Book contents
- Making Merchants
- Making Merchants
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Acknowledgments
- Note on Currencies and Monetary Values
- Introduction
- Part I The Selbstzeugnisse in Context
- 1 The Historiographical Context
- 2 The Sociocultural Context
- 3 The Problem of Merchants’ Self-Perception
- Part II The Merchants’ Selbstzeugnisse
- Part III Merchants in the Round
- Bibliography
- Index
1 - The Historiographical Context
from Part I - The Selbstzeugnisse in Context
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 19 September 2025
Book contents
- Making Merchants
- Making Merchants
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Acknowledgments
- Note on Currencies and Monetary Values
- Introduction
- Part I The Selbstzeugnisse in Context
- 1 The Historiographical Context
- 2 The Sociocultural Context
- 3 The Problem of Merchants’ Self-Perception
- Part II The Merchants’ Selbstzeugnisse
- Part III Merchants in the Round
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
This chapter discusses the nature of the Selbstzeugnisse left by the merchants in this study and locates the texts in the history of autobiography, ego-documents, and similar self-narratives. It also explains that no other regions in northern Europe produced texts like these during this period (1400–1600) and that the German-speaking regions from which they come was then emerging as a major center of early modern capitalism.
Information
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Making MerchantsThe Cultural Construction of a Merchant Class in Early Modern Germany, pp. 9 - 17Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2025
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