The Price Revolution and Commercialization

Price Revolution

1. The influx of New World goods and silver had a dramatic impact on Europe:

the Price Revolution–-a drastic increase in goods, money, and prices

• Essentially, the massive flow of Spanish silver and American goods into Europe

provided Europeans with plenty of cash from silver and trade

• This in return drove the prices of goods up very quickly including the demand

and prices for food, which was in short supply due to inefficient farming methods

• To accommodate this, lords and governments increasingly

closed off their land to the peasants to harvest more efficiently

• As a result, land owners now became substantially more rich

—especially the ones who fenced off and organized their land

The Enclosure Movement

• During the Middle Ages, European economies were dominated by

large landowners who used peasant labor to grow and harvest crops

• Known as Peasant Agriculture, these peasants were bound to the land of their

lord, paying him taxes in grain, while being protected by the lord from hardship

• The land they lived on was largely unorganized, and called

‘common land’ that any could use for farming, foraging, or hunting

• However, beginning in England the 16th century, due to the Price Rev,

Lords began to close off their land from the peasants to farm for large profits

• Fences were built, and the peasants who remained were

used in a more organized manner to plant and harvest crops

Commercialization

• The Enclosure Movement was the beginning of commercialization in

Europe—the harvesting and selling of crops by land owners for profit

• By the 16th century, some of the new economic ideas such as printed money

banks, loans, and credit had made their way into Europe through Italy

• No longer did simply having land mean you had power, to increase your

power, you needed to sell goods, and that meant commercializing agriculture

• The peasants did not go quietly however, many openly

rebelled when they were stripped of their peasant rights  \n Kett’s Rebellion was on such example in England in 1549

Mercantilism

• This drastic rise in money supply, as well as new systems of

banking and loans allowed for more investment opportunities

• This expanded joint-stock investment, as more people were

able to invest in exploration, as well as start new companies

• Additionally, increased money and income resulted in more taxes for govs to

fund exploration, thus enabling more colonization and charter companies to form

• Two excellent examples of successful charter companies

are the British East India Company and the Dutch East Indies

• These companies then established new settlements in the New World,

and brought back the goods and the profits to enrich the mother country