This study of sixteenth-century Antwerp and its surroundings is
an attempt to combine commercial explanation models concerning the
impact of great towns on their surrounding countryside with an
approach in which institutional factors, and especially property
relations, play the major role. It focuses on four types of
influence of Antwerp on its surroundings:
- the demographic impact
- the increasing urban demand for agrarian products
-the impact of the urban economy on non-agrarian types of labour
in the countryside and
- the purchases of land and other investments made by Antwerp
citizens and their impact on the property relations in the
surrounding countryside
Within the framework of these four fields of interaction between
town and countryside, three essential questions have to be
answered: First, how can we characterize the urban influence in
each of these fields? Can it be considered a stimulus for the rural
economy or rather an obstacle? Second, what was the economic
response of the rural economy to the urban impact? Did it respond
by specializing, according to the model presented by J. de Vries,
and others, or were there obstacles that obstructed specialization?
Third, what role did the medieval legacies play in the interaction
between the ‘capitalist’ metropolis and the 'feudal'
countryside?
Michael Limberger teaches at the Catholic University
Brussels (KUB) and at Ghent University. His research covers
late medieval and early modern economic and social history,
especially of the Low Countries.