AP European History AMSCO Guided Notes
1.10: The Commercial Revolution
AMSCO Guided Notes
AP European History Guided Notes
AMSCO 1.10 - The Commercial Revolution
Essential Questions
- Between 1450 to 1648, what European commercial and agricultural developments took place and what were the economic effects?
I. Economic Patterns
1. What is capital and how does it function within a capitalist economic system?
2. How did the cottage industry demonstrate early forms of capitalism in 15th-century Europe?
A. Changes in Banking and Finance
1. Why did European banking and finance need new tools and innovations in the 16th and 17th centuries?
2. What is double-entry bookkeeping and how did it improve merchant record-keeping?
3. How did joint-stock companies distribute risk among investors and what returns could they generate?
1. Urban Financial Centers
1. What roles did Genoa, Amsterdam, and London play as financial centers in the 16th and 17th centuries?
B. New Economic Elite
1. How did the rise of merchants and bankers challenge the traditional power of landed nobility?
2. What was the status of gentry in England and how did their influence grow in the 17th century?
II. Subsistence Farming and Commercial Agriculture
A. Subsistence Agriculture
1. What was the relationship between peasants and lords under feudalism and serfdom?
2. How did the Little Ice Age affect agricultural production and food security in medieval Europe?
3. How did the Great Plague change the status and conditions of peasants in Western Europe?
1. The Open-Field System
1. How did the open-field system organize land ownership and what role did the commons play?
2. Crop Rotation
1. What problem did crop rotation solve and how did the three-field system improve upon the two-field system?
B. Commercialization of Agriculture
1. What was the price revolution and how did it contribute to the commercialization of agriculture?
2. How did rising prices affect merchants and bankers differently than ordinary people?
1. The Enclosure Movement
1. What was enclosure and how did it transform the open-field system into privately owned fields?
2. What were the benefits of enclosure for large landowners and what negative effects did it have on peasants?
III. Serfdom, Peasants, and Revolts
A. Serfdom in Eastern Europe
1. How did the status of peasants in Eastern Europe differ from Western Europe in the 16th and 17th centuries?
B. Peasant Revolts
1. What caused peasant revolts in the late Middle Ages and what was the outcome of the 1525 revolt in the Holy Roman Empire?
IV. Commerce and the Growth of Cities
1. How did the percentage of Europe's population living in large cities change between 1500 and 1650?
A. Population and Prices
1. How did population growth between 1500 and 1600 affect food prices and workers' wages differently?
2. What was the relationship between population growth and the rise of major European cities in the 16th century?
B. Migrants and Cities
1. How did the growth of commercial capitalism affect the power of merchant and craft guilds?
2. What problems did rapid urbanization create for cities and their lower-class residents?
1. London
1. What were the major challenges facing London's poor residents in the early 17th century?
2. How did London's population growth and living conditions contribute to the Great Fire of 1666?
2. Paris
1. What factors contributed to Paris's growth and development in the 16th and 17th centuries?
2. What were the main problems affecting the poor in Paris by the late 17th century?
Key Terms
capital
Dutch East India Company
Great Plague (Black Death)
capitalism
British East India Company
open-field system
means of production
Genoa
the commons
market
Amsterdam
crop rotation
market economy
London
two-field system
entrepreneurs
commerce
three-field system
Medici
hierarchy
inflation
Fuggers
manor
price revolution
money economy
landlord
commercial agriculture
double-entry bookkeeping
peasants
enclosure
joint-stock company
serfdom
agricultural commodities
stock
subsistence agriculture
migrants
dividends
Little Ice Age