Search Results

This chapter sets out the hierarchical, exploitative conditions of the late pre-colonial period that villagers would react against. The elusiveness of ritual authority that characterized indigenous religious practice helps elaborate the relatively low profile of Islam in relationships of dependency beyond the coast. The chapter first discusses the coast in terms of a reference point in regional politics. The factors mitigating Muslim influence up-country are shown. It is tempting to suggest that big men turned to Islam to overcome the limitations of their role in local religious practice. Muslim practice was diverse on the coast and became discernible up-country in discrete elements, and big men had no reason to assume that they would be able to retain control over it. Additionally, the oral evidence on long-distance trade, viewed from the villages, and the effects of colonization, are presented. The role of coastal Muslims in the interior was nothing if not ambiguous. Inasmuch as Muslim practice was recognized as ritual practice, it faced both towards society and towards spirit forces.

This chapter highlights the need from the perspective of the consuming community for an integrated approach to the comparative analysis of quantified material culture and environmental assemblages and change over time. At the same time, given the plentiful evidence for long-distance trade in the Roman world, it is important to begin to understand what this represented to different consuming communities in terms of expectations and values. What are ‘normal’ distributions in a marine or terrestrial environment, or in different social contexts? Long-distance traded goods are common on early Roman military sites on the frontiers, but rare on native sites, though in real terms it would have cost the same to reach both communities. Were these goods luxury in the native context, but everyday in the military? What would the military have considered as exotic?

This chapter presents the literature on Eurasian trade, the geography of trade environment, and the organizational challenges faced by long-distance trade. The expansion of trade from local to long-distance to Eurasian trade was a major challenge to merchants everywhere. Operators had to overcome tough and, at times, even hostile environments on the oceans, straits, deserts, and steppes. They had to match the supply of goods in one location to the demand in a faraway, climatically and culturally different location. The chapter shows how institutions were crucial in overcoming the challenges. It establishes the existence of a wide historiographical space that justifies the focus on the early history of late-coming trade companies, and on their organizational challenges and solutions.

This chapter talks about the interplay between family, religion, and ruler—three key components of every premodern society, which was the major factor in shaping the pattern of migration of the various organizational forms. The interplay determined the resistance of regions and civilizations outside Europe to the importation and transplantation of the business corporation. It argues that sixteenth-century Europeans, particularly the Portuguese, did not design a good institutional framework for conducting Cape Route trade with Asia. Seventeenth-century Europeans, led by the Dutch and the English, designed an institutional framework that suited their environmental challenges well and facilitated long-distance trade between Europe and Asia. The chapter emphasizes that organizational factors determined the rise of English and Dutch Eurasian trade dominance in the seventeenth century—asserting instead that technology and violence had more determinative weight.

This chapter argues that a number of precursor institutions of the long-distance trade organization developed locally, independently, and endemically in many different places along the Eurasian landmass. It shows that there is often no direct and clear evidence for the endogenous origins of institutions. The chapter also discusses the endemic appearance of an institution that does not have a clear pattern of migration but, together with its relatively simple structure, supports the identification of an endogenous institution. Endogenous institutions are often organic, as is the case with the itinerant trader or the family, or simple institutions that address basic functions, such as the loan, agency, or ship. They are to be found throughout Eurasia, and there is no historical evidence of a single historical origin for any of them or of a clear route of their migration.

This chapter details the two principal materialist research foci of the project, water and cacao. Water control systems in Mesoamerica and at ancient Maya cities are reviewed in order to set the discoveries at Chocolá in context in an attempt to understand both functional and ideological meanings of water control at the ancient city. Chocolá’s hydraulic engineering, including stone conduits and canals, closely resembles the systems at Takalik Abaj and Kaminaljuyu, suggesting a deliberate sharing of technology and underscoring the likelihood of links between these three ancient cities and polities. Similarly, the context of cacao in ancient Mesoamerica and specifically in the ancient Maya world is explained, leading to the hypothesis of intensive surplus arboriculture—large cacao groves—that, it is proposed, underlay Chocolá’s rise to wealth and power as a complex society. In addition, a “mystery tale” is recounted, in which one of the most stunning carved monuments of the Southern Maya Region, the so-called Shook Altar, plays a central role in the authors’ theory of surplus cacao production at Chocolá and long-distance trade of the commodity.

