The Spanish Connection. French and Flemish Merchant Networks

Everything is a network! For some time now, networks are everywhere, as they help to explain a world of increasingly complexity. Networks bring structure and order in a tangle of connections and provide them with meaning. In the social sciences applying network analyzing tools (Social Network Analysis) has been common for many years. In the historical sciences, on the other hand, a network is often still only used as a metaphor or a trendy key word. In this book, I break new ground, going an interdisciplinary way and linking the social science practices of network analysis with the scientific approach of historians. In the focus of my analysis is the city of Seville in the early modern period, being the Atlantic trading hub par excellence. Since the mid-16th century, a brisk trade between Europe and America had developed, and due to strict monopoly rights, it was predominantly managed in Seville. The American trade exerted a tremendous attraction on foreign merchants (divided into nations), whose numbers rose sharply during the late 16th century. The key players of the book are the nations from France and the Southern Netherlands, commonly called Flanders. These two groups provided the main liaisons for Seville`s trade with Northwestern Europe, from where most of the goods destined for America came from. In order to investigate the connections of the Flemish and French actors through time and in adequate density, notarial records of the years 1580, 1600, 1620, and 1640 were investigated. In addition, data from the Archivo General de Indias was used to compare the economic networks with private ones. For most of the investigated period, the Flemings were together with the Portuguese the dominant foreign nation of Seville. Their integration into society and economy went extremely well. The Flemish nation adapted very quickly to the new social environment of Seville, including the usage of the Spanish language and the religious practices of the Spanish elite. For the French, the situation was different because their group was much smaller than that of the Flemings. Many French merchants stayed only for a short while in the city and left after finishing their business. The main exception was a small group of Frenchmen which was particularly well integrated and had gained considerable prosperity. For both nations, the contact with the homeland and to compatriots was important. In this regard, however, a big difference exists between the Flemish and the French: Just behind the Spaniards of Seville, compatriots were the most important private and economic ties in the Flemish networks. The number of Frenchmen, on the other hand, was much lower than that of the Flemings, which is why the French in addition to their contacts with Spaniards based their networks chiefly on Flemish individuals and not on compatriots. Consequently, the Flemings were more numerous than the French themselves within the French networks and in order to be economically and socially successful, the French nation depended on the cooperation with its Flemish sister-nation. Finally, two more results of the book should be pointed out. First, Spanish trade bans, contrary to many historians assessment as ineffective, did have a strongly recognizable negative effect on the merchants networks in Seville (foreigners in the American trade, trade between warring nations, etc.). Second, the results show that the alleged start of the descent of Seville at the beginning of the 17th century must be moved back, because Sevilles trade bloomed until at least 1620, a year that was characterized by an extraordinarily intense American trade.