ABSTRACT

Introduction In commercial history, networks emerged as an important analytical tool for analysing the interaction of its protagonists. e perspective of networks is based on di erent kinds of social and cultural criteria, such as business relations, merchant companies, ‘nations’ or kinship.1 Many studies on merchants are not primarily directed to commercial practices but on the social relations of merchants; hence the emergence of markets from networks has not been subject to research. erefore some approaches that have been developed by economic sociology will be introduced and discussed in respect of analysing markets within historical commercial networks. A er a short outline of the conceptual backgrounds, the spatial dimension of markets will be considered. e social relations will be explored in several steps, starting with de ning markets as situated social con gurations and the distinction of some basic categories of market organization. How markets emerge from networks will be discussed in three steps: rst, the basic categories will be assembled to a more comprehensive model based on the French économie des conventions; in a second step, the relevant factors for establishing a market will be considered; and nally in the third step, Harrison C. White’s model for production markets will be discussed as an approach for analysing markets within commercial networks. e conclusion emphasizes the necessity of considering the qualities of products and actors that constitute di erent types of markets. It also shows that markets as a particular form of social interaction for exchanging goods and values do not link all kinds of network ties at one single knot; this is because markets are closely tied to the chains and ties of production and distribution networks, and their networks need to be analysed in a di erentiated way.