ABSTRACT
The fourteenth century was a time of dramatic demographic and economic crisis in Western Europe. Did an economic crisis, parallel or comparable to the circumstances that affected fourteenth-century Western Europe, occur in Central Europe? Or, more broadly, what were the directions of development in this region of Europe at the time of intense crisis in the West? Answering these questions is the aim of the present article. Before we can do so, it is necessary to outline the general economic trends in the region under study between about 1200 and about 1500 in order to set these trends in the context of one another, and then to reach definitive conclusions. This study begins with a basic sketch of the political and geographic circumstances of the economic history of Central Europe. Thereafter, it characterizes the source material that has shaped the work of economic historians concerned with the region, and discusses the most important views on the later medieval economic conditions in this region produced by these historians. Part 2, “Population,” depicts the broad contours of demographic transition, with particular focus on the rural population of Central Europe. Part 3, “Agriculture,” deals with agriculture—the most important economic sector before the Industrial Revolution. Part 4, “Towns and the Urban Branches of Economic Activity,” includes some basic data on urbanization, as well as on the most important branches of the urban economy. Finally, in part 5, “Was there an Economic Crisis in Later Medieval Central Europe?,” I present the main historiographical views concerning the state of the Central European economies during the later Middle Ages, and I offer my own comments about those views.
