Коммерческая революция в европейской истории

Revolution

In European history, the commercial revolution saw the development of a European economy – based on trade – which began in the 11th century AD and operated until the advent of the Industrial Revolution in the mid 18th century. Beginning c.  1100 with the Crusades, Europeans rediscovered spices, silks, and other commodities then rare in Europe. Consumer demand fostered more trade, and trade expanded in the second half of the Middle Ages (roughly 1000 to 1500 AD). Newly forming European states, through voyages of discovery, investigated alternative trade routes in the 15th and 16th centuries, which allowed European powers to build vast, new international trade networks. Nations also sought new sources of wealth and practiced mercantilism and colonialism. The Commercial Revolution is marked by an increase in general commerce, and in the growth of financial services such as banking, insurance, and investing.

The term itself was used by Karl Polanyi in his The Great Transformation: "Politically, the centralized state was a new creation called forth by the Commercial Revolution ". Later the economic historian Roberto Sabatino Lopez, used it to shift focus away from the English Industrial Revolution. In his best known book, The Commercial Revolution of the Middle Ages (1971, with numerous reprints), Lopez argued that the key contribution of the medieval period to European history was the creation of a commercial economy between the 11th and the 14th century, centered at first in the Italo Byzantine eastern Mediterranean, but eventually extending to the Italian city states and over the rest of Europe. This kind of economy ran from approximately the 14th century through the 18th century. Walt Whitman Rostow placed the beginning "arbitrarily" in 1488, the year the first European sailed around the Cape of Good Hope. Most historians, including scholars such as Robert Sabatino Lopez, Angeliki Laiou, Irving W. Raymond, and Peter Spufford indicate that there was a commercial revolution of the 11th through 13th centuries, or that it began at this point, rather than later.

The deterioration of the climate that brought about the end of the medieval warm period (or medieval weather anomaly) caused an economic decline at the beginning of the 14th century (see Great Famine). However, demographic expansion continued until the arrival of the Black Death epidemic in 1347, when ca. 50% of the European population was killed by the plague. The economic effects of a labor shortage actually caused wages to rise, while agricultural yields were once again able to support a diminished population. By the beginning of the 15th century, the economic expansion associated with the commercial revolution in earlier centuries returned in full force, aided by improvements in navigation and cartography. Geopolitical, monetary, and technological factors drove the Age of Discovery. During this period (1450–17th century), the European economic center shifted from the Islamic Mediterranean to Western Europe (Portugal, Spain, France, the Netherlands, and to some extent England). This shift was caused by the successful circumnavigation of Africa, which opened up sea trade with the east: after Portugal's Vasco da Gama rounded the Cape of Good Hope and landed in Calicut, India in May 1498, a new path of eastern trade was possible, ending the monopoly of the Ottoman Turks and the Italian city states. The wealth of the Indies was now open for the Europeans to explore; the Portuguese Empire was one of the early European empires to grow from spice trade. their commercial revolution was later as well.

In 1453, the Ottoman Turks took over Constantinople, which cut off (or significantly increased the cost of) overland trade routes between Europe and the Far East, so alternative routes had to be found. English laws were changed to benefit the navy, but had commercial implications in terms of farming. These laws also contributed to the demise of the Hanseatic League, which traded in northern Europe. Because of the Reconquista, the Spanish had a warrior culture ready to conquer still more people and places, so Spain was perfectly positioned to develop their vast overseas empire. Rivalry between the European powers produced intense competition for the creation of colonial empires, and fueled the rush to sail out of Europe.

The need for silver coinage also affected the desire for expanded exploration as silver and gold were spent for trade to the Middle and Far East. The Europeans had a constant deficit in that silver and gold coin only went one way: out of Europe, spent on the very type of trade that they were now cut off from by the Ottomans. Another issue was that European mines were exhausted of silver ore and gold. What ore remained was too deep to recover, as water would fill the mine, and technology was not sufficiently advanced enough to successfully remove the water to get to the ore or gold. A second argument is that trade during the youth of the commercial revolution blossomed not due to explorations for bullion (gold and silver coinings) but due to a newfound faith in gold coinage. Italian city states such as Genoa and Florence (where the first gold coins began to be minted in 1252) and kingdoms such as the Kingdom of Sicily routinely received gold through such trading partners as Tunisia and Senegal. A new, stable and universally accepted coinage that was both compatible with traditional European coinage systems and serviced the increased demand for currency to facilitate trade made it even more lucrative to carry out trade with the rest of the world.

From the 16th to 18th centuries, Europeans made remarkable maritime innovations. These innovations enabled them to expand overseas and set up colonies, most notably during the 16th and 17th centuries. They developed new sail arrangements for ships, skeleton based shipbuilding, the Western "galea" (at the end of the 11th century), sophisticated navigational instruments, and detailed charts and maps. After Isaac Newton published the Principia, navigation was transformed, because sailors could predict the motion of the moon and other celestial objects using Newton's theories of motion. Starting in 1670, the entire world was measured using essentially modern latitude instruments. In 1676, the British Parliament declared that navigation was the greatest scientific problem of the age and in 1714 offered a substantial financial prize for the solution to finding longitude. This spurred the development of the marine chronometer, the lunar distance method and the invention of the octant after 1730. By the late 18th century, navigators replaced their prior instruments with octants and sextants.