This chapter discusses the trade diaspora, an institution that was all but obligatory for regular, long-distance trade in the absence of third-party enforcement. Traders could do business in a foreign community because people from their homeland had moved there permanently and could vouch for them. If a promise to pay or deliver according to agreement was not fulfilled, foreign settlers could be held accountable for any debt of their fellow citizens. All members of a diaspora network—itinerant and stationary alike—ultimately faced expulsion if they behaved opportunistically. The chapter then focuses on a single diaspora: the Phoenician. Because of their centuries-long Mediterranean mercantile tradition, one can trace their interaction with public institutions through much of Greco-Roman history.

This chapter explains why and how the corporation was transformed into a business corporation. It follows the early history of the corporation and examines how the corporation acquired attributes on separate legal personality and collective decision making, which were familiar to Edward Coke and his contemporaries. The chapter argues that the years around 1600 constitute an organizational revolution. It explains why European corporations were transformed around 1600 from public entities into joint-stock, for-profit entities and why this occurred in Northwest Europe and not elsewhere in Europe. The chapter also talks about why corporations were so suitable for long-distance trade that they rapidly took control of the Cape Route and rose to dominance in Eurasian trade as a whole, at the expense of family firms, merchant networks, and ruler-operated enterprises.

This chapter examines the parallel literary traditions of the mythic Alexander the Great in the Eurasian archipelagic peripheries of Britain and Southeast Asia, focusing on how Alexander stories were transmitted from late antiquity through the medieval period and transformed by early modern authors. It looks at the global literary networks linking the British and Southeast Asian peripheries, along with their receptions of the Greek novel Alexander Romance. It also explores how Alexander was appropriated into English and Malay literatures and how both literary traditions connected him to the material culture and imagined presence of foreign others as part of their intercultural resonances. Finally, it describes how the myth of Alexander became intertwined with alterity and foreign relations at the two ends of the Eurasian trade routes, how he became associated with long-distance trade, and how he influenced the self-representation of emerging maritime empires.

This chapter presents a broad survey of different ways in which commercial conflicts in long-distance trade were resolved in northwestern Europe between 1250 and 1650. Different kinds of courts—linked to fairs, local, consular, and finally national—played a role in contract enforcement. As the needs of merchants changed, the role played by different courts changed as well. Increasingly local courts took over the function of specialized consular courts, which previously had catered for the needs of alien merchants in. The discussion notes that this process is the result of a growing convergence of business practices, creating a more comprehensive set of contracting rules shared by the merchant community at large. It also demonstrates that even the procedures for arbitration were increasingly formalized, with arbiters often drawn from legal professionals and arbiters' decisions made legally binding.

This chapter examines the quotation claiming that Jews invented marine insurance and bills of exchange, which can be read from a compilation of maritime laws assembled with commentary by a provincial French lawyer, Étienne Cleirac, published in Bordeaux under the title Us et coustumes de la mer (Usages and Customs of the Sea). By adding bills of exchange to his commentary on marine insurance, Cleirac paired two credit contracts that by the mid-seventeenth century had become indispensable to long-distance trade and were handled by merchants of all sorts. By this time, marine insurance was no longer considered usurious. In contrast, bills of exchange continued to ignite fierce debates over usury. The ease with which bills of exchange could be passed from one person to another generated the erroneous but indelible impression that they were like paper money. However, unlike banknotes, they were not fully negotiable, nor were payers obliged to accept them.

This chapter explains that the period 1713–50 was one of sharp deterioration in European Jewry's demographic position. It is true that a steady increase persisted in many parts, but, from the second decade of the eighteenth century onwards, the population of Europe as a whole began to burgeon once more so that, other than in the eastern territories of Poland, Jewish population growth now lagged well behind that of the rest. Moreover, and a more immediately relevant factor in the economic and cultural decline of European Jewry during the eighteenth century, practically all the leading Jewish urban centres displayed a marked incapacity for growth. Previously, from 1570 down to 1713, the economic policies of the European states, concentrating on the promotion of long-distance commerce, had encouraged the increasing integration of the Jewish trade network into the European economy as a whole, and this had laid the basis for the revival of Jewish life in progress in central and western Europe since the late sixteenth century. After 1713, however, a less favourable trend set in. Whilst the European states were still ruled by mercantilist notions, they now adopted more comprehensively protectionist policies, concentrating on the promotion of manufacturing activity rather than long-distance trade.

