ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the emergence of Bruges and Antwerp as major credit centers, the role of the south German banking groups, and concludes with the rise and decline of Amsterdam as the credit hub of the Western world. Southern Europe remained Catholic and its financial center continued to be Italy, while the north converted to Protestantism, with its financial center ultimately settling in Amsterdam. Many modem banking techniques and the sophisticated use of a stock market had their beginnings in sixteenth-century Antwerp. The Fuggers were often regarded as the bankers to the Hapsburgs, a notion that clearly reflected the interplay between the power of the sword and that of the purse. The seventeenth-century financial history of the Dutch Republic "contrasted strikingly with the dismal succession of defaults by the rulers of great powers". As one historian noted, "A good part of the military success of this small new nation may be attributed to the excellence of Dutch state credit".
