Professor John Munro munro5@chass.utoronto.ca

Department of Economics john.munro@utoronto.ca

UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO http://www.economics.utoronto.ca/munro5/



ECO. 201Y1



The Economic History of Later Medieval and Early Modern Europe



(European Economic History, 1250 - 1750)



LECTURE NOTES: SCHEDULE FOR 2001 - 2002



The following table provides a list of the lecture notes to be published online, on my Home Page, as indicated above, but only in Portable Document Format [pdf] which requires Adobe Acrobat Reader [see the course outline]. When the lecture has been published and so posted in pdf, its delivery date, in column 2, will be highlighted in blue and underlined. If the lecture notes are subsequently revised once more and reposted, the word 'revised' will appear under the date. You will, however, have to use the html version of this document, i.e. with the table below, to access those lectures, by so clicking on the highlighted titles. Such access is, of course, not available in pdf documents.



Most of the lectures sets pertain to just one weekly lecture, but a few of these numbered sets will cover two lecture dates. The dates below are those on which the actual lecture(s) was/were delivered. The relevant lecture notes, numbered as indicated in this table, and complete with tables, graphs, maps, technological illustrations (where appropriate), will usually be available within three days of the delivery of the lecture, i.e. by the end of that week. The topics in column 3 are taken from the detailed outline of the lectures:

http://www.economics.utoronto.ca/munro5/201LECT.pdf



Those students without internet access but only those who are enrolled in this course (and thus only those whose names appear on the class list) may purchase these lectures, below their real cost, at $3.00 per lecture. They may be obtained from the Economics Department Library at 150 St. George Street, N107, from:



Mrs. Ursula Gutenburg: (416) 978 - 8623: econlib@chass.utoronto.ca

Mrs. Elisabeth Bicserdi: (416) 978 - 4622: bicserdi@chass.utoronto.ca





No. Date (Wednesdays) Title of Lecture/Lecture Topics Covered
1 12 & 19 September 2001 ECONOMICS 201Y: INTRODUCTION: Why study economic history?

I. BARRIERS TO ECONOMIC GROWTH IN THE MEDIEVAL ECONOMY:



A. A Survey of International and Regional Commerce during the Apogee of the Medieval 'Commercial Revolution' Era, 1250 - 1320:

B. West European Feudalism: As a Military, Political, and Economic Institution

2 26 September 2001 I. BARRIERS TO GROWTH IN THE MEDIEVAL ECONOMY

C. West European Manorialism and Peasant Serfdom:

D. Agricultural Field Systems North and South:

1. Mediterranean 'Dry Farming': the Two-Field System

2. The Northern Three-Field and 'Open' or 'Common' Field Systems

E. Serfdom and Manorial Peasant Societies:

F. Feudalism, Manorialism, Open Fields, and Serfdom as Barriers to Growth

3 3 & 10 October 2001 II. MACRO- AND STRUCTURAL CHANGES IN THE EUROPEAN ECONOMY, 1300 - 1520

A. Population: Demographic Changes Before and After the Black Death, 1290-1500

4 17 October 2001 II. MACRO- AND STRUCTURAL CHANGES IN THE EUROPEAN ECONOMY, 1300 - 1520

B. Money, Credit, and the Money Supplies: Monetary Changes, from c.1300 - 1520

5 24 October 2001 II. MACRO- AND STRUCTURAL CHANGES IN THE EUROPEAN ECONOMY, 1300 - 1520

C. The Course of Prices, 1250 - 1520

D. Slump and Recovery in the 14th & 15th Centuries: the Late-Medieval 'Great Depression' Debate

6 31 October 2001 III. LATE-MEDIEVAL AGRICULTURE: Changes in Later Medieval Agrarian European Society, from c. 1300 - c. 1520



A. Late-Medieval Peasant Serfdom: Its Decline in the West and Rise in the East

B. Mediterranean Agriculture: the Agrarian Responses to the Late-Medieval Crises in Italy, Southern France and Spain

C. Northern Agriculture: Agrarian Changes in the Late-Medieval Low Countries and northern France (Artois and Picardy)

7 7 November 2001 III. LATE-MEDIEVAL AGRICULTURE: Changes in Later Medieval Agrarian Society, c. 1300 - c. 1520



