Baltic Commerce And Urban Society, 1500-1700

Description: The great merchant port of Danzig, now Gdansk, is at the centre of this set of studies by Professor Maria Bogucka. Through it passed the greatest part of the trade that linked the West with Poland and the Baltic; from it the commercial culture of the West spread out into the towns of Poland, and with it new currents in religion and urban life, and from there it began to permeate the whole of Polish society. The studies in this volume examine both the social and economic sides of this process, looking at articles of commerce and trends in urbanization, as well as patterns of poor relief and gender relations. The author's aim is to analyse specific aspects of what happened in Poland, while situating these in the broader context of the development of early modern European society. Table of Contents: Trade, money, credit in the Baltic region: Amsterdam and the Baltic in the first half of the 17th century; The monetary crisis of the 17th century and its social and psychological consequences in Poland; Le commerce de Gdansk avec la peninsule Iberique a la charniere du XVIe et du XVIIe siecle; The role of the Baltic trade in European development from the 16th to the 18th centuries; Some aspects of commercial relations within the Baltic Region: the example of Gdansk-Stockholm trade in 1643; Dutch Merchants' activities in Gdansk in the first half of the 17th century. Towns and Townspeople: Towns in Poland and the Reformation. Analogies and differences with other countries; Les villes et le developpement de la culture sur l'exemple de la Pologne aux XVIe-XVIIIe siecles; The towns of East-Central Europe from the 14th to the 17th century; The typology of Polish towns during the 16th-18th centuries; Krakau-Warschau-Danzig. Funktionen und Wandel von Metropolen 1450-1650; Economic prosperity or recession and cultural patronage: the case of Gdansk in the 16th-18th centuries; Health care and poor relief in Danzig (Gdansk) - the 16th and first half of the 17th century; Town hall as symbol of power; Changes in the political and social functions of town hall in Gdansk till the end of the 18th century. Social order, customs, mentality: Mentalitat der Berger von Gdansk im XVI.-XVII; Le geste dans la vie de la noblesse polonaise aux XVIe-XVIIIe siecles; Social structures and customs in early modern Poland; Work, time perception and leisure in an agricultural society: the case of Poland in the 16th and 17th centuries; Gender in the economy of a traditional agrarian society: the case of Poland in the 16th-17th centuries; The destruction of towns by natural disaster as reported in early modern newspapers.