Trade Organisations and Institutions

Abstract

THIS study has tried to show how and why the volume, commodity structure and geographical spread of trade changed over two centuries. Basing itself on statistics, good and bad, and examining the causes of the developments they reveal, it follows the example and draws on the work of most historians who have written on the subject during the past thirty years and more. The signpost that most clearly marked the turn away from earlier lines of approach to the subject was F. J. Fisher’s article, ‘Commercial Trends and Policy in Sixteenth century England’ in the Economic History Review Vol. X (1940), although some older work had foreshadowed it. Most older works were written in terms of the organisation of merchant companies rather than of actual trade and traders. Few of these companies were trading organisations; they had secondary functions as organisations to which traders in particular areas had to belong, which imposed restrictions of some kind on the activities of members and non-members. But they were conspicuous institutions in their day, and had real importance in relation to governments at home and abroad. The organisation of trade, and the part they played in some areas of it, require some consideration here.