Baltic Commerce and Urban Society, 1500-1700

Book excerpt: The great merchant port of Danzig, now Gdansk, is at the centre of this set of studies by Professor Maria Bogucka. Through it passed the greatest part of the trade that linked the West with Poland and the Baltic; from it the commercial culture of the West spread out into the towns of Poland, and with it new currents in religion and urban life, and from there it began to permeate the whole of Polish society. The studies in this volume examine both the social and economic sides of this process, looking at articles of commerce and trends in urbanization, as well as patterns of poor relief and gender relations. The author's aim is to analyse specific aspects of what happened in Poland, while situating these in the broader context of the development of early modern European society.