Norman J. G. Pounds (1912–2006)

This seems like a fairly complete presentation of European economic history from the late Roman Empire to the 14th century. After starting in Rome the author goes on to discuss the general preconditions of medieval economic development; population growth, geographic expansion eastwards, urbanization, transport and agriculture. He continuously reflects on the limitations of the available macroeconomic evidence. In later chapters he discusses separate crafts and trades in more detail. This presentation is inevitably built on details which only professional historians will find interesting, but the author never gets bogged down with one topic for too long so it's quite readable.

The most interesting part of the book was chapter 9 on the commercial revolution. The author discusses the new methods of credit and financing which might have been the most impactful innovations of medieval times. The role of medieval government in the economy was clearly quite insignificant. The brief section in this book which focuses on government discusses mainly taxation. I would have liked to read a bit more on how medieval trade functioned without governmental help. Long-distance merchants must have gradually built trustworthy relationships amongst each other, but this book does not explicitly discuss how such webs of interpersonal acquaintance actually worked. But even so this book is a broad and very useful introduction to medieval economic history which can be recommended.… (mais)