Автор:Peter Spufford Год: [не указано] Издание: [не указанo] Страниц: [не указано] ISBN: 0500251185 The earliest surviving check was drawn in 1365 by two Florentines to pay a draper for black cloth for a family funeral.... In 1477 a confidence man persuaded a citizen of Cologne to buy shares in a nonexistent silver mine.... From a thousand tiny facts like these, the fruit of nearly thirty years' research in the municipal archives, commercial records, account books, and letters of a dozen countries, Peter Spufford creates a revealing picture of the medieval business world. The book opens with the emergence of a European entrepreneurial class and the origins of modern banking, insurance, and borrowing. The wealth that generated these changes came largely from the royal courts and their demands for luxuries, demands that were met at the great international fairs. Practical problems?primitive transport, bad roads, dangerous Alpine passes, and the threat of robbery?were impressively surmounted. Key elements in the story are provided by the connection between cheap raw...
