointinghen ende ommestellinghen up tselve land ten daghe van den payementen ende anderssins, al tsamen oft in partie naer huer discrecien tallen tijden dat hemlieden dat expedient ende oerboer dincken zal Ende dat zij daertoe zullen willen of moghen verstaen ter ontlastinghe ende meesten oerbuere van denzelven onsen lande zonder dan daeromme van ons te hebbene andere lettren van octroye of consente dan deze jeghewoordighe, behouden de voorseide lossinghe Ende wel verstaende dat de meeste menichte van den poorters van den voorseide drie steden Ghend, Brugghe ende Ypre int ghuent dies voorscreven es consenteren zullen Ende oec dat de voorseide somme van driehondert duust cronen beleyt ende gheemployert worde ter bewaernesse ende bescudde van onsen voorseiden lande ende nieuwers el Daerof de voorseide exposanten ghehouden werden goede rekeninghe ende bewijs te doene ten tijden daer ende alsoot behoren zal Ontbieden daeromme ende bevelen onsen gheminden ende ghetrauwen president ende lieden van onser camere van den Rade in Vlaendren, president ende lieden van onser rekenijnghe te Rijsele, baillius van Ghend, van Brugghe ende van Ypre ende alle andere onze justicieren, officieren ende ondersaten wien dit angaen mach, dat zij den voornoemden exposanten van dezen onsen jeghewoordighen ottroye ende consente ghelijc ende in der manieren dat voorscreven staet, doen laten ende ghedoghen rustelic, vredelic ende vulcommelic ghebruken ende useren, cesserende alle wederzegghen ter contrarien want ons zo belieft In kennessen van dezen, zo hebben wij den zeghele van onzer camere van den Rade in Vlaendren hieran doen hanghen in de absencie van den onsen Ghegheven in onze stede van Ghend, den eersten dach van wedemaent int jaer ons heeren duust vierhondert achtendetachtentich Aldus gheteeckent bij mijnen heere den eertshertoghe in zijnen raed, daer mer Phelips van Cleven, de heere van Reesseghem, de president van Vlaendren, ende andere waeren.74 [Signed] J[an] De Beere 74 160 It concerns, respectively, Philip of Cleves, Adrian Vilain, and Philip Wielant Evaluation Regional Interactions Some Afterthoughts Wim Blockmans Emeritus professor, Leiden University Most contributions to this volume have been presented as papers in a conference focused on the interactions between the economic and the political systems of some regions in the Low Countries Moreover, the regional variation in the levels of demographic, economic and institutional development was discussed It is striking indeed, how wide that variation eventually was within the relatively small area of the Low Countries However, it was characterised by its dynamics, whereby the core of the economic system gradually shifted from south to north in the course of the thirteenth to seventeenth centuries Neighbouring regions appear to have been implicated and triggered by the earlier developments in the most advanced regions However, not all the neighbours were equally successful in catching up with the demographic and economic growth That raises the questions of the conditions for the relocation of core functions, their transition to some of the competing later developers, as well as the non-occurrence of such a gradual take-over in other regions.1 Not all principalities could be dealt with even-handedly in this volume, and some are not presented at all Flanders is strongly represented, as is Guelders Brabant, Hainaut and Holland appear only with thematic case studies, the prince-bishoprics of Liège and Utrecht, and the predominantly rural areas from Friesland to Luxemburg didn’t come in the scope If an overall survey of the interregional interactions was thus beyond the reach of this conference, it did shed interesting light on the contrasting evolution of Guelders in particular, in its relations with the wider environment These confrontations might lead us to further reflection about the causes of the lasting stagnation of this region, in sharp contrast with the steep rise of Holland and Zeeland, from the mid-fourteenth century onwards The demographic variation between the densely populated coastal regions and the much lower levels in the northern, eastern and southern provinces has been demonstrated since 1980.2 The maps of the urban density in Europe from 1500 to 1800, designed by Jan De Vries in 1984, revealed more clearly and precisely than ever before the huge cleavages in the demographic levels between regions.3 Interestingly, his isolines designating areas This is the central thesis of my Metropolen aan de Noordzee Geschiedenis van Nederland 1100‑1560 [Metropolises at the North Sea History of the Low Countries], Amsterdam, 2010; further developed in “Zeehavens als drijvende kracht van de stedelijke regio’s”, in Stedelijk verleden in veelvoud Opstellen over laatmiddeleeuwse stadsgeschiedenis in