Italian Merchants And The United Kingdom

Medieval England was generally an economic undeveloped third-class county.So the foreign merchants and merchant capital had often dominated the fate ofEnglish economy. Among them, Italian merchants and merchant capital played animportant roll in the developing of English economy then, which was an importantelement of English social transformation from feudal society to modern society. Thisdissertation will mainly inquire into this problem.Besides the introduction and concluding remarks, this dissertation consists ofthree parts.The first one mainly probes into the backgrounds of Italian merchants andmerchant capital's flowing into England. The backgrounds are largely composed ofthree points. Firstly English native merchants were relatively conservative and weakso that the foreign merchants could play a part in promoting the development ofEnglish. It provided the foreign merchants and merchant capital with some room fortheir actions in England. Secondly, Then England was a "sea county" that failed tomake up to its reputation. English sea power couldn't undertake the huge task ofdealing with the overseas trade without the foreign merchant's attending. Thirdly, thefavorable policy adapted by the English royal court was a stimulation of Italianmerchants and merchant capital's flowing into England.The second part mainly analyzes the trade dealt with by Italian merchants inEngland. They not only provided the English woolen industry with much chemicalsbut also controlled to some extent the English wool export trade. They also opened upto the English wool objectively and accelerated the change of English trade structure.Meanwhile, the Italian merchants who catered to the development of English woolenindustry sentthe woolen cloth to the market beyond English native merchant's reach.This also stimulated the quantitative development of English woolen industry andqualitative transformation.The third part mainly expounds the contribution of the Italian merchants to thedevelopment of English economy and society, explaining the reasons why Italianmerchants declined. The Italian merchants formed the strongest foreign merchantsgroup in England. They became the bankers of English royal court so that they playedan important part in keeping English financial system operating regularly. In addition,they had dominated the fate of some cities, especially Southampton. However, Italianmerchants were also themselves gravediggers. When English economy developedindependently, they would decline unavoidably due to the defects of itself economicand politic structure.All in all, the presence of Italian merchants and merchant capital made up to acertain extent the relatively undeveloped conditions of English merchant capital,promoted the development of English economy and society at that time. It was also afactor of English transformation from feudal society to modern society firstly.