Note 876 — Chapter XIII · THE FORM-WORLD OF ECONOMIC LIFE (A) MONEY

And, consequently, on a very small scale. As foreign trade was in those days highly adventurous and appealed to the imagination, it was as a rule immensely exaggerated. The “great” merchants of Venice and the Hansa about 1300 were hardly the equals of the more distinguished craftsmen. The turnover of even the Medici or the Fugger about 1400 was equivalent to that of a shop-business in a small town to-day. The largest merchant vessels, in which usually several traders held part shares, were much smaller than modern German river-barges, and made only one considerable voyage each year. The celebrated wool-export of England, a main element of Hanseatic trade, amounted about 1270 to hardly as much as the contents of two modern goods-trains (Sombart, Der moderne Kapitalismus, I, pp. 280, et seq.).