Simon Middleton - Market Ethics and Practices, c.1300–1850

Market Ethics and Practices, c. 13001850 analyses the nature, development, and operation of market ethics in the context of social practices, ranging from rituals of exchange and unofficial expectations to law, institutions, and formal regulations from the late medieval through to the modern era.

Divided into two parts, the first explores the principles and regulations of market ethics, such as the relations between professed norms and economic behaviour across a range of geographies and chronologies. The chapters consider key subjects such as medieval attitudes towards merchant activities across Europe, North Africa, and Asia; market regulations and the notion of the common good; Adam Smiths conception of moral capitalism; and the combining of religious and capitalist ethics in Nat Turners Confession. The second part provides microstudies that offer insights into topics such as household and market relations in colonial New England; the harsher side of the consumer economy experienced by a family of parasol sellers from Lyon; informal Jewish networks in the early modern Caribbean and slave trade; merchant networks and commercial litigation in eighteenth-century France; and early encounters and the informal norms of fur trading between Europeans and Native Americans.

This book provides an understanding of the key pre-modern economic historiography, whilst pointing students towards new debates and the historical significance for our collective economic future. It is ideal for students and postgraduates of late medieval and early modern economic history.

Simon Middleton (College of William and Mary) is author of From Privileges to Rights: Work and Politics in Colonial New York (2006) and co-editor of Class Matters (2008). He is working on a book investigating the introduction of paper money to colonial America.

James E. Shaw (University of Sheffield) is a historian who focuses on the relationship of legal structures (laws, practices, institutions) to the daily practices of economic life. His books include The Justice of Venice (2006) and Making and Marketing Medicines in Renaissance Florence (2011).

First published 2018

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British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Middleton, Simon (Simon David), editor. | Shaw, James E.

(James Edric), 1972 editor.

Title: Market ethics and practices, c.13001850 / edited by

Simon Middleton and James E. Shaw.

Description: Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY : Routledge, 2017. |

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2017030658 | ISBN 9781138281561 (hardback : alk.

paper) | ISBN 9781138281578 (pbk. : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781315123677

(ebook : alk. paper)

Subjects: LCSH: CommerceMoral and ethical aspectsHistory. |

Business ethicsHistory. | CapitalismMoral and ethical

aspectsHistory.

Classification: LCC HF352 .M27 2017 | DDC 174/.4dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017030658

ISBN: 978-1-138-28156-1 (hbk)

ISBN: 978-1-138-28157-8 (pbk)

ISBN: 978-1-315-12367-7 (ebk)

Typeset in Bembo

by Apex CoVantage, LLC

Market Ethics and Practices, c. 13001850 presents chapters based on papers given at two conferences, at the University of Sheffield (2012) and the Huntington Library (2014). The editors thank the Economic History Society for their support of the Sheffield conference. We are also grateful for the support of Professors Steve Hindle and Peter Mancall, and the Dorothy Collins Brown Endowment and the University of Southern California Early Modern Studies Institute, for the Huntington conference. Thanks also to Juan Gomez, Carolyn Powell, and the Huntington team for organizing such a wonderful event. It was Danny Vickers who first mentioned the Sheffield conference to Steve Hindle, leading to an application from the editors to the Huntington conference program which brought everyone to Pasadena. At both meetings Danny offered his inimitable insight and wit. After the conferences he provided welcome advice about pulling the book together. Sadly, Danny passed away after succumbing to long illness earlier this year. The editors and authors dedicate the volume to his memory.

James Davis is Senior Lecturer at Queens University Belfast. His research focuses on medieval markets, trade, and towns. His publications include Medieval Market Morality: Life, Law and Ethics in the English Marketplace, 12001500 (Cambridge University Press, 2012).

Robert S. DuPlessis is Professor of History and International Relations Emeritus at Swarthmore College. His most recent book is The Material Atlantic. Clothing, Commerce, and Colonization in the Atlantic World, 16501800 (Cambridge University Press, 2015).

Pierre Gervais is Professor of American Civilization at University Sorbonne Nouvelle in Paris. He received the Willi Paul Adams Prize for his first book, Les origines de la rvolution industrielle aux tats-Unis (ditions EHESS, 2004). More recently he has studied merchant accounting and published articles in Annales, Accounting History Review , and Merchants and Profit in the Age of Commerce , 16801830 (Pickering & Chatto, 2014), co-edited with Y. Lemarchand and D. Margairaz, 2014.

Julie Hardwick is Professor of History at the University of Texas-Austin and author of The Practice of Patriarchy: Gender and the Politics of Household Authority in Early Modern France (Pennsylvania State University Press, 1998) and Family Business: Litigation and the Political Economy of Daily Life in Early Modern France (Oxford University Press, 2009).

Martha Howell is Miriam Champion Professor of History, Columbia University, New York, and author of Commerce before Capitalism in Europe, 13001600 (Cambridge University Press, 2010); From Reliable Sources , with Walter Prevenier (Cornell University Press, 2001; German ed., Bhlau, 2004); Uit goede bron , with Marc Boone and Walter Prevenier (Garant, 2000); and The Marriage Exchange: Property, Social Place and Gender in Cities of the Low Countries, 13001550 (University of Chicago Press, 1998). She is presently working on the culture of credit in northern Europe during the late medieval and early modern centuries.