The Decisive Years (1521 – c. 1550)

Abstract

The period between 1521 and 1550 played a crucial part in the economic expansion of Antwerp and the Netherlands. Precisely during this time two fundamental but essentially contradictory tendencies met. The first was negative and revealed itself in a sharp crisis, which ended in a slow but certain undermining of the three original supports of Antwerp’s commercial expansion: the Portuguese spice monopoly, the transcontinental trade of the South Germans and the transit, or export trade of traditional cloth ¹. Meanwhile a positive, constructive tendency was at work, at first imperceptibly but later irresistibly, in the trade with the south, the English export boom, the successful renewal of the industry of the Low Countries, the agricultural revival, the prosperity of the urban economy and the money market of Antwerp.