TPO46

The Commercial Revolution in Medieval Europe

中世纪欧洲商业革命

社会学

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Beginning in the 1160s, the opening of new silver mines in northern Europe led to the minting(铸造) and circulation of vast quantities of silver coins.
The widespread use of cash greatly increased the volume(量) of international trade.
Business procedures changed radically. The individual traveling merchant who alone handled virtually(几乎，差不多) all aspects of exchange evolved into an operation involving three separate types of merchants: the sedentary merchant who ran the “home office” financing and organizing the firm’s entire export-import trade; the carriers who transported goods by land and sea; and the company agents resident in cities abroad who, on the advice of the home office, looked after sales and procurements(采购).

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Commercial correspondence(商业通信), unnecessary when one businessperson oversaw everything and made direct bargains with buyers and sellers, multiplied.

commercial correspendence mutiplied. 商业通信被大量使用

Regular courier service(快递服务) among commercial cities began.

Commercial accounting became more complex when firms had to deal with shareholders(股东), manufacturers, customers, branch offices, employees, and competing firms.

Tolls on roads(公路收费) became high enough to finance(融资) what has been called a road revolution, involving new surfaces(路面) and bridges, new passes(隧道) through the Alps, and new inns and hospices(招待所) for travelers.

The growth of mutual trust among merchants facilitated the growth of sales on credit(赊账) and led to new developments in finance, such as the bill of exchange(汇票) , a device that made the long, slow, and very dangerous shipment of coins unnecessary.

The ventures(n.(尤指有风险的) 企业，商业，投机活动，经营项目;) of the German Hanseatic League illustrate these advancements. The Hanseatic League was a mercantile association of European towns dating from 1159.

The league grew by the end of the fourteenth century to include about 200 cities from Holland to Poland.

Across regular, well- defined trade routes along the Baltic and North seas, the ships of league cities carried furs, wax, copper, fish, grain, timber, and wine.

These goods were exchanged for finished products(成品) , mainly cloth and salt, from western cities.

raw marterial 原材料

semi-finished product 半成品

finished product 成品

At cities such as Bruges and London, Hanseatic merchants secured special trading concessions(贸易优惠) , exempting(免除) them from all tolls and allowing them to trade at local fairs(集市).

concession n.让步; 妥协; 承认; 给予; 许可; 减价; (对某类人的) 减价票;

exempt v.免除; 豁免;

Hanseatic merchants established foreign trading centers, the most famous of which was the London Steelyard, a walled(封闭的) community with warehouses, offices, a church, and residential quarters(住宅区) for company representatives.

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By the late thirteenth century, Hanseatic merchants had developed an important business technique, the business register. Merchants publicly recorded their debts and contracts and received a league guarantee for them. This device proved a decisive factor in the later development of credit and commerce in northern Europe.

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These developments added up to what one modern scholar has called “a commercial revolution.”

In the long run(归根到底), the commercial revolution of the High Middle Ages (a d 1000-1300) brought about radical change(根本性的变化) in European society.

One remarkable(显著的) aspect of this change was that the commercial classes constituted(组成) a small part of the total population—never more than 10 percent.

They exercised an influence(施加影响) far in excess of(超过) their numbers.

The commercial revolution created a great deal of new wealth, which meant a higher standard of living. The existence of wealth did not escape the attention of kings and other rulers.

Wealth could be taxed, and through taxation, kings could create strong and centralized states. In the years to come, alliances with the middle classes were to enable kings to weaken aristocratic interests(利益) and build the states that came to be called modern.

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The commercial revolution also provided the opportunity for thousands of agricultural workers to improve their social position.

social position 社会位置

social status 社会地位

社会地位指一个人在社会中所获得的经常依赖于其社会位置的尊敬和声望等等

The slow but steady transformation of European society from almost completely rural and isolated to relatively more urban constituted the greatest effect of(影响) the commercial revolution that began in the eleventh century.

Even so, merchants and business people did not run medieval communities(掌控中世纪社会), except in central and northern Italy and in the county of Flanders.

Most towns remained small. The nobility and churchmen determined the predominant(主要的) social attitudes(社会态度),values(价值观) , and patterns of thought and behavior(思想和行为模式) . The commercial changes of the eleventh through fourteenth centuries did however,lay the economic foundation for the development of urban life and culture.