Significant contributors to European exploration include Prince Henry the Navigator of Portugal, who was the first of the Europeans to venture out into the Atlantic Ocean, in 1420. Others are Bartolomeu Dias, who first rounded the Cape of Good Hope; Vasco da Gama, who sailed directly to India from Portugal; Ferdinand Magellan, the first to circumnavigate the Earth; Christopher Columbus, who significantly encountered the Americas; Jacques Cartier, who sailed for France, looking for the Northwest Passage; and others.

The economy of the Roman Empire had been based on money, but after the Empire's fall, money became scarce; power and wealth became strictly land based, and local fiefs were self sufficient. Because trade was dangerous and expensive, there were not many traders, and not much trade. The scarcity of money did not help; however, the European economic system had begun to change in the 14th century, partially as a result of the Black Death, and the Crusades. Banks, stock exchanges, and insurance became ways to manage the risk involved in the renewed trade. New laws came into being. Travel became safer as nations developed. Economic theories began to develop in light of all of the new trading activity. The commercial revolution is also marked by the formalization of pre existing, informal methods of dealing with trade and commerce.

Spain legally amassed approximately 180 tons of gold and 8200 tons of silver through its endeavors in the New World, and another unknown amount through smuggling, spending this money to finance wars and the arts. The spent silver, suddenly being spread throughout a previously cash starved Europe, caused widespread inflation. The inflation was worsened by a growing population but a static production level, low employee salaries and a rising cost of living. This problem, combined with underpopulation (caused by the Black Death), affected the system of agriculture. The landholding aristocracy suffered under the inflation, since they depended on paying small, fixed wages to peasant tenants that were becoming able to demand higher wages. The aristocracy made failed attempts to counteract this situation by creating short term leases of their lands to allow periodic revaluation of rent. The manorial system (manor system of lord and peasant tenant) eventually vanished, and the landholding aristocrats were forced to sell pieces of their land to maintain their style of living. Such sales transferred ownership to wealthy commoners, who wanted to buy land and thereby increase their social status. Former "common lands" were fenced by the landed gentry, a process known as "enclosure" which subsidized the cost of raising livestock (mainly sheep's wool for the textile industry). This "enclosure" forced the peasants out of rural areas and into the cities, resulting in urbanization. The increase in the availability of silver coin allowed for commerce to expand in numerous ways.

Various legal and religious developments in the late Middle Ages allowed for development of the modern banking system at the beginning of the 16th century. Interest was allowed to be charged, and profits generated from holding other people's money. Banks in the Italian Peninsula had great difficulty operating at the end of the 14th century, for lack of silver and gold coin. Nevertheless, by the later 16th century, enough bullion was available that many more people could keep a small amount hoarded and used as capital. In response to this extra available money, northern European banking interests came along; among them was the Fugger family. The Fuggers were originally mine owners, but soon became involved in banking, charging interest, and other financial activities. They dealt with everyone, from small time individuals, to the highest nobility. Their banks even loaned to the emperors and kings, eventually going bankrupt when their clients defaulted. This family, and other individuals, used Italian methods which outpaced the Hanseatic League's ability to keep up with the changes occurring in northern Europe. Antwerp had one of the first money exchanges in Europe, a Bourse, where people could change currency. After the Siege of Antwerp (1584 1585), the majority of business transactions were moved to Amsterdam. The Bank of Amsterdam, following the example of a private Stockholm corporation, began issuing paper money to lessen the difficulty of trade, replacing metal (coin and bullion) in exchanges. In 1609 the Amsterdamsche Wisselbank (Amsterdam Exchange Bank) was founded which made Amsterdam the financial center of the world until the Industrial Revolution. In a notable example of crossover between stock companies and banks, the Bank of England, which opened in 1694, was a joint stock company. Banking offices were usually located near centers of trade, and in the late 17th century, the largest centers for commerce were the ports of Amsterdam, London, and Hamburg. Individuals could participate in the lucrative East India trade by purchasing bills of credit from these banks, but the price they received for commodities was dependent on the ships returning (which often did not happen on time) and on the cargo they carried (which often was not according to plan). The commodities market was very volatile for this reason, and also because of the many wars that led to cargo seizures and loss of ships.

Trade in this period was a risky business: war, weather, and other uncertainties often kept merchants from making a profit, and frequently an entire cargo would disappear all together. To mitigate this risk, the wealthy got together to share the risk through stock: people would own shares of a venture, so that if there was a loss, it would not be an all consuming loss costing the individual investor everything in one transaction. Other ways of dealing with the risk and expense associated with all of the new trade activity include insurance and joint stock companies which were created as formal institutions. People had been informally sharing risk for hundreds of years, but the formal ways they were now sharing risk was new. Even though the ruling classes would not often directly assist in trade endeavors, and individuals were unequal to the task, rulers such as Henry VIII of England established a permanent Royal Navy, with the intention of reducing piracy, and protecting English shipping.

