Hans-Jšrg Gilomen: Neuere Forschungen zur Schweizer Wirtschaftsgeschichte des Mittelalters
The paper outlines the development
of medieval economic history in Switzerland and the research conducted on Swiss
regions over the past twenty years. First there is a focus on the institutional
embedding of this field of study and the opening up of new source material. The
paper then critically reviews the fruits of research, especially on the mixed
arable-pastoral economy of the Alps and on the arable lowland economy (Swiss
Middleland) as studied at local and regional levels. This is followed by a
critical evaluation of scientific results on the economic situation of the
nobility, on urban economy, on trade and traffic, especially over the Alpine
passes, on loans, banks and finance in the towns, and on the economic role of
the Jews and the Lombards. There is a special emphasis on theoretical
approaches with regard to source-critical conclusions of newer research on the
uses of writing (pragmatic literacy). Furthermore, the impact of the linguistic
and culturalistic turns is discussed. The paper concludes by looking ahead,
asking what opportunities may be created for the subject by cooperating with
economics, a discipline that – especially in the new area of
institutional economics – has abandoned the ahistorical modelling of
neoclassicism and begun to consider the historical perspective in its
theoretical discussions.
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