Landtransportprijzen en de economische ontwikkeling van Brabant in de lange zestiende eeuw. Een braakliggend stuk prijzengeschiedenis

Abstract

Een braakliggend stuk prijzengeschiedenisLand transport prices and the economic development of Brabant during the long sixteenth century In this article, the authors present a long-term series of land transport prices and forward some hypotheses about the role and importance of rising transport prices on the sixteenth-century urban economy of Brabant. During this period, land transport prices of bulky commodities rose remarkably primarily as a result of the ever increasing prices of horse fodder. Although historiography emphasises important changes in the organisation of carters and waggoners, as well as technological innovations and infrastructural improvements of sixteenth-century transport, they did not significantly contribute to moderating transport prices. As the provisioning of the urban population depended on the transportation of bulky commodities, e.g. agricultural products, building materials and fuel, transport prices heavily weighted upon the price development of these product categories on the urban markets. However, sixteenth-century transport in Brabant did not impede economic growth, but it did not actively contribute to it either.Er zijn in het economisch-historisch onderzoek én in het actuele economische beleid allicht weinig thema's waarover zoveel eensgezindheid bestaat als over het centrale belang van mobiliteit en transport in processen van economische groei en ontwikkeling. Indirect blijkt dit onder andere uit de aandacht die besteed wordt aan de zogenaamde 'transportrevoluties' in de historiografie over het negentiende-eeuwse moderniseringsproces. Aanvan-

Road transport productivity in the sixteenth‐century Low Countries: the case of Brabant, 1450–1650†

“…Technology, infrastructure, and organization did not evolve sufficiently to exert any significant pressure on the relative cost of transport. 59 Agriculture's tight grip on the road traffic sector and the absence of productivity gains confirm the position of land transport as a major pre-industrial bottleneck. It fundamentally limited the radius of action of the international, transcontinental trade to a modest product range of goods with a favourable value-weight ratio.…”

The Rural Land Market in Early Modern Inland Flanders and Brabant: A Long Run Perspective

“…This urban growth had a profound impact on the surrounding countryside due to an expanding demand for agricultural produce as well as supply of (urban) capital. Hence the development of Antwerp and -albeit to a lesser extent -Brussels during the sixteenth century accelerated the commodification of land, labour and capital of the countryside in the western part of the southern Low Countries (Blondé, 1999;Ballaux and Blondé, 2007;Limberger, 2009;Limberger, 2008).…”