de Nederlanden voor Dick de Boer, ed Hanno Brand, Jeroen Benders & Renée Nip, Hilversum, 2011, p. 13‑26 Wim P Blockmans et al., “Tussen crisis en welvaart: sociale verandering 1300‑1500”, in Algemene Geschiedenis der Nederlanden, ed Dirk Peter Blok et al vol.4, Haarlem, 1980, p. 42‑86, especially p. 43‑47 Jan de Vries, European urbanization, 1500‑1800, London, 1984, p. 158‑161 Economies, Public Finances, and the Impact of Institutional Changes in Interregional Perspective, ed by Remi Van Schaïk, Turnhout, 2015 (Studies in European Urban History, 36), p 163‑172 F H G DOI: 10.1484/M.SEUH-EB.5.103711 Wim Blockmans with a particular population density constituted social entities in an original, much more realistic way than the political boundaries which prevail in traditional historical atlases Evidently, geographical conditions offered a first level of explanation, of which the advantages derived from a location near large navigable rivers and coastal ports were by far the most consequential These conditions significantly facilitated long-distance bulk cargoes of food and raw materials which expanded the basis of subsistence for urban population concentrations far beyond the possibilities of any place’s immediate hinterland As a consequence, the extensive land-locked areas have always been much less populated than those with more advantageous transport opportunities The case of the duchy of Luxemburg is revealing: its dynasty may have brought about three emperors in the fourteenth century, but its population density reached just six inhabitants per square kilometre in 1495, and even today it is only 59, less than Flanders and Holland five centuries ago However, geographical opportunities are relatively constant, while a region’s economy and population changes over time, and thus by necessity also its social structures Although De Vries’s analysis included only cities of 10,000 and more inhabitants, thereby excluding the largest part of the towns in the northern and eastern Low Countries, it opened the way towards detailed research on the regional hierarchies of towns, and their relation with population density on the countryside.4 Major cities appeared as the highest level of a multi-layered system of settlements and markets, wherein large and numerous cities arose amidst a densely populated hinterland High levels of urbanisation fostered intensive husbandry in the direct environment of towns, which implied high density in a larger area Urban hierarchies, however, could be flat, with a number of the largest towns in a region having roughly the same size, or steep, with a sharp demarcation between the lonely top position and lower levels In fact, several regions show an evolution from a polycentric system towards one with a single metropolis of a much larger size than all the other towns in its region For this to happen, the possibilities for the accumulation and concentration of substantial human and material capital needed to be fulfilled As the case of Amsterdam spectacularly demonstrates, geographical conditions can only be effectuated in the larger complex of macro-economic relations: a late developer, its fast growth became possible only through the expansion of the Baltic trade To illustrate this point: the passages of grain through the Sund straits, originating from various harbours in Prussia and largely directed to and through Amsterdam, increased from 67,000 hectolitres per year in 1470 to a yearly average of 2,180,000 hectolitres in the 1560s, enough for the consumption of 600,000 persons Admittedly, the export of the 1560s was unusually high, and part of the Baltic grain was re-exported, possibly one-sixth.5 A large part of that grain was shipped by the rapidly expanding maritime fleet of Holland and Zeeland through Amsterdam, and from there southward to Arnemuiden on the island Walcheren, which became the main The best overview is Peter Stabel, “Composition et recomposition des réseaux urbains des Pays-Bas au Moyen Âge”, in Villes de Flandre et d’Italie (xiiie‑xvie siècle), ed Elisabeth Crouzet-Pavan & Élodie Lecuppre-Desjardin (Studies in European Urban History, 12), Turnhout, 2008, p. 29‑63 Milja van Tielhof, De Hollandse graanhandel, 1470‑1570 Koren op de Amsterdamse molen (Hollandse Historische reeks, 23), The Hague, 1995, p. 87‑95; Richard W Unger, “Feeding Low Countries Towns: the grain trade in the fifteenth century”, Revue Belge de Philologie et d’Histoire, 77:2, 1999, p.  329‑358, and Milja van Tielhof, “Grain provision in Holland c 1490‑1570” in Peasants into Farmers? The transition of rural economy and society in the Low Countries (Middle Ages-19th century) in light of the Brenner Debate, ed Peter Hoppenbrouwers & Jan Luiten van Zanden (CORN Publication Series, 4), Turnhout, 2001, p. 202‑219, especially p. 204‑207 