Between Medieval Continuities and Early Modern Change: Proto-industrialization and Consumption in the Southern Low Countries (1300–1800)

Abstract

This essay discusses two interrelated questions about historical change: in what sense did early modern industries differ from their medieval predecessors; and which elements explain the diverging historical dynamics of European proto-industrial regions? Also considered is the issue of how and why some regions succeeded in selling their products in growing markets, while others apparently failed. This essay also assesses four aspects which have influenced regional success or failure, and which at the same time differentiated seventeenth- and eighteenth-century production and consumption from the late medieval world: the new role of the state, the world economy, rural consumption, and the challenge of fashion. It examines the main changes occurring in these fields between roughly 1650 and 1800, distinguishing between different phases of development for different regions and arguing that some of the success or the failure of a region, and thus their developmental capacities, lay in the interaction with these four fields. Textile industries serve as case studies, with a focus on the Southern Netherlands and comparisons from France, the Dutch Republic, Germany and England.