Connectors between a Polycentric Empire and Global Markets, 1713-1815

The project explores the integration of Habsburg Central Europe in global trade between the end of the Spanish War of Succession (1713) and the Congress of Vienna (1815). This time period brought about a far-reaching social and economic change, for instance an extension of textile proto-industry in the Austrian and Bohemian lands and rationalizing measures in agriculture. These developments cant be treated separated from the exchange of commodities which so far has been studied regarding internal market formation rather than in relation with international commerce. This project focuses the link between internal and external trade by exploring traders and their networks that were based at the Mediterranean port cities of Trieste and Genoa and acted as mediators between trade centres in the Habsburg Monarchy (such as Vienna, Milan, Bolzano, Prague, Brody) and markets on the Iberian Peninsula, in particular Cadiz and Barcelona. The political changes in the aftermath of the Spanish and Polish Wars of Succession played a key role as they brought Lombardy, Flanders and Tuscany under Habsburg rule and turned the Habsburg Monarchy into a polycentric Empire. The traders of these newly incorporated possessions acted as important catalysts for the links between the Habsburg dominions and global markets. Following this framework, three issues will be studied more in detail: First, which products did the corresponding merchants trade with and in what way did their networks connect small-scale and wholesale trade and, hence, integrate commodity flows between local and regional market places up to global markets. Second, did cooperation within a polycentric Habsburg network between Flemish, Milanese and Tuscan merchants exist and how did it spur the formation of internationally operating commercial networks. Third, how did these networks spur the formation of domestic commercial capital within the Habsburg Monarchy and what was impact these merchant networks had on the economy, in particular regarding capital accumulation and investments in proto-industry. The project draws on case studies of merchants at Trieste and Genoa, hereby considering culturally diverse merchant groups, but in particular immigrants from Lombardy, Tuscany and Flanders. For conducting these studies a dense sample of sources will be evaluated, most importantly notary files in Trieste, Genoa and Vienna being complemented by lawsuits, consulate reports and custom registers. Information are collected in a database and analyzed by methods of social network analysis, by making use of programmes Ucinet and GIS. In addition, mechanisms of cooperation and trust will be studied by qualitative methods.

The project explored the Habsburg Monarchy's involvement in and influence by globalization processes in the early modern period. The traditional view that Habsburg-ruled Central Europe was largely disconnected from long-distance maritime trade, especially in the Atlantic basin, was refuted on several levels: If Habsburg regions had relied on intermediation through seaports such as Venice, Gdansk, and Hamburg to place exports on global markets until the early eighteenth century, shifts in commercial and political geography in the Adriatic region and the emerging maritime trade policy of the Viennese Court after the War of the Spanish Succession gradually changed this constellation. From the mid-century, the port city of Trieste became a gateway for commodity exchange between Central European regions and Spanish Atlantic markets. By the end of the century, Trieste's role in direct trade with Spain's ports had increased, although traditional channels of intermediation, especially via Genoa, remained important. This process of increasingly dense trade contacts was based on the construction of merchant networks between Trieste and Spanish ports, especially with the Andalusian harbour of Cadiz, which was the dominant hub for trade with Spain's colonies overseas. While some merchants from Trieste emigrated to Cdiz as well as to other ports such as Barcelona, Mlaga or Alicante, the settlement of merchants from Bohemia, Tyrol and Lombardy was far more important for linking Habsburg Central Europe with the Spanish Atlantic. From Cadiz, networks emerged with merchants in Spanish-American ports, where only Spanish or naturalized persons were allowed to emigrate. In addition to legally emigrating Milanese merchants, Bohemian merchants, but also isolated Trieste merchants, took advantage of loopholes to settle as merchants in Spanish America. These merchant networks organized the export of proto-industrial products from Central Europe, among which linen, steel and glass stood out. Raw materials such as copper and mercury were also supplied. In the opposite direction, the same networks supplied Central European consumers with colonial goods. The trade exchange created a complex economic cycle in which protoindustrial products were manufactured in trans-regional commodity chains. Their export to Spanish America often served there as a component in production processes of the plantation economy (especially linen as clothing of African slaves) and mining (tools). The goods produced were shipped back to Central Europe and were part of the consumption of proto-industrial households. Merchants and their networks, acting as coordinators of this division of labor, relied on family ties, which facilitated the acquisition of information as well as the accumulation of capital. For the latter, the dowries of wives played a crucial role, which meant that women also played an important role in family trading enterprises as investors, and as traders in their own right. This can be observed especially among Lombards and Tyrolians.