164 Regional Interactions out-port for both Bruges and Antwerp Herring and peat where the other products linking the northern coast provinces to the southern ones, while the export of beer from Gouda, Delft and Haarlem tended to stagnate as a consequence of import substitution in the South No doubt that the close commercial linkages included considerable capital investments by the higher developed financial markets in the South, and transfer of know-how in general.6 In the economic region of Artois, Cambrésis, Tournai, Valenciennes and southern Flanders, about seven major cities with up to 20,000 or 30,000 inhabitants each, outranked the others during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.7 Arras certainly was the wealthiest among them, and the leading financial centre, but it was not significantly larger than its competitors Only in the fourteenth century, Bruges and Ghent, located farther to the north and better connected to the North Sea, really became dominant with a size two to three times larger than the next lower level.8 A relatively equal distribution can also be observed among the seven major towns of Brabant in the thirteenth century In the fourteenth, it evolved towards a smaller number of four to five capital cities with 20,000 and more inhabitants, and in the sixteenth Antwerp spectacularly overclassed them with a population of 100,000, tripling the size of the next, Brussels.9 Another century later, a similar evolution occurred in Holland, characterised by a flat structure of five towns with the relatively modest size of 7,000 to 15,000 around 1500, after which Amsterdam grew spectacularly to 30,000 by the mid-sixteenth and 200,000 by the midseventeenth century.10 These cases concern the four successive core regions, Artois, Flanders, Brabant and Holland In each of them, the concentration occurred towards the best located harbour city which could optimally compete as the gateway for the maritime trade under the conditions of the macro-economic opportunities and the navigation techniques of the time These two conditions for the highest urban concentrations add up to the necessary geographical location advantages: the latter just offer an opportunity, the realisation of which depends on the economic incentives and the technical possibilities Among the economic conditions, the productive and consumptive capacities of the hinterland were equally determining: a gateway obviously functioned as the access to and outlet for a region with which it was connected by navigable rivers and canals, and by roads, leading to secondary and tertiary markets Its role thus depended from the trading opportunities with other economic systems The case of the rural textile industry in the Flemish West-Quarter shows that the considerable volume of its trade allowed the re-orientation from Bruges to farther-away but more advantageous Antwerp as its gateway.11 Maarten Prak & Jan Luiten van Zanden, Nederland en het poldermodel Sociaal-economische geschiedenis van Nederland, 1000‑2000, Amsterdam, 2013, p. 94‑96 Alain Derville, “Le grenier des Pays-Bas médiévaux”, Revue du Nord, 69, 1987, p. 267‑280 Blockmans, Metropolen, p. 652‑653 Raymond van Uytven, “Het gewicht van de goede steden”, “Beroering onder de Brabantse steden”, “De triomf van Antwerpen en de grote steden”, in Geschiedenis van Brabant, van het hertogdom tot heden, ed Raymond van Uytven et al., Zwolle, 2004, p. 118‑121, 171‑173, 241‑243; Bruno Blondé & Michael Limberger, “De gebroken welvaart”, ibidem, p.  307‑314 On a symbolic level, Brussels constructed its own hierarchical space: Claire Billen, “La construction d’une centralité: Bruxelles dans le duché de Brabant au Bas Moyen Âge”, in The power of space in late medieval and early modern Europe, ed Marc Boone & Martha C Howell (Studies in European Urban History, 30), Turnhout, 2013, p. 183‑196 10 Peter C.M Hoppenbrouwers, “Holland wordt een stedenland”, in Geschiedenis van Holland, vol I, tot 1572, ed Thimo de Nijs & Eelco Beukers, Hilversum, 2002, p. 118‑148 11 The paper by Tim Soens, Peter Stabel & Tineke van de Walle in this volume 165 Wim Blockmans Four features jump to the attention from the preceding description: • • • • the metropolises successively doubled in population, from Arras, to Bruges, to Antwerp and to Amsterdam, their accessibility for ever larger sea-faring ships was determining for their role, in each period under consideration, they were the dominant metropolises in Northwest-Europe (only Arras remaining second to Paris, evidently because connections of the North Sea with the Mediterranean and the Baltic Seas became prevalent only after 1300), each relocation implied a transition to a more competitive institutional framework fitting to the changing macro-economic conditions, which included the