This article analyzes how trade was conducted between the tenth and thirteenth centuries. We claim that, as most exchange was simultaneous, differences between law codes did not pose a substantial problem and that mercantile guilds developed not to provide institutions comparable to the modern...

By analysing a newly compiled database of exchange rates, this paper finds that Central European financial integration advanced in a cyclical fashion over the fifteenth century. The cycles were associated with changes in the money supply. Long-distance financial integration progressed in...

Starting out from the proposition that the feudal political system functioned as a market for military security where no territorial monopolies and consequently no states in the modern sense of the word existed, state formation is here explained as the outcome of efforts to restrict competition...

By analyzing a newly compiled database of exchange rates, this article finds that in Central Europe money markets integrated cyclically during the fifteenth century. The cycles were associated with monetary debasements. Long-distance financial integration progressed in connection with the rise...

In this paper we present a new method for estimating market integration under a commodity money system such as that which existed in Europe until the demise of the gold standard. The approach is based on the analysis of deviations between exchange rates and parity, which under conditions of a...

In this paper, the causes of both the development and stability of medieval and early modern village communities in Central Europe are analysed. The hypothesis is that these organisations had the function of cartels. As is widely accepted, cartels are inherently unstable, suffering from...

The paper examines the questions of how nonterritorial feudal governments in medieval central Europe emerged and what their tasks were, of how competition between these governments functioned, and of what consequences it had. The analysis leads to three hypotheses: (1) governmental...

Starting out from the hypothesis that apart from New Institutional Economics, Marxism is the branch of social theory which analyses most important economic developments in the context of social, legal and constitutional history, this essay compares the basic structures of the explanations...