ABSTRACT
One of the most important developments denoting the transition from the “early” to the “High” Middle Ages was the advent of the Commercial Revolution of the Middle Ages. Shut out for centuries from the well-developed network of Mediterranean commerce maintained by Muslim and Byzantine merchants from Morocco to Syria, the newly revived cities and towns of northern Italy and the western Riviera gained entry into this lucrative financial market during the twelfth century. By the thirteenth century, commercial developments in places like Genoa and Venice began the important transitional period between the agrarian-centered economy of early medieval society and the full-blown money economy of later periods. Mediterranean merchants and their northern counterparts in the Low Countries and the Rhine Valley established an increasingly sophisticated urban network of interregional trade throughout western and central Europe. Credit, banking, double-entry bookkeeping, public notaries, and partnership contracts all signaled the appearance of a nascent capitalism in the west. Increasing commerce brought increasing wealth and the merchant families who capitalized on the considerable profits gained through trade rose to prominence in the social order of the medieval city. In the independent communes of northern Italy and the Low Countries, merchant families came to dominate political and economic life. Opportunities existed for social advancement through wise investment. New attitudes toward property began to affect the structure of the family economy in northern Italian cities.