rapidly growing and increasingly intercontinental scale of the operations Is a more populated region also more prosperous? Not necessarily, as that depends on institutional arrangements, especially those related to mobility, social (in)equality and social care We may assume that, as a whole, an area which can support a relatively high population density must be more prosperous than others at the same moment Originally, its agricultural productivity would be higher, although, in a later stage that may be further expanded or compensated by the capacity to acquire supplies in exchange with its own valuable products This was particularly the case for Antwerp and Amsterdam which were surrounded by rather poor agricultural areas Since the sixteenth century, the cargo capacity and the regularity of the overseas supplies had grown so dramatically, that metropolises were no longer primarily dependent on the regional food production The greater the variety and value of the goods which a particular region can produce and export through its gateway, the higher the standard of living its population can reach Depending of the social distribution of the wealth and on the institutional arrangements, a relatively high standard of living tends to attract migrants who contribute to the further growth of the prosperous region, not only of the total population, but potentially also of its productivity In the first half of the sixteenth century, wages remained nominally stable, except in Antwerp, where they rose from 2.33 patards for a journeyman’s working day in the summer, to 4, while they remained stuck at in Bruges and Ghent In real terms, the Ghent worker lost half of his purchasing power (as expressed in rye prices), while his colleague in Antwerp lost considerably less, namely 9‑19%.12 No wonder that labourers migrated massively to the booming city A region’s wealth may enable the elites to create forms of social care, which might contribute to favourable health conditions – an uncommon but essential indicator of a standard of living Peripheral Regions If we now turn away from the success stories, we can try to apply the same analytical grid in order to understand the fate of the regions which proved to be insufficiently competitive to become global players The cities on the Meuse, with Liège and Maastricht as the largest ones, developed a significant river trade, supported by a variety of local and regional industries such as metalwork in copper and iron, including weapons Raw materials were largely available in the region’s woods, quarries, and ore and coal mines The location on the 12 Étienne Scholliers, “Le pouvoir d’achat dans les Pays-Bas au xvie siècle”, in Album aangeboden aan Charles Verlinden ter gelegenheid van zijn dertig jaar professoraat, ed Siegfried Jan De Laet et al., Ghent, 1975, p. 312‑313, 317 166 Regional Interactions river facilitated the shipping of these bulk cargoes downstream to Holland and Flanders A similar range of products also reached the Northern regions of the Low Countries via the Rhine and its secondary rivers On the other hand, three competitive disadvantages seem to have hampered the growth of the Middle Meuse region beyond the level of an interregional market: • • • the less favourable location and transport facilities: the relatively long distance by waterways, or the expensive road transport to the large markets in Flanders and Brabant, the competition of the nearby Rhine region, which could in addition offer the highly valued wines, and thus reduce the shipping costs through the combination of loads, the relatively limited demand for import products, given the much smaller population than in the coast provinces and the high agricultural productivity in the region itself Similar arguments apply to the eastern, most rural part of Hainaut, which was linked to the Meuse through its affluent river Sambre The Western part, with the largest cities Valenciennes and Tournai, connected intensively with the Flemish and Brabantine economic systems through the Scheldt and other rivers Stone and grain were the main export products As a consequence of the geographical and geological conditions, the principality belonged to two very different economic systems from which it remained essentially dependent without developing a significant internal dynamism The Brabantine market could be reached from the Rhineland by the overland road, which was shorter but relatively more expensive than river transport via Dordrecht and Zeeland The great advantage of the fairs held in Antwerp and Bergen op Zoom, twice a year in each, was that they connected the maritime trade with the land-locked European markets even more effectively than Bruges A regular overland transport service to Frankfurt was one of the trumps by which, in the sixteenth