This chapter introduces the conventions of British shipping during the mid sixteenth to late seventeenth centuries, concluding in 1689, a year Davis regarded as a turning point in the growth and commercial development of shipping. It begins by comparing British shipping unfavourably to Dutch shipping in 1560, then addresses the mid-century development of British fisheries and the coal trade. It also charts the development of long-distance trade; the disruptiveness of the Spanish Armada and various other wars; growth in tonnage and value; the steady development and impact of Northern trade the seventeenth century; and the trade of colonial goods. It concludes by with a summary of the economic literature pertaining to the period.

In this chapter the roles and activities of those who engaged in production and supply in the Roman world are discussed. This discussion includes remarks on the social organization that underpins this aspect of Roman society, most notably the distinctions between landowners and traders. Landed proprietors were considered respectable, even if they exploited their estates for non-agricultural ends. Long-distance commerce, however, was an exception in their commercial activities. The theory that many landowners nevertheless engaged in such activity covertly, concealed behind their slaves or freedmen, is not supported by solid evidence. Instead, they were able to profit from the commercial enterprises they financed, often by heavily taxing these ventures through high interest rates on loans, thus avoiding the risks and constraints associated with such activities.

This chapter examines mid-third-century BCE Syria-Palestine, an area ruled by the Ptolemies at the time. As in all Hellenistic states, the power structure of the Ptolemaic kingdom was strongly personalized. A small number of state actors surrounding the king were allowed access to agricultural surplus, making them influential men politically and economically. Moreover, the process by which the ruling elite negotiated power through conspicuous consumption, diplomatic tokens, and gift-giving drove the wheels of an expanding economy of long-distance trade in both luxury goods and agricultural staples. The chapter then considers the activities of a certain Zenon, who was an agent of the Ptolemaic finance minister Apollonios. By tracing the activities of these men, one can analyze how—as a public official—Apollonios managed the Ptolemaic overseas territory of Syria-Palestine. Ultimately, the Ptolemaic state that Apollonios served provided public goods, including a banking system and a public-order apparatus.

This chapter discusses one of Alfonso VIII's paths to solidifying and advancing his kingdom—his monetary policy. As did his contemporaries throughout Latin Europe, Alfonso VIII struck silver-alloyed denarii to serve as coins of daily exchange in an expanding monetary economy. He also introduced a high-value gold piece, derived from the dinar of his Muslim neighbors, which was more suitable for long-distance trade. In the early 1170s, Alfonso VIII took the monetary initiative that helped put Castile on the European map; he began striking the gold morabetino alfonsino in Toledo. Unlike some of Alfonso VIII's early billon, his morabetino shows no sign of being a short-lived propaganda piece. Its persistent appearance in charters, both in Castile as well as in Aragon-Catalonia and Navarre, shows it filled an economic niche. Indeed, Alfonso VIII's gold morabetino played a prominent role in the Mediterranean economy.

This chapter examines the late seventeenth-century Malay prose romance, Hikayat Hang Tuah (Story of Hang Tuah), a maritime epic that projects the figure of Alexander the Great onto a merchant character in a trading world. Hikayat Hang Tuah retells the story of Melaka’s legendary admiral, Hang Tuah, a long-distance trader modeled after the Islamic Alexander. The text is structured around trade embassies to the Mughal and Ottoman Empires, in which Tuah performs the role of the long-distance merchant. The chapter considers Tuah’s kinship diplomacy, his function within Hikayat Hang Tuah’s conception of sovereignty, and how his association with Alexander rescripts the latter’s image. It also explores how Tuah’s outsider identity reworks the Southeast Asian pattern of stranger-kings, of which Alexander was the most important, before concluding with an analysis of Tuah as a commoner or demotic Alexander, who exemplifies the new non-monarchical heroic model of merchant seaborne empires.

This chapter explores the phenomenon of silver fragmentation from the evidence of silver hoards deposited in the Baltic area. Focusing on the evidence of dirhams, it charts an increase in silver fragmentation in an anticlockwise direction around the Baltic Sea. This culminates in hoards from the west Slavic lands (Poland and eastern Germany), in which dirham fragments often weigh just fractions of a gram. Chronological and geographical patterns are presented to suggest that the degree of dirham fragmentation reflects not local monetary circulation, but the number of times dirhams changed hands in commercial transactions. In this sense, the degree of fragmentation reflects the distance dirhams travelled from their source. The implication is that silver was above all a means of payment in transactions related to the long-distance trade—especially in slaves and furs.