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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 20 November 2018
“What does economic history have to do with Renaissance scholarship?” This is the question I asked myself when I was asked to participate in a panel with the title “Recent Trends in Renaissance Scholarship: Economic History.” Over a generation ago economic history escaped from the confines of conventional historical periodization, in which the Renaissance functions as the keystone, with its claim to being the origin of modernity. This conventional periodization, with its inconsistent mingling of political and cultural criteria for the organization of the narrative of modern history, makes whole categories of historical questions almost impossible to ask, let alone to answer. For many economic historians—and I count myself among them—it was a liberation to abandon all this in favor of a periodizing structure determined by long trends in population, price levels, relative prices, and other phenomena associated with these.
1 On the limitations of conventional periodization, see Bouwsma. Among the many calls for a new concept of “duration”, see Braudel, 1958; even more extravagant in its claims is Le Roy Ladurie.
2 Other works that examine late medieval urban population include Genicot and Brulez.
3 There is, of course, considerable uncertainty about the details. This paragraph should be read as a “consensus statement” based on Bairoch, et al. ‘s, estimates for all of Europe excluding Russia (Bairoch, et al., 255, 377) and my estimates for a more narrowly defined “Europe,” which excludes the Balkans and Hungary (de Vries, 1984, 40- 43. 69-77).
4 Good introductions to the agrarian crises of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries can be found in Abel and in Slicher van Bath.
5 The two Bairoch sources are inconsistent on this issue.
6 Another important work stressing the influence of land rent on urban development is Klep, 1981 (and also 1988).
7 The full presentation of this chronology of urban displacement will be found in Braudel, 1984.
8 This and other generalizations about the character of urbanization are based on the application of quantitative methods to an urban data base. Rank-size distributions, thev mapping of “potential” values, and the calculation of transition matrices reveal the changing urban hierarchy, the spatial pattern of urbanization, and the relative stability of the urban system. For a full discussion, see de Vries, 1984, 81-174.
9 A recent survey of European urban history reflects this fact: Lottin, et al.
10 The links between London's growth and the English economy more generally have been explored. See Fisher, 1948 and 1971; Wrigley, 1967; Rappaport.