century, the growing metropolis Antwerp could be linked closely to expanding central-European markets and to the thriving industrial regions in Swabia.13 Turning to the northern regions, the long coast lines and the widespread river system implied the potential of excellent transport facilities Moreover, the great rivers split into several branches leading to the North Sea as well as to the Scheldt estuary and so to Flanders and northern Brabant Canals improved the inland connections of the natural waterways and lakes, by which a fairly safe traffic line was developed from the northeast to the southwest, linking Flanders “behind the dunes” via Zeeland with southern Holland, Gouda, Haarlem, the IJ river, Amsterdam and the Zuiderzee area, and so with the trade routes of the Hanse Initially, until the early fifteenth century, this route flourished and profited to harbour towns on the Zuiderzee, especially Kampen This success proved to be self-defeating as the larger ships introduced on the longer distances could not sail the narrow inland waterways and instead took the longer coast route That was more profitable thanks to the larger cargoes carrying a broader range of products from the Atlantic and the Baltic areas This connection made the success of Amsterdam, which was 13 Herman van der Wee, “Industrial dynamics and the process of urbanization and de-urbanization in the Low Countries from the late Middle Ages to the eighteenth century A synthesis”, in The Rise and decline of urban industries in Italy and the Low Countries (Late Middle Ages – Early Modern Times), ed Herman van der Wee (Studies in social and economic history, 1), Leuven, 1988, p. 307‑381 167 Wim Blockmans far better accessible for the larger vessels Moreover, the numerous maritime harbour towns creatively developed their fishery, especially that on herring, into a major export industry Shipbuilding became one of the major proto-industrial activities in Edam and numerous other places The design of the larger ship called buys for the herring catch on the Northern Seas introduced the cleaning and conservation on board, which was a highly efficient way to increase the boatmen’s productivity.14 In all these developments, Holland and Zeeland were in a far more favourable position than Frisian harbours and the river towns The larger ships of the Hanse no longer needed to pass by these intermediaries and rather followed the coast lines The location closer to the large markets in the South, and on the increasingly important route along the Atlantic coasts down to Portugal, held opportunities for the towns in the West rather than for those in the East Natural evolutions in the environment played their role as well: the old Rhine mouths silted up and put an end to the role which Utrecht and Leiden could play as harbours in the twelfth to fourteenth centuries The IJssel equally created lasting problems for the port of Kampen, located close to its mouth Nevertheless, several towns thrived on the axis from the Rhine to the IJssel, the largest being Nijmegen, with farther downstream Arnhem, and northward on the IJssel Zutphen, Deventer, Zwolle and Kampen So, although some adaptations had to be made, in principle the hydrographical infrastructure offered great opportunities for the regions along the Lower Meuse, the Lower Rhine and its branches, and the IJssel Why then, did these towns stagnate from the fourteenth to the sixteenth century? We have to observe that, in comparison to the urban populations mentioned for the southern regions, none of these towns grew to a similar size Nijmegen was the exception, with around 10,000 inhabitants, Deventer counted 5000, Kampen (already declining but still estimated to have minimally 8100 in the fifteenth century), Zutphen, Zwolle and Arnhem less than 5000, which figures didn’t change dramatically until the sixteenth century.15 Although the Counts, later Dukes of Guelders levied tolls on the river traffic, their financial basis was weak since the late thirteenth century Nevertheless, they waged ambitious dynastic policies and wars, which, from their major defeat against the Duke of Brabant in 1288, stuck them in financial problems In the course of the centuries, dynastic adventures made them dependent from Piedmontese bankers in the first place, and from subsidies reluctantly granted by the towns.16 In the 1420s, and again in the first half of the sixteenth century, the Dukes of Guelders’s expansionist enterprises gave them at some moments influence in Utrecht as well as in the north-eastern regions French support aiming at counterbalancing the Burgundian and Habsburg power in most of the territories in the region repeatedly encouraged them to launch invasions in neighbouring Holland and Brabant However, the Dukes simply lacked the resources