An apparent paradox: wool as an alternative currency for merchants and weavers in Dubrovnik (Ragusa) in the 15th century
From Firenze University Press Book: Alternative currencies. Commodities and services as exchange currencies in the monetarized economies of the 13th to 18th centuries
Nenad Fejic, University of the French West Indies and Guiana, France
- The manufacture and trade of wool: a focal point of the first two Settimane Datini
In approaching the subject that the scientific committee has chosen for this 54th «settimana di studi», we would like to go briefly back in time for more than half a century and recall here the first two «settimane» of 1969 and 1970, dedicated, for the first one to «La lana come materia prima: I fenomeni della sua produzione e circolazione nei secoli XIII-XVII” and the second one to «La produzione, commercio e consumo, dei panni di lana nei secoli XII-XVIII». These two weeks of study are closely associated with the names of Fernand Braudel and Federico Melis, the founding fathers of the prestigious institute which brings us together today in Prato. Since that time, eminent scholars starting with some of the contributors to the first two «settimane», such as Jorjo Tadic (Tadic, 1974) and Barisa Krekic (Krekic, 1976), have studied the lives and destinies of merchants who came to Dubrovnik from various Mediterranean countries and whose activities were closely linked to the wool trade and the production of woollen fabrics. Not to forget our distinguished colleagues Paola Pinelli (Pinelli, 2006, 2013), and Francesco Bettarini (Bettarini 2012, 2016), who, thanks to the research work made in the Datini archives of Prato, have removed, more recently, the last doubts about the presence of merchants and weavers from Prato and, more widely, from Tuscany in Dubrovnik in the 15th century. The subject we propose to discuss in this contribution is, therefore, part of a research field continuum. We want to focus on a specific aspect less often highlighted by scholars and which nevertheless underpinned the production-related and commercial flows of wool in Dubrovnik. We would indeed like to discuss the partial replacement of real money — the silver grossi — and money of account — the hyperperi — by wool and woollen fabrics, in the relationships between merchants and weavers, in the first half of the 15th century. Facing the wealth of the archives of Dubrovnik as well as the immense bibliography devoted to the history of the production and trade of wool and woollen fabrics in Dubrovnik, we had to make a choice and approach the question of wool as an alternative currency from the point of view of merchants and weavers from the Iberian Peninsula, primarily the Catalans.
DOI: 10.36253/979–12–215–0347–0.20
Read Full Text: https://books.fupress.it/chapter/an-apparent-paradox-wool-as-an-alternative-currency-for-merchants-and-weavers-in-dubrovnik-ragusa-in/14746
