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Corporations and Business Associations from the Commercial Revolution to the Age of Discovery: Trade, Jurisdiction and the State, 1200–1600
Author(s) -
Cavanagh Edward
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
history compass
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.121
H-Index - 1
ISSN - 1478-0542
DOI - 10.1111/hic3.12341
Subject(s) - jurisdiction , state (computer science) , politics , empire , legislature , face (sociological concept) , political science , middle ages , economic history , law , economy , history , sociology , economics , ancient history , social science , computer science , algorithm
Corporations changed the face of Christendom and then proceeded to change the face of the world. This article, focusing principally upon the late medieval period, will explore the extent to which the early modern expansion of European people and ideas during the ‘age of discovery’ occurred as a result of the development of human associationism. Corporations, associations, syndicates, guilds and companies laid many of the institutional platforms of Western imperialism. Before that could happen, the imperfect extension of jurisdiction over the domestic and foreign activities of these entities demanded new judicial and legislative innovations across late medieval Europe. In response to recent economic and historical interest in the early modern trading company, this article explores some of the legal and political conditions of the Middle Ages that allowed for the expansion of Europe during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and in the process offers an introductory way to perceive of empire, trade and jurisdiction without the state.