to consolidate their successes which, in the end, resulted in the Habsburg take-over in 1543, sheer by far superior military power Richard W Unger, Dutch shipbuilding before 1800 Ships and guilds, Assen-Amsterdam, 1978, p. 26‑34 Piet Lourens & Jan Lucassen, Inwonertallen van Nederlandse steden c 1300‑1800, Amsterdam, 1997, p. 76, 83 See for a cartographic presentation of the relative population size of (only) the Guelders cities: Irmgard Hantsche, GeldernAtlas Karte und Texte zur Geschichte eines Territoriums (Veröffentlichungen des Historischen Vereins für Geldern und Umgegend, 103), Geldern, 2003, p. 59 (here Map 1) The Guelders urban landscape was rather comparable with that of the neighbouring regions Cleves and the Electorate of Cologne, as was demonstrated by Klaus Flink & Bert Thissen, “De Gelderse steden in de Middeleeuwen Data en feiten, aspecten en suggesties”, in Gelre – Geldern – Gelderland Geschiedenis en cultuur van het hertogdom, ed Johannes Stinner & Karl-Heinz Tekath, Geldern, 2001, p. 205‑242, here p. 211‑213 16 The paper by David Kusman & Jean-Luc Demeulemeester in this volume 14 15 168 Regional Interactions Map 1: Relative population size of Guelders cities in the fifteenth century Map 19 from Irmgard Hantsche, Geldern-Atlas Karte und Texte zur Geschichte eines Territoriums (Veröffentlichungen des Historischen Vereins für Geldern und Umgegend, 103), Geldern, 2003, p. 59, reprinted with permission of the author In the Guelders case, the political instability appeared to have hampered further economic development Nijmegen functioned as an intermediate market for the trade in Rhine wines; however, the harbour of Kampen on the mouth of the IJssel near the Zuiderzee which provided the shipping for the merchants located upstream in Deventer, fell under the weak temporal authority of the bishop of Utrecht, as did Zwolle and Deventer Deventer was the leading market for the interregional trade, not any of the Guelders towns Its five yearly fairs were the meeting place for shippers and merchants from 169 Wim Blockmans Holland, trading with Westphalia and the Middle Rhine area.17 The main problem for all these towns may well have been that their small population couldn’t offer a substantial offer of specialised products nor a large consumption market, and that their hinterland was not particularly populated and productive either As a consequence, they had no specifically valuable products to sell to the shippers passing by In other words, they had hardly any value to add to the trade they were facilitating at relatively low transaction costs The stream of goods from the Rhineland and the Hanse towns passing through Guelders, mostly via the river Waal towards Dordrecht and Gouda, where a good deal was shipped further to Brabant and Flanders A smaller part was shipped along the Lower Rhine and the IJssel to the North Sea and the Zuiderzee, where connections were made with the Hanseatic maritime trade Cologne dominated the trade at the south end of their route, and Amsterdam increasingly attracted the Baltic and North Sea traffic The economic structure of the region thus offered a myriad of navigable waterways which attracted interregional transport; however, their multiplicity made it hard for authorities to impose monopolistic regulations which might have generated truly important income for the rulers These, in turn, could hardly effectively control a highly scattered territory, bordering over hundreds of kilometres parts of a mix of interconnected rivers but the mouth of none of them Weak power structures in the neighbouring territories under the bishops of Utrecht and the small territories along the Rhine (Cleves, Berg and Jülich) challenged the Dukes of Guelders to seek expansion and consolidation in all these directions A combination of dynastic accidents, an underdeveloped administrative apparatus, modest financial resources and a complicated geographical situation, left them little chances for lasting success.18 But in the meantime, wars over the period 1473 to 1543, however limited the scale of the operations may have been, brought about interruptions of trade, destruction and, most of all, excessive financial burdens.19 Even the supplies from the French kings did not compensate that systematic imbalance between the political action and its economic basis As the town governments stuck to the political independence of their duchy, they had to support the military efforts financially, but to so, they saw themselves obliged to increase the public debt by selling annuities As demonstrated by Rudolf Bosch, that policy led to the “total collapse of the urban finances” of Zutphen in 1493 As a consequence of the economic stagnation during the preceding decades, the town’s treasury had lost any flexibility, while the service