ABSTRACT

Commerce by sea is everywhere originally conjoined with piracy; the warship, pirate ship, and merchant ship are to begin with not distinguished from each other. The foreign merchant was authorized and required to place himself under the protection of a citizen, with whom he had to store his goods, and the host in turn was obliged to guard them on behalf of the community. Typically, the phenomenon of the resident trader is a product of the development of towns, although undoubtedly there were resident merchants previously, in the market settlements in the neighborhood of fortresses. The resident merchant was technically designated mercator. The regular activities of both the foreign and the resident merchant looked toward the consumers. In contrast, the first form of trade between Merchant and merchant is met with at the fairs. Since in the Middle Ages the retailer with purely local interest predominated, the fair developed as the most important form of interlocal trade organization.