[Top]
[Economy]
[Intro ToC ]
The Economy of Europe in the Renaissance
Commercial Techniques
General Remarks
As with trade, your authors do a pretty good job of covering this
subject. Hay and Jensen both explain the significant innovations
that were widely adopted: double-entry bookkeeping, contracts,
insurance, companies, banking. They point out that these
innovations were slow to be adopted north of the Alps.
The ability to move and manage large amounts of capital, and even
more the ability to manage paper representations of capital, gave
the Italians a decisive edge over the rest of Europe for a very
long time. It was not until the rise of Antwerp and later of
Amsterdam and London that the "barbarians" overcame the Italian
lead.