[282]
Notes on Sources
ity and was attended only by the inhabitants of the neighbourhood; its commodi-
ties were country produce and the wares of every-day life" (Lipson,
The Economic
History of England, 1935, Vol. I, p. 221). Local trade "usually developed to begin
with as an auxiliary occupation of peasants and persons engaged in house indus-
try, and in general as a seasonal occupation...." (Weber,
op. cit., p. 195). "It would
be natural to suppose, at first glance, that a merchant class grew up little by little in
the midst of the agricultural population. Nothing, however, gives credence to this
theory" (Pirenne,
Medieval Cities, p. 111).
(e) Division of labor does not originate in trade or exchange, but in
geographical, biological, and other noneconomicfacts.
"The division of labour is by no means the result of complicated economics, as
rationalistic theory will have it. It is principally due to physiological differences of
sex and age" (Thurnwald,
Economics, p. 212). "Almost the only division of labour
is between men and women" (Herskovits,
op. cit., p. 13). Another way in which di-
vision of labor may spring from biological facts is the case of the symbiosis of
different ethnic groups. "The ethnic groups are transformed into professional-
social ones" through the formation of "an upper layer" in society. "There is thus
created an organization based, on the one hand, on the contributions and services
of the dependent class, and, on the other, on the power of distribution possessed
by the heads of families in the leading stratum" (Thurnwald,
Economics, p. 86).
Herein we meet one of the origins of the state (Thurnwald,
Sozialpsyschische Ab-
liiufe, p. 387).
if) Money is not a decisive invention; its presence or absence need not make
an essential difference to the type of economy.
"The mere fact that a tribe used money differentiated it very little economi-
cally from other tribes who did not" (Loeb,
op. cit., p. 154). "If money is used at all,
its function is quite different from that fulfilled in our civilization. It never ceases
to be concrete material, and it never becomes an entirely abstract representation
of value" (Thurnwald,
Economics, p. 107). The hardships of barter played no role
in the "invention" of money. "This old view of the classical economists runs coun-
ter to ethnological investigations" (Loeb,
op. cit., p. 167, footnote 6). On account of
the specific utilities of the commodities which function as money as well as their
symbolic significance as attributes of power, it is not possible to regard "economic
possession from a one-sided rationalistic point of view" (Thurnwald,
Economics).
Money may, for instance, be in use for the payment of salaries and taxes only
{ibid., p. 108) or it may be used to pay for a wife, for blood money, or for fines. "We
can thus see that in these examples of pre-State conditions the evalution of objects
of value results from the amount of the customary contributions, from the posi-
tion held by the leading personages, and from the concrete relationship in which
they stand to the commoners of their several communities" (Thurnwald,
Eco-
nomics, p. 263).
Notes on Sources [ 283 ]
Money, like markets, is in the main an external phenomenon, the significance
of which to the community is determined primarily by trade relations. "The idea
of money [is] usually introduced from outside" (Loeb,
op. cit., p. 156). "The func-
tion of money as a general medium of exchange originated in foreign trade" (We-
ber,
op. cit., p. 238).
(g) Foreign trade originally not trade between individuals but between
collectivities.
Trade is a "group undertaking"; it concerns "articles obtained collectively." Its
origin lies in "collective trading journeys." "In the arrangements for these expedi-
tions which often bear the character of foreign trade the principle of collectivity
makes its appearance" (Thurnwald,
Economics, p. 145). "In any case the oldest
commerce is an exchange relation between alien tribes" (Weber,
op. cit., p. 195).
Medieval trade was emphatically not trade between individuals. It was a "trade
between certain towns, an
inter-communal or
inter-municipal commerce" (Ash-
ley,
An Introduction to English Economic History and Theory, Part I, "The Middle
Ages," p. 102).
(h) The countryside was cut out of trade in the Middle Ages.
"Up to and during the course of the fifteenth century the towns were the sole
centres of commerce and industry to such an extent that none of it was allowed to
escape into the open country" (Pirenne,
Economic and Social History, p. 169).
"The struggle against rural trading and against rural handicrafts lasted at least
seven or eight hundred years" (Heckscher,
Mercantilism, 1935, Vol. I, p. 129). "The
severity of these measures increased with the growth of 'democratic govern-
ment.' " "All through the fourteenth century regular armed expeditions were sent
out against all the villages in the neighbourhood and looms or fulling vats were
broken or carried away" (Pirenne,
op. cit., p. 211).
(i) No indiscriminate tradingbetween town and town was practiced in the
Middle Ages.
Intermunicipal trading implied preferential relationships between particular
towns or groups of towns, such as, for instance, the Hanse of London and the Teu-
tonic Hanse. Reciprocity and retaliation were the principles governing the rela-
tionships between such towns. In case of nonpayment of debts, for instance, the
magistrates of the creditor's town might turn to those of the debtor's and request
that justice be done in such manner as they would wish their folk to be treated
"and threaten that, if the debt is not paid, reprisal will be taken upon the folk of
that town" (Ashley,
op. cit., Part I, p. 109).
(j) National protectionism was unknown.
"For economic purposes it is scarcely necessary to distinguish different coun-
tries from one another in the thirteenth century for there were fewer barriers to