D. England: Sheep-Farming and Enclosures as Responses to Agrarian Crises and Adversities.

8 7 & 14 November 2001 IV. MANUFACTURING INDUSTRIES: LATE-MEDIEVAL EUROPE



A. The Wool Textile Industries: Woollens and Worsteds

9 14 November 2001 V. INTERNATIONAL COMMERCE: Changing Patterns of International Trade in Late Medieval Europe, 1280 - 1520

A. The Role of Commerce and International Trade in European Economic Development

B. Warfare and Plague: Rising Transaction Costs in International Trade, c. 1280 - c. 1400

C. The Decline of the Champagne Fairs: the Relative Shift from Transcontinental to Maritime Commerce

D. Italy and the Mediterranean World: the Growing Supremacy of Venice, 1300 - 1500

10 21 November 2001 IV. INTERNATIONAL COMMERCE: Changing Patterns of International Trade in Late Medieval Europe, 1280 - 1520



E. The Baltic and Northern Commerce: the Rise of the German Hanseatic League, to 1400

F. The Low Countries: Flanders and the Hanse

G. The Low Countries: the Rise of the Dutch Commercial Empire to 1520

1. Mastery of the Herring Trades

2. The Dutch Invasion of the Baltic

11 28 November 2001 V. INTERNATIONAL COMMERCE: Changing Patterns of International Trade in Late Medieval Europe, ca. 1280 - ca. 1520



H. England: International Victory in the Cloth Trade

I. Italy, South Germany, and Recovery in Trans-Continental Trade Routes (1420 - 1520)

J. The Rise of Antwerp as an International Entrepot, 1420 to 1520: South German Metals, English Cloth, and Asian Spices

12 28 November 2001 V. INTERNATIONAL COMMERCE: Changing Patterns of International Trade in Late Medieval Europe, ca. 1280 - ca. 1520

K. Portugal and the Beginnings of Overseas Explorations and Colonization: Africa, Asia, and the Americas (1440 - 1520)

L. Spain and the Americas, to the 1520s

13 5 December 2001 VI. BANKING, CREDIT, AND FINANCE IN LATE MEDIEVAL EUROPE, 1280 - 1520



A. The Medieval Church and the Usury Question

B. The Italians and the Origins of Modern Banking

1. Deposit Banking

2. The Bill of Exchange

3. International Trade and Finance

C. The Low Countries and England: the Origins of Negotiable Credit Instruments

D. Innovations in Public Credit: Municipal and National Annuities; and Negotiable Bonds

14 9 January 2002 VII. MACRO- AND STRUCTURAL CHANGES IN THE EUROPEAN ECONOMY, 1520 - 1750



A. Population: Demographic Expansion during the 'Price Revolution' Era, 1520 - 1640

B. Population: Demographic Slumps and Stagnation during the '17th Century General Crisis', 1640 - 1750

15 16 January 2002 VII. MACRO- AND STRUCTURAL CHANGES IN THE EUROPEAN ECONOMY, 1520 - 1750



  • Money and Credit during the 'Price Revolution' Era, 1520 - 1640: German Silver, Spanish American Silver, and Public Credit

D. Money and Credit during the 17th Century 'General Crisis', 1640 - 1750

16 23 January 2002 VII. MACRO- AND STRUCTURAL CHANGES IN THE EUROPEAN ECONOMY, 1520 - 1750



E. Inflation: The Course of Prices during the 'Price Revolution' Era, 1520 - 1640

F The 'Price Revolution' and Its Consequences: the Debate

G. Deflation/Stagnation: The Course of Prices during the '17th-Century General Crisis', c. 1640 - 1750

17 30 January 2002 VIII. AGRARIAN CHANGES IN EARLY-MODERN EUROPE:



A. THE LOW COUNTRIES: Agricultural Precocity and Growth in Flanders and Holland

B. ENGLAND: The Enclosure Movement in Tudor - Stuart England, ca. 1520 - 1640

18 6 February 2002 VIII. AGRARIAN CHANGES IN EARLY-MODERN EUROPE:



C. ENGLISH AGRICULTURE: Technological Changes, c.1520 - c.1740

D. England: Agrarian Crisis and Innovations, 1640 - 1740

19 13 February 2002 VIII. AGRARIAN CHANGES IN EARLY-MODERN EUROPE:



E. FRANCE: Agriculture in Early-Modern France: 15th to 18th Centuries

20 27 February 2002 IX. COMMERCE: CHANGING PATTERNS OF REGIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL TRADE IN EARLY-MODERN EUROPE, CA. 1520 - 1750



A. The Dutch Commercial Empire: Apogee, and Hegemony, and Decline, 1520 - 1760

1. The Baltic Heartland

2. Overseas Expansion: Asia and the Spice Trades

3. Overseas Expansion: the Caribbean

4. Overseas Expansion: North America

5. The Decline of the Dutch Commercial Empire, 1720 - 1780

B. Dutch Shipping and Shipbuilding: Sources and Consequences of Commercial Supremacy

21 27 February & 6 March 2002 IX. COMMERCE: CHANGING PATTERNS OF REGIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL TRADE IN EARLY-MODERN EUROPE, CA. 1520 - 1750



C. English Foreign Commerce: the Cloth Trade, the Breakaway from the Antwerp Market, and the New Overseas Trading Companies, 1520 - 1600

D. The English Overseas Commercial Empire: the 17th Century

1. The East India Company and the Asian Trades

2. The Caribbean

3. North America

E. English Commerce and the 'General Crisis' of the 17th-Century, 1620 - 1750: Crisis, Depression, and the Colonial Re-Export Trades ('The New Colonialism')

F. The Mediterranean World: Italy, Turkey, England, and France

22 13 March 2002 IX. COMMERCE: CHANGING PATTERNS OF REGIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL TRADE IN EARLY-MODERN EUROPE, CA. 1520 - 1750



G. Mercantilism, Money, and the State in Foreign Trade, 16th to 18th Centuries

23 13 March 2002 X. BANKING, FINANCE, AND BUSINESS ORGANIZATION, 1520 - 1750



A. European Public Finance, Financial Innovations, and the Antwerp Market, 1520 - 1560

24 20 March 2002 X. BANKING, FINANCE, AND BUSINESS ORGANIZATION, 1520 - 1750



B. The Dutch Republic: Money, Banking, and Finance in the 17th Century

C. The Dutch Republic: the Wisselbank van Amsterdam

D. The Dutch Republic: Acceptance Banking and Commercial Decline in the 18th Century

25 20 March 2002 X. BANKING, FINANCE, AND BUSINESS ORGANIZATION, 1520 - 1750



E. England: Business Organization and Joint Stock Companies to the South Sea Bubble Era, 1550 - 1720

26 27 March 2002 X. BANKING, FINANCE, AND BUSINESS ORGANIZATION, 1520 - 1750



F. England: Private Commercial Banking in the 16th and Early 17th Centuries

G. England: The Goldsmith Banks and the Origins of Modern Banking, 1640 - 1700

H. England: the Bank of England as a Private and Public Banker, 1694 - 1750

I. England: the Bank of England and the National Debt, 1694 - 1752

J. England: Private Commercial Banking in the 18th Century: the Country Banks

K. Scotland: the Development of a Superior Banking System

27 3 April 2002 XI. MANUFACTURING INDUSTRIES: INDUSTRIAL CHANGE IN EARLY-MODERN EUROPE, 1520 - 1750



A. The Textile Industries in the Low Countries and England: The Crisis of the 'Old Draperies' and the Rise of 'New Draperies'

B. Textiles and 'Proto-Industrialization': Rural Textile Crafts, the Mendels Thesis, and the 'Transition to Modern Industrialism'

28 10 April 2002 XI. MANUFACTURING INDUSTRIES: INDUSTRIAL CHANGE IN EARLY-MODERN EUROPE, 1520 - 1750



C. The Mining Industries: Germany and England

D. Coal and the New Coal-Burning Industries in England: the 'Energy Crisis' and the Origins of English Supremacy: the Nef Thesis

E. Metallurgy: the German Blast Furnace and the Origins of Industrial Capitalism in Iron Making, 1480 - 1540

F. Metallurgy: Expansion and Stagnation in the English Iron Industry, 1520 - 1750

G. British and Continental European Industries on the Even of the Modern 'Industrial Revolution'