Early Proto-industrialization in the Low Countries? The Importance and Nature of Market-oriented Non-agricultural Activities on the Countryside in Flanders and Holland

Bas J.P. Van Bavel

MPRA Paper from University Library of Munich, Germany

Abstract: Next to the local craftsmen and the non-agrarian activities that families undertook for their own use or local consumption, which had always existed in the countryside, in some places rural industries aimed at non-local markets developed as early as in the late 14th century. In some parts of the Low Countries, these early stages of rural industry gained a considerable importance during the late medieval period. In most regions in Western-Europe, however, there was hardly or no industrialization in the countryside at all during this period. In this respect, therefore, there were striking regional differences, sometimes even between regions situated close to each other. This article focuses on these regional differences, by investigating and comparing late medieval developments in two different parts of the Low Countries where rural industries did blossom in the late medieval period, but each with their own specific pattern: Inland Flanders and Holland. In order to explain these regional differences, the article links the proto-industrial development to the social and economic structures in the regions in question.

Keywords: rural industries; proto-industrialization; rural transition; Low countries; late medieval economy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: N13 N9 P52 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2003
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (9)

Published in Revue Belge de Philologie et d’Histoire 4.81(2003): pp. 181-237

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