This chapter aims to tie together many of the themes in the preceding chapters with a four-fold strategy. First, it sets out a general overview of the Iberian economy during the medieval period. This includes an analysis of how and why the economic balance of power shifted from the Islamic to the Christian states during the medieval centuries. Then, it provides a broader picture of some major developments in the peri-Iberian European and Islamic-Mediterranean economies in the medieval period, including micro- and macroeconomic developments. Third, this chapter shows how different regions of Iberia connected with elements of the peri-Iberian economies set out in the previous section; specifically how the Islamic states maintained ties with North Africa and points further afield; how the Christian North and West connected with the northern Atlantic economy; how the south-west eventually built ties with the Atlantic islands, West Africa, and more distant markets; and how the Eastern peninsula maintained ties with various Mediterranean markets. Finally, the chapter ends with some general conclusions, including the idea that, as this volume amply shows, it is high time to dispel any lingering sense of an economic “Black Legend” when discussing the economy of medieval Iberia.

The final chapter in Part III examines more directly the claim that parliaments are a consequence of commercial activity by looking at two cases, which have dominated especially neo-institutionalist accounts due to their thriving wool trades, England and Castile. The main mechanism tying trade to representative institutions is that of capital mobility, which is assumed to endow mercantile groups with bargaining powers. The section on England shows that taxes on mobile capital were not key for representation, as they were not bargained for in Parliament. Indirect taxation was also far less than direct taxation in the critical period of parliamentary emergence. Moreover, bargains that did occur resulted in sectoral privileges, not constitutional gains. In fact, the chapter shows how mercantile interests and the collective action of merchants were endogenous to state capacity. The section on the Castilian Mesta shows how the assumed inefficiencies of this commercial system can be traced to the political weakness highlighted in chapter 5.