- long distance trade => by 1100 there is a shift in long distance trade from luxuries (spices, silk, gold) to cheap bulky goods

1. spices => pepper, ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg => this is small trade with high unit value
    * spices also included dyestuffs, such as Brazil wood and indigo, sugar, ivory and gemstones
2. grain => grew in importance as the process of urbanization accelerated; trade designed to alleviate local shortages which arose through crop failure and led to famine
3. wine => moved from the Mediterranean area to the north; the main area of production was Gascony (SW France) and the chief market was England
4. salt => came from coastal salt pans (Venice derived salt from lagoons, both at home and in Albania)
5. wool trade => came from England, Spain and N Africa
6. cloth => the most important item of trade (with grain); Flemish cloth began to overshadow all other European cloths
7. timber => by 1350: came primarily form Eastern Europe
8. slaves => main areas of supply are the frontier regions with Islam (Spain and the Near East) => Italian merchants dominate the slave trade
    * Genoa controlled the slave supply to the Mamluk sultanate, through Byzantine territories => shipping Christian slaves from the Caucasus to Mamluk Egypt

Trade structure:

12 C: rapid growth of trade, with financial investments moving beyond the boundaries of family or clan group => increasing reliance on written documentation of transactions and payments => Genoese notaries responsible for a wealth of extraordinary information (who was involved in trade with whom? how? when? what were the investments? where did merchants go?

transactions: involved two kinds of merchants =>
=> - sleeping merchants: those who did not travel
     - moving merchants (the entrepreneurs)
==> implicated sharing risks and profits according to their respective investments

- all Genoese merchants started as traveling partners, usually in a contractual relationship with more than one sleeping partners at a time
- the traveling partner may have his own ship or own just shares in a ship
- Genoa and Venice => developed colonies overseas => especially in Mediterranean bases (islands - Chios; ports - Acre) and in important cities (Genoese residential area - fondacco - in Constantinople => target of anti western feelings)

Hanseatic League:

by 1100: trade in the Baltic region is in the hands of German merchants
1158: the foundation of Lu:beck (the mother of all East German towns => trade toward East)
1150: German merchants had a trading base in Novgorod => purchasing furs, wax, timber
1100: German merchants => established a base on the island of Gotland
1241: alliance between Lu:bleck and Hamburg => steps toward the organization of the Hansa
BUT:
the Hansa - was formally born out of the conflict between German merchants and Denmark => 1356: German towns combined their military and economic forces to crush Denmark and blockade Novgorod to force Russian princes to agree with their terms
Hansa = association of towns using the same kontors at Novgorod, Bruges, London, etc.
Hansa - had its own assembly, the Hansetag, summoned by Lu:beck, which formulated its own ordinances
Hansa - traded mainly bulky goods of lower value from the east Baltic region to the west and light weight goods of greater value from the west to the east
Hansa - used ships broad in beam and of fairly shallow draught, suited to move fro the sea into river estuaries (cogs)

COMMERCIAL REVOLUTION:

Robert S. Lopez: a fundamental transformation in medieval economy that created new opportunities for development
    - the major shift is from an economy exclusively based on agriculture on one in which trade and industry play a significant, if still not crucial, role

1. population ---> rapid growth between 1000 and 1300
2. agricultural revolution - three field system
                                        - heavy wheeled plow
                                        - rural colonization
==> increasing productivity in agriculture => agricultural surplus

3. monetary reforms: - silver currency
                                  - gold coins (Florence and Venice => florins, ducats)

4. role of the Jewish merchants:
    - role of education and travel in medieval Jewish communities
    - trade networks across the Mediterranean, linking Muslim to Christian markets

5. ports of trade: small markets organized under the protection of powerful rulers: Venice
                                                Dorestad

6. change from prestige goods to cheap, bulky goods (large scale trade)

7. rise of medieval fairs at important trade junctures:
        - wine fairs at Bozen (Austria)
        - wool fair at Medina del Campo (Spain)
        - herring fair at Skania (Sweden)
    - cyclical fairs:
            - Flemish fairs in the 1100s held between February and November
            - Champagne fairs: Flemish cloth, Italian commodities