of the debt absorbed an increasing share of the urban revenue The urban elite had a private interest in this system, as they found the annuities a safe investment of their capital, especially while members of their families mostly served as the financial officers and tax farmers On the other hand, economic sanctions immediately threatened in case of default on debt payments on the annuities Arnhem sadly experienced this in 1478 on its vital trading axis in the Rhine region towards Cologne and Bonn The Guelders towns thus found themselves stuck in a negative spiral in which the limited economic surpluses were mainly drained towards the rent-seeking local and regional elites Given the limited opportunities for economic Job Weststrate, In het kielzog van moderne markten Handel en scheepvaart op de Rijn, Waal en IJssel, c 1360‑1560, Hilversum, 2008, p. 156‑176, and Job Weststrate, “De marktpositie van Deventer van de veertiende eeuw tot het begin van de Opstand”, in Bourgondië voorbij De Nederlanden 1250‑1650, ed Mario Damen & Louis Sicking, Hilversum, 2010, p. 263‑277 18 Remi van Schaïk, Belasting, bevolking en bezit in Gelre en Zutphen (1350‑1550), Hilversum, 1987, p. 120‑123 19 The paper by Job Weststrate in this volume 17 170 Regional Interactions expansion, they opted for a conservative attitude, turning the fiscal cost of the adventurous ducal policies into their private advantage.20 A similar attitude has been shown by Jelle Haemers for the administrations of the Flemish capital cities: while they all went through a steep economic decline, they financed their revolt in the 1480s by selling annuities to be covered by the fiscal receipts of the whole county.21 Linkages Investments in annuities were often made by outsiders of a city or a territory, as the Arnhem case demonstrates Especially commercial towns were highly vulnerable by the arrest of their travelling citizens and their merchandise in case of default of the rent-payment However, the annuities spread the city’s risk over a greater number of creditors than with individual lenders These could impose far-reaching guarantees and measures, as did the North-Italian merchant-bankers residing in Brabant and Flanders who dealt in huge loans to the Duke of Brabant, the Count of Holland, the Bishops of Liège and Utrecht, and the Count of Guelders as early as the 1280s and 1290s.22 As they quickly provided big money in the same order of magnitude as the loans major Flemish cities granted to their Count in 1295, the bankers were in a position to secure their refunding by requiring the Count to pledge the income of his main river tolls and his domains That substantial loss of income for years left the Count hardly any freedom of action and made him highly dependent on his debtors as he time and again needed to negotiate with them for the rescheduling of repayments Comparable close dependency of rulers vis-à-vis Italian bankers was demonstrated for successive Dukes of Burgundy in the fifteenth century.23 In these cases, subsidies granted by the subjects’ representatives formed the main guarantee, which shifted the financial burden of the Dukes’ dynastically motivated military adventures to the shoulders of the lower and middle classes who paid excises on wine, beer, bread and other consumption goods The appeal to financiers outside the own territory was a general pattern, especially where Italian merchant-bankers came in sight They operated selfevidently on a supra-regional scale, but their activities did not necessarily coincide with the main trading patterns and commercial interests On a macro-economic level, and until well into the sixteenth century, they were the most advanced financial experts handling the largest amounts of capital through West Europe and the Mediterranean For them, creditgiving to rulers was profitable in principle, and it should also provide them with the ruler’s protection and further favours Obviously, they also ran risks such as a ruler’s default and the application of his political power against them, or a change in political regime On the scale of the Low Countries, David Kusman has demonstrated how deep the Piedmontese bankers were embedded in Brabant, exploiting offices in several towns, from where they operated in neighbouring territories The later generations of Sienese, Florentine, Lucchese and Genoese mercantile companies operated on an even larger See his contribution to this volume See his contribution to this volume See the paper in this volume by David Kusman and Jean-Luc Demeulemeester, and David Kusman, Usuriers publics et banquiers du Prince Le rôle économique des financiers piémontais dans les villes du duché de Brabant (xiiie‑xive siècle) (Studies in European Urban History, 28), Turnhout, 2013 23 See the contribution to this volume by Bart