Commerce et finance en Méditerranée au moyen-âge , and: Structure et évolution du capitalisme européen XVI e - XVII e siecles (review)

Abstract

Reviews 177 The first and third sections of the book offer a range of essays on the changing uses of the classics and satire in French political debate and on a variety of popular revolts in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries (including the well known summary of the Mousnier-Porshnev polemic.) Here the emphasis is on different contexts, on localism and a certain quality of paradox rather than the easy answers of 'class conflict' or 'absolutist centralization'. 'The ideas expressed at moments of crisis', writes Salmon, 'are by no means irrelevant to the interpretation of historical process. W h e n seen in their socid context they attest to the powerful but unpredictable ways in which human volition has shaped the past'. These essays on the ideological articulation of some of the crises in siexteenth- and seventeenth-century France and Europe offer a glimpse of just how intricate and fascinating the consequent formulations can be. Alastair MacLachlan Department of History University of Sydney Sayous, A. E., Commerce et finance en Mediterranee au moyen-age, London, Variorum, 1988; pp. x, 338; R.R.P. £34.00; Idem, Structure et evolution du capitalisme europeen XVI e - XVII e siecles, London, Variorum, 1989; pp. xxiv, 294; R.R.P. £34.00. Andre' Sayous was one of the most intriguing characters amongst scholars of the medieval and early m o d e m European economy in the 1920s and 1930s. B o m at Nice in 1873, he studied at Paris and then went to Berlin in 1896 for his doctorate, where he fell under the influence of Adolphe Wagner and Gustav Schmoller. H e then began a career as a businessman and economic journalist In the mid 1920's he returned to historical scholarship and published prolificdly until he disappeared early in the Second World War. The list of his publications is bewildering. Between 1925 and 1941 he published one book and 99 (sic!) articles, many of which involved extensive primary research. His studies all stemmed from an essential interest in the historical nature of capitalism but ranged widely over medieval Mediterranean economic history, particularly that of Genoa, Marseilles and Barcelona, the economic history of the Spanish Americas, monetary and banking history, maritime history, the law of contract, the development of the bourgeoisie, Muslim North Africa, and the debate on the nature of capitalism. To all of these subjects he brought a penetrating intellect and idiosyncratic persondity. Many of his studies were pioneering works in their fields and have since generated further enquiry by many historians. To the debate on the nature of capitdism he contributed a powerful opposition to Weber and Sombart based 178 Reviews on a perception of the essential nature of capitalism lying in business techniques. The first of these two volumes is divided into four sections containing: (1) three articles on commercial techniques at Barcelona from the 13th to 15th centuries; (2) three articles on the business life of 13th-century Marseilles (unfortunately not the best one on the Marseillese trade with Syria); (3) two articles on the economic life of Siena and Venice and; (4) two articles on the movement of capitd between France and the Holy Land during the Sixth Crusade and on the operations of Italian bankers at the Champagne fairs. The article, 'Les mandats de Saint Louis sur son Tresor et le mouvement international des capitaux pendant la Septieme Croisade (1248-1254)' (Review historique, 217 (1931), 254-304) is still the seminal work in its field. The second volume is divided into three sections containing: (1) three articles on commercial relations between Spain and the Americas; (2) three articles on monetary exchanges in the Spanish Americas and; (3) five articles on various types of capitalism from twelfth-century Genoa to 16th-century Augsburg and 17th-century Amsterdam. Naturally enough considering the passage of time and the enormous growth of scholarship since Sayous' death, some of his work has stood the test of time better than other of it. The work on Marseilles in particular has now been virtudly eclipsed. That on Barcelona has survived better. The various studies of medieval Genoa, Venice, and other Italian towns are now useful only in limited ways. O n...