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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 eleventh century can be seen as a time of rupture and crisis in European history. Although law before the eleventh century consisted mainly of oral tradition, written law also carried some weight, especially church (canon) law. The eleventh century saw the beginnings of an economic transformation in Europe which recent researchers have dubbed the commercial revolution of the middle ages. The commercial revolution inevitably created a demand for a rational law of contract and a reliable credit system; and this could only happen on the basis of secure and generally accepted legal texts. The transformation and new development of law was impelled not only by economic, but also by religious factors. The end of the eleventh century, the time of the Gregorian reform, saw the rediscovery of the Digest and the first attempts to teach Roman law. During the Gregorian reform, the Pseudo-Isidorian Decretals were much consulted, and this aroused interest in the procedural rules for ecclesiastical courts.
The thirteenth century has been called, in economic terms, the autumn of the Middle Ages. Communication and commerce were part and parcel of medieval life, in spite of the arduous nature of travel. The Middle Ages witnessed the continued use of Roman road systems and the addition of many secondary routes creating a dense network across western Europe. Professional transporters handled a portion of medieval overland- and river-based trade. Such transporters worked the Champagne fairs and all towns feeding into them. Medieval towns were the sites par excellence of international trade, and of much regional traffic as well. The growth of international trade in the commercial revolution of the eleventh century was underpinned by the existence of recording methods sufficient to permit complex business transactions at a distance. The phenomenon of the medieval fair represents the best laboratory for the study of commerce and communications in thirteenth-century Europe.
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