ABSTRACT
Introduction e aim of this chapter and the next is quite straightforward: establish the key facts about the businesses of Low Countries merchants operating out of Antwerp.1 It endeavours to prove the ascent of Low Countries merchants on the Antwerp market and in various other European commercial cities. In this chapter the Antwerp market, its trade and merchants are dealt with. Using di erent sources, the growing number of native merchants active in Antwerp will be sketched. In the middle of the sixteenth century, the central government taxed imports to and exports from the Low Countries. e accounts of these taxes allow for a careful evaluation of the types and volumes of goods traded. e preferences of di erent groups of merchants for speci c types of products and their destinations also become clear in this part of the analysis. Low Countries merchants were not more active in the marketing of home-grown products than were their foreign colleagues. is partially refutes the hypothesis by Herman Van der Wee that the Low Countries’ industrial success propelled Low Countries merchants onto European markets.2 Moreover, this chapter proves the democratization of trade in sixteenth-century Antwerp: smaller traders were equally active on distant markets and traded similar goods to their bigger colleagues. Sixteenthcentury Antwerp was one of the rst cities to develop generalized or open-access institutions allowing all merchants to participate in commerce.3 e observed democratization indeed demonstrates that all merchants could participate.
