Dealing with Losses
Dealing with Losses
This chapter examines the various ways in which the merchants of the Low Countries dealt with losses from violent assaults. It shows the importance of urban competition, not only for specific groups like the German Hanse, but also for the merchant community at large that used the cities' increasingly sophisticated commodity and financial markets to share, spread, and transfer the commercial risks created by Europe's political and legal fragmentation. The chapter first considers how collective action was used by merchants to discipline rulers, as exemplified by the boycotts of Bruges, mostly by the German Hanse but sometimes also by English and Spanish traders, between 1270 and 1310. It then explores court proceedings and spreading of risks as a means for merchants to deal with losses and to organize compensation.
Keywords: merchants, Low Countries, losses, urban competition, German Hanse, collective action, boycotts, court proceedings, spreading of risks, compensation
Princeton Scholarship Online requires a subscription or purchase to access the full text of books within the service. Public users can however freely search the site and view the abstracts and keywords for each book and chapter.
Please, subscribe or login to access full text content.
If you think you should have access to this title, please contact your librarian.
To troubleshoot, please check our FAQs , and if you can't find the answer there, please contact us.
