#pirenne

Les Vainqueurs de l’Yser (Pirenne)

Economists who have asseverated the insignificance of medieval commerce by looking at it through the wrong end of the telescope, that is, in the light of the twentieth centry, have pleaded in support of their argument the absense of a class of capitalist merchants in Europe previous to the Renaissance. They may be disposed to make an exception in favour of a few Italian firms, but it is the exception that proves the rule. It has even been asserted that the typical merchant of the Middle Ages was a small tradesman, solely preoccupied in getting a living and with no idea of profit, or desire to enrich himself. It is of course undeniable that numbers of retail dealers of this kind were to be found among the petite bourgeoisie of the towns, but it would be fantastic to reduce the exporters and bankers, whose operations we have been describing, to their level. Only those who are completely blinded to reality by a preconceived theory can deny the importance and influence of commercial capitalism from the beggining of economic renaissance. (...) Scant as they are, medieval sources place the exitence of capitalism in the twelfth centry beyond a doubt. From the long-distance trade unquestionably produced considerable fortunes. (...) These are, after all, the essential characteristics of capitalism, of which a certain school of historians makes so great a mystery, but which, nevertheless, is to be met with at all periods, fundamentally the same though in differing degrees of develpment, because it corresponds with man's acquisitive instinct.