Stock exchanges were developed as the volume of stock transactions increased. The London Royal Exchange established in 1565 first developed as a securities market, though by 1801 it had become a stock exchange. "In the middle of the 13th century Venetian bankers began to trade in government securities. In 1351 the Venetian government outlawed spreading rumors intended to lower the price of government funds." The Amsterdam Stock Exchange (or Amsterdam Beurs) is also said to have been the first stock exchange to introduce continuous trade in the early 17th century. The Dutch "pioneered short selling, option trading, debt equity swaps, merchant banking, unit trusts and other speculative instruments, much as we know them."

Insurance companies were another way to mitigate risk. Insurance in one form or another has been around as far back as there are records. What differed about insurance going into the 16th and 17th centuries was that these informal mechanisms became formalized. Lloyd's of London came into being in 1688 in English coffee shops that catered to sailors, traders, and others involved in trade. Lloyd's coffeehouse published a newspaper, which gave news from various parts of the world, and helped the underwriters of the insurance at the coffeehouse to determine the risk. This innovation was one of many that allowed for the categorization of risk. Another innovation was the use of ship catalogs and classifications. Other forms of insurance began to appear as well. After the Great Fire of London, Nicholas Barbon began to sell fire insurance in 1667. Laws were changed to deal with insurance issues, such as l'Ordonnance de la Marine (by Colbert in 1681).

As the economy grew through the commercial revolution, so did attempts to understand and influence it. Economic theory as a separate subject of its own came into being as the stresses of the new global order brought about two opposing theories of how a nation accumulates wealth: mercantilistic and free trade policies. Mercantilism inflamed the growing hostilities between the increasingly centralized European powers as the accumulation of precious metals by governments was seen as important to the prestige and power of a modern nation. This involvement in accumulating gold and silver (among other things) became important in the development of the nation state. Governments' involvement in trade affected the nobility of western European nations, because increased wealth by non nobles threatened the nobility's place in society.

Governments became involved in trade directly through the granting of royal trade monopolies. For example, Walter Raleigh had been granted a trade monopoly by Queen Elizabeth, for the export of broadcloth and wine. Ironically, competition between colonial powers led to their granting of trade monopolies to the East India Companies.

A triangular trade occurred in this period: between Africa, North and South America, and Europe; and it worked in the following way: Slaves came from Africa, and went to the Americas; raw materials came from the Americas and went to Europe; from there, finished goods came from Europe and were sold back to the Americas at a much higher price. Due the massive die off of the indigenous people, the Americas had a local deficit of labor required for the extraction of resources (such as gold and silver) and farming. Europe was also recovering from the Black Plague and its resurgences, and population growth was slowed by intermittent warfare by European nations among themselves and against the Ottoman Empire. As a result of these limitations, the colonial powers were unable to satisfy the labor shortage through emigration, and the Atlantic Slave Trade was established to import the labor. This can be contrasted with the Qing dynasty's colonization of Inner Asia, whereby the high population in China proper produced policies that encouraged Han resettlement in Dzungaria during the 18th century, and Inner Mongolia and Manchuria during the 19th century.

Laws began to change to deal with commerce, both internationally, and locally within individual countries. In France, for example, the Ordinance of Marine of Louis XIV was published under the auspices of Colbert in 1691, and was the first complete code of maritime and commercial law; and "when we consider the originality and extent of the design and the ability with which it is executed, we shall not hesitate to admit that it deserves to be ranked among the noblest works that legislative genius and learning have ever accomplished." In England, the Navigation Acts were among the British effort to regulate trade.

The commercial revolution, coupled with other changes in the early modern period, had dramatic effects on the globe. For more than 2000 years the Mediterranean Sea had been the focus of European trade with other parts of the world. This focus shifted to the Atlantic Ocean by routes south around the Cape of Good Hope after 1488, and by trans Atlantic trade after 1492. Older overland trade routes such as the Silk Road suffered economic decline due to the new maritime competition. Christopher Columbus and the conquistadors, through their travels, were indirectly responsible for the massive depopulation of South America. They conquered the Inca, Aztec, and Maya peoples and incorporated their territories into the Spanish Empire. Other Europeans similarly affected the peoples of North America as well. An equally important consequence of the commercial revolution was the Columbian Exchange. Plants and animals moved throughout the world due to human movements. For example, Yellow fever, previously unknown in North and South America, was imported through water that ships took on in Africa. Cocoa (chocolate), coffee, maize, cassava, and potatoes moved from one hemisphere to the other. Better food and more wealth allowed for larger families. The migration of peoples from Europe to the Americas allowed for European populations to increase. Higher caloric yields of the New World staple crops reduced the percentage of the workforce engaged in agricultural labor and accelerated Urbanization. Europe's commercial revolution also created a foundation of wealth needed for the industrial revolution. The expanding labor force was also redirected into nascent industrialization. Economic prosperity financed new forms of cultural expression during this period.