Wörter für Wucher: Ius commune and the Sixteenth Century Debate on the Legitimacy of South German Trading Houses (2019)
From the end of the 15th century, a handful of south German long-distance trading companies were gaining importance by dominating local and supraregional markets, by organizing the production and distribution of a great variety of products and also by accumulating unseen amounts of money. The economic and political power of companies like the Fugger of Augsburg or the Welser of Nuremberg generated a considerable ‘anti-monopolistic movement’ of public resistance. Similar to modern anti-globalization movements, they used print media to spread their ideas and they received attention by using the language of the ordinary people, criticizing the Monopolien (monopolies), Wucher (usury), and Fürkauf (preemption). But this fight against the trading houses was also a question of law: Starting from late 15th century, the Reichstag had to deal with several motions which demanded a general ban of the trading houses or at least a reduction of their economic activities. This legal part of the debate about trading companies brought together different players of different milieus: common men, merchants, city councillors, legal advisors and judges, even theologians, the Emperor and his councils dealt with their legal status. The debate about monopolies in the 16th century is no new discovery for historical science. In the last 150 years, countless articles have been published concerning this topic. But one important issue has often been short-changed, and thus shall be especially focused here: The importance of language. If the debates brought together different representatives of various milieus, their differing use of language has to be kept in mind. Lacking a common language, translation became an indispensable requirement of communication. The article gives a summary on the legal debate about usury and monopolies from the Roman Empire and medieval Europe up to early 16th century. It takes into account the tensions between legal theory and economic practice. It argues that linguistic transfer processes contributed not least to the disintegration of the legal terms involved, for example by equating Wucher and usura.
...MoreBook Stefania Gialdroni; Dauchy, Serge,; Cordes, Albrecht (2020) Migrating words, migrating merchants, migrating law: trading routes and the development of commercial law.
Similar Citations
Chapter
Mark Häberlein;
(2019)
Coming to Terms with the Atlantic World: German Merchants, Language, and English Legal Culture in the Early Modern Period
(/p/isis/citation/CBB937925560/)
Book
Stefania Gialdroni;
Dauchy, Serge,;
Cordes, Albrecht;
(2020)
Migrating words, migrating merchants, migrating law: trading routes and the development of commercial law
(/p/isis/citation/CBB848306572/)
Chapter
Cordes, Albrecht;
(2019)
The Language of the Law: The Lübeck Law Codes (ca. 1224–1642)
(/p/isis/citation/CBB760620735/)
Book
Thomas Max Safley;
(2020)
Family Firms and Merchant Capitalism in Early Modern Europe : The Business, Bankruptcy and Resilience of the Höchstetters of Augsburg
(/p/isis/citation/CBB453458129/)
Book
Jeroen Puttevils;
(2016)
Merchants and Trading in the Sixteenth Century: The Golden Age of Antwerp
(/p/isis/citation/CBB125949005/)
Book
Edmond Smith;
(2021)
Merchants: The community that shaped England's trade and empire, 1550-1650
(/p/isis/citation/CBB539685943/)
Book
Bart Holterman;
(2020)
The Fish Lands: German Trade with Iceland, Shetland and the Faroe Islands in the Late 15th and 16th Century
(/p/isis/citation/CBB268543777/)
Article
Claudia Rei;
(2024)
Turning points in leadership: Ship size in the Portuguese and Dutch merchant empires
(/p/isis/citation/CBB340333584/)
Book
Djoeke van Netten;
(2014)
Koopman in kennis : de uitgever Willem Jansz Blaeu in de geleerde wereld (1571‒1638)
(/p/isis/citation/CBB594687495/)
Article
Jasmine Kilburn-Toppin;
(2019)
‘A Place of Great Trust to Be Supplied by Men of Skill and Integrity’: Assayers and Knowledge Cultures in Late Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-Century London
(/p/isis/citation/CBB737897913/)
Book
Jesse Eisinger;
(2017)
The Chickenshit Club: Why the Justice Department fails to prosecute executives
(/p/isis/citation/CBB547874934/)
Article
Timothy W. Guinnane;
Ron Harris;
Naomi R. Lamoreaux;
(Summer 2017)
Contractual Freedom and Corporate Governance in Britain in the Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries
(/p/isis/citation/CBB202342120/)
Chapter
Bart Lambert;
(2019)
A Legal World Market? The Exchange of Commercial Law in Fifteenth-Century Bruges
(/p/isis/citation/CBB667010311/)
Chapter
Hanna Sonkajärvi;
(2019)
Laws – Customs – Conventions: French Merchants and French Legal Doctrines in the Brazilian Law Courts in the Second Half of the Nineteenth Century
(/p/isis/citation/CBB102764648/)
Book
John Willinsky;
(2018)
The Intellectual Properties of Learning: A Prehistory from Saint Jerome to John Locke
(/p/isis/citation/CBB364604163/)
Article
Seven Ağır;
Cihan Artunç;
(Winter 2021)
Set and Forget? The Evolution of Business Law in the Ottoman Empire and Turkey
(/p/isis/citation/CBB480166104/)
Chapter
Catherine Squires;
(2019)
German-East Slavic (Language) Contacts in Legal Texts of the Thirteenth-Fifteenth Centuries
(/p/isis/citation/CBB018882658/)
Book
Tirthankar Roy;
Anand V. Swamy;
(2016)
Law and the Economy in Colonial India
(/p/isis/citation/CBB211494543/)
Book
Rajeswary Ampalavanar Brown;
(2017)
The Chinese and Indian Corporate Economies: A Comparative History of Their Search for Economic Renaissance and Globalization
(/p/isis/citation/CBB376875899/)
Book
Samuel W. Buell;
(2016)
Capital offenses: Business crime and punishment in America's corporate age
(/p/isis/citation/CBB302268691/)
Be the first to comment!