Lambert, and his The city, the duke and their banker The Rapondi family and the formation of the Burgundian state (1385‑1430) (Studies in European Urban History, 7), Turnhout, 2006 20 21 22 171 Wim Blockmans scale and tended to establish their factors only in the dominant commercial centre of the region, which successively were Arras, Bruges, Antwerp and Amsterdam, as noted above Their activities therefore demonstrate the centrality of a city and illustrate the type of dependencies between core areas and peripheries The companies’ constant search for profit and protection enabled princes to pursue their political goals more rapidly, on a larger scale and during a longer time, maybe even more efficiently, thanks to the bankers’ capacity to make much money quickly available wherever it would be needed In the current stage of the research, it is hard to assess with mathematical precision if the prince’s extended resources, made available through their privileged access to bankers, were profitable for the subjects These would anyhow pay the price, and in all respects However, in the case of Duke Philip the Good’s territorial acquisitions in the Low Countries during the 1420s, the balance may well have been largely beneficial It is widely accepted that the union under the same ruler of the neighbouring territories along the North Sea and the main rivers, including the economically most developed regions, created more security and lowered transaction costs during a mainly peaceful period of about thirty years.24 That was certainly not the case for the long-lasting period of warfare from 1465 to 1559 between Burgundy-Habsburg and France, that other Hundred Years’ War.25 To conclude, we can state that the present volume brought up new information about the interaction between neighbouring regions in the Low Countries The variation between them was quite considerable, and related to differences in the geographical conditions, the chronology and level of the urbanisation process, and the macro-economic situation Selfevidently, through the closeness of the regions and the rivers’ course, the late developers underwent the influence of the earlier ones, while the latter could initially profit from the former’s supplies, for example in migration movements, foodstuffs and raw materials The most urbanised regions were characterised by the highest concentrations of human and material capital These also implied the highest technical skills, including those in financial transactions Interregional investments by entrepreneurs strengthened the connections, contributed to the transfer of know-how, and possibly to the re-location of economic activities On the other hand, princes and towns tended to seek credit in the core regions, because there it was relatively abundant and therefore relatively cheap As this capital was mostly used for non-productive activities, such as warfare, these interregional contacts did not automatically stimulate economic development In such cases, the creditors acted primarily for the sake of secure rent income As princes tended to accumulate and multiply their debts, the price of credit rose steeply in the sixteenth century The process of state formation was in the long term accompanied by the intensification of warfare This inevitably led to a higher fiscal burden and the increase of public debt, which was largely shifted off to the urban tax-payers, while the well-to-do citizens profited from the rents In the cases where the conflicts led to the extension of authority over larger spaces and the consolidation of institutional guarantees of security and property rights, the political actions might have contributed to the reduction of transaction costs and to economic growth In the contrast between the duchy of Guelders and the Burgundian-Habsburg territories, the latter clearly got the better part, especially during the period from 1440 to 1465 Robert Stein, De hertog en zijn Staten De eenwording van de Bourgondische Nederlanden, ca 1380‑1480, Hilversum, 2014, p. 110‑122 25 James D Tracy, Emperor Charles V, Impressario of war Campaign strategy, international finance, and domestic politics, Cambridge, 2002 24 172 ... court room of the former Groningen court, now housing the Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies of the University of Groningen, entitled Economies, Public Finances, and the Impact of Institutional. .. decisive in understanding the role of cities during the long and turbulent period prior to the formation of the Dutch Republic In particular, analysing the development of public finances in the investigation... discussed, but the titles of some important recent publications have been included in the notes Economies, Public Finances, and the Impact of Institutional Changes in Interregional Perspective,