R. Nisbet Bain - The Cambridge Modern History

Where the conservative policy was successful and the small independent masters held their own, the results were not satisfactory; the craft-gilds could maintain the old rules, but they could not control the course of trade; business migrated to the centres where it could be conducted on capitalistic lines. In Flanders and in England we hear much of the conflict between urban and suburban workmen; this antagonism was partly due to the fact that the journeymen were inclined to migrate to districts where the rules which prevented them from setting up in business or working for capitalist employers could not be enforced. The trend of affairs was going against the old type of craft-gild; and these institutions, in so far as they were incompatible with the investment of capital in industrial occupations, were bound to pass away.

To some extent, however, they proved to be compatible with the new order; the craft-gilds played an important part by exercising a right of search, and by insisting that the wares exposed for sale should be good in quality. Both in France and in England they were retained to some extent as convenient instruments for the royal or parliamentary control of the conditions of work and the quality of the output; occasionally, too, they retained their name and tradition, though they had changed their character and become associations of employers. At the close of the sixteenth century the organisation of industry by capitalists, which had been exceptional in the fourteenth century, had come to be an ordinary arrangement in the principal manufacturing centres.

The freedom thus obtained for capitalist administration proved of immense importance in facilitating the planting of industries at new centres and in undeveloped lands. Under no circumstances is this a simple task; but in the Middle Ages and in the earlier part of modern times it could only be accomplished by transferring skilled labour from one place to another. It was through the migration of great employers, with the labour which followed in their wake, that the silk-trade was developed in Venice, Bologna, Genoa, Florence, ^.nd France; that an improved manufacture of woollen cloth was introduced into England under Edward III; that the Spanish cities responded in some degree to the call made upon them by colonial demand, and that the manufactures of linen, glass, and pottery were introduced into France. A most remarkable development of industry in the fifteenth century seems to have been carried through by the Florentine capitalists, who were interested in the dressing and dyeing of cloth. They devoted themselves to encouraging the weaving of cloth in the wool-growing lands of the North, in order to command a supply of the half-manufactured goods which could be so finished at Florence as to be a most valuable article of commerce. In medieval times the industrial system had been intensely local in character; but as capital and capitalist organisation were introduced, the local attachments were severed one by one; in the new era the great employer is prepared to carry on business in any place and under any government where there is good prospect of working at a profit.

In the preceding sections an attempt has been made to show how the rising power of capitalism broke down the medieval forms of commercial and industrial regulation; the capitalists, who could not dominate them, migrated to places where they were free from old-fashioned restrictions. Capital offered facilities for the planting of new industries, the development of trade, and the opening up of mines and other natural advantages; so that the means lay at hand for promoting material progress of every kind. Hence new questions of economic policy came to the front. The efforts of traders were no longer confined to retaining exclusive commercial rights; but they began to consider how the various resources within a given area might be developed, so that by the interaction of different interests the greatest material prosperity might be attained in the community as a whole. We have already seen that in the fifteenth century the French monarchs had come to be directly interested in the welfare of the trading as well as in that of the landed classes; and at this period some of the German princes were becoming alive to the necessity of paying attention to all the different elements in the community. Other influences were at work elsewhere which tended to the growth of a new economic system; many of the cities of Italy and of Germany had become great territorial Powers, and, with a keen eye to business, they were endeavouring to devise schemes of policy which should enable them to reap the greatest advantage from their acquisitions.

It is of course true that many European cities had from the earliest period of their development had landed possessions and agricultural interests, and that the burgesses had enjoyed rights in respect of tillage and pasturage. But the questions which arose under these old circumstances were very different from those which presented themselves to citizens ruling over a large province and controlling the development of a considerable territory. Several of the cities of Italy and of the Rhineland had attained to great political importance in the early part of the fourteenth century; in some cases they were successful in military operations and extended their domain by conquest; in others the power of some city promised protection and attracted neighbours to commend themselves to a civic superior; in other instances land temporarily assigned to some town as a pledge for money borrowed was permanently transferred, when the borrower proved quite unable to repay his debt. In these various ways civic control came to be exercised over considerable areas, and civic authorities were concerned in regulating a large territory, with its distinct and conflicting interests, in such a way as to produce the best results for the commonwealth as a whole.

The great Italian towns, which were the seats of manufactures, had considerable difficulty in obtaining a sufficient food-supply for the very large population which had been attracted to them, or had grown up within their walls. Venice was forced to control the agricultural produce of her own district, and to prevent all other towns, such as Ancona, Ferrara and Bologna, from competing with her in Lower Italy, the district from which she obtained corn, eggs, and other produce; to purchase these commodities, the neighbouring towns were compelled to frequent the Venetian market. Florence and Milan, Bern and Basel, Ulm and Strassburg had alike to give close attention to the question of food-supply, and pursued a similar object, though with such modifications as the special circumstances of each town might suggest.

There was a marked contrast between the expedients adopted by the Venetians and those which commended themselves to the Florentines. The merchant princes of Florence bought large estates in Tuscany, and devoted themselves to agriculture. The conditions of the rural population were such that capitalist farming could be easily introduced; serfdom had entirely disappeared in this neighbourhood, and money dealings permeated the whole fabric of rural society; but agriculture cannot have been a very profitable investment. The policy of the city was that of providing cheap food for the consumer; export was forbidden, and the price at which corn might be sold was fixed by a tariff. Free access was given to food-stuffs imported from abroad, so that the 1 farmer was not only restricted in his operations, but was obliged to:’| contend with foreign competitors in the home markets. There is reason! to believe that this policy must have pressed with great severity on the rural population; a maximum was fixed for the wages of labour; and the terms of their contracts were such that the loss from bad seasons fell on the cultivating tenants rather than the proprietor. The depression of the rural inhabitants in the interest of the consumers was disastrous; but many communities besides Florence were tempted to pursue this policy. It seemed as if the peasant could be forced to carry on the work of tillage, whatever pressure was put upon him; there was little danger of his giving up rural occupations altogether, while the advantage of cheap food to an industrial and trading community was obvious.