The International Economy in the "Age of the Discoveries", 1470-1570

The monograph examines the fluctuations on the Anglo-Netherlands financial and goods markets within the changing parameters of a nascent European-based "world economy" (1470-1570). It focuses on the major financial centres of the time (Antwerp, London) and examines their interdependencies, as well as their role as agents financing international trade and commodity flows. In this volume an attempt will be made to examine the world of those English merchants who first accessed the international economy in order to distribute English produce (mainly wool, cloth and lead) and secure such goods as were required by the nation's consumers, such as foreign spices and other exotic consumables. By drawing on financial and macro-economic data, such as prices and exchange rates, as well as micro-data, such as individual merchants' accounts, a comprehensive and intimate sketch is drawn of the working mechanisms of an emerging modern, European-centred, world economy.