Skip to main content

The Modern Age and the development of Mercantile Capitalism

The 14th Century Crisis ends the Middle Ages and causes a major convulsion in the socio-economic structures of the medieval feudal system.The 15th and 16th centuries are the beginning of Modernity or Modern Age and They are characterized by a series of important social, cultural, economic and political transformations.Next, in History Today Online, we know a little more in depth the Modern Age and the changes that led to the development of mercantilist capitalism.

The Modern Age and the development of Mercantile Capitalism

These changes occur within the framework of a long transition from feudal mode of production to mode of capitalist production from the fourteenth to the eighteenth century.

To understand these transformations of Modernity, we will work on the different facets of these processes in different articles.We will begin now to see a summary of the changes produced in the economy during the early Modern Age , which we can characterize as the moment of development of mercantile capitalism .

Economic Transformations: Development of commercial capitalism

As we say, during these centuries there were profound changes in trade and the economic system, which favored the passage of a system feudal, typical of the Middle Ages, to the capitalist production system, which also marks the transition to the modern era.These are some of the most important changes that occurred in this period:

  • Great development of trade (from changes in agricultural production) that drives the use and circulation of currency.
  • The wealth obtained from trade is used as capital, that is, money invested ( in commercial or productive activities) to obtain more profits.It is a process that tends to accrue mulacion of capital by the high commercial and financial bourgeoisie.
  • A stage of transition between two modes of production begins: feudalism (characteristic of the Middle Ages) and the new mercantile capitalism.
  • Emergence of new forms of work such as home work and salaried work.
  • There is a strong economic relationship between rural (rural) and urban (urban) areas.
  • Exploration trips begin.New links with colonial domains (e.g.America or Africa) are incorporated into the European powers economy, forming a world economy characterized by unequal relations between a center and a periphery.

Social changes brought about by the development of mercantile capitalism

The Modern Age and the development of Mercantile Capitalism

Of course, the emergence of mercantile capitalism and changes in the economic system omico also marked the development of cities and brought about profound changes within the social field:

  • First, it should be noted that the changes that occur during the Modern Age are not abrupt, but that it is of a slow and gradual transformation , in which the precepts of the Middle Ages are gradually being left behind to proceed to the transition to the modern age.
  • The growth of the cities also caused the growth of the group called " bourgeoisie ", which came from the term bourgeois, used to designate the inhabitants of the new neighborhoods of the cities.Within the bourgeoisie there were notable differences between high bourgeoisie, the lower bourgeoisie and the plebs.The fact is that they were all free men and became part of a very important nucleus of the population, the plain people.All of them, merchants, professionals of very diverse nature, would also encourage step towards new models of commerce io and, over time, of production and business organization.
  • At this time the Humanism is also developed, which defends the importance of the individual, of man, against theological beliefs prevailing during the Middle Ages.In general, humanism is usually considered as a movement associated with the liberties of the individual, progress and free thinking.Despite this, the Church continued to have great power, but increasingly increased the number of heresies.
  • It was also during this time that some terms and concepts began to forge, such as those of nation or state .
  • This time is also considered as a of the most splendid in art history, with two distinct periods but with great importance in history, such as the Renaissance and the Baroque .

Finally, we leave you with a video and some interesting links to complete the INFO of the article.

Video about the Modern Age

In the following video you can see an introduction about the changes that occurred during this period, in which the feudal system of the Middle Ages was passed, to the capitalist system of production that caused the rise of the bourgeoisie:

Useful links

If you want to know more about d and in any other historical period, in History Today Online we can help you:

And if you liked the article or do you think it can serve a friend for their history notes, do not hesitate to share it on Facebook, Twitter or Google +.

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Don Omar Biography

Don Omar (Stage name of William Omar Landrón, Puerto Rico, 1978) Puerto Rican singer and songwriter.Educated in Villa Palmeras, an underprivileged sector of Puerto Rico, Don Omar began to compose his first songs and poems at the age of twelve; Soon he was strongly attracted to reggaeton , a musical genre that emerged in Puerto Rico in the early 90's. His musical beginnings are linked to the church, to which he was linked as a pastor.For four years he was pastor at the Church of the Restoration in Christ in Bayamón, which he left due to a sentimental disappointment (his well-known theme Although you left includes this episode from his biography).During this period he was part of several groups that sang in religious celebrations. Don Omar In 2002 Don Omar's career took a turn when Héctor El Bambino , a famous member of the duo Héctor y Tito , heard him and decided to sponsor him as a music producer.It was then that Landrón adopted the name Don Omar and began to par...
Post a Comment
Read more

Harry Lloyd Hopkins Biography

Harry Lloyd Hopkins (Sioux City, 1890-New York, 1946) American politician.He was a Roosevelt collaborator from his time as governor of New York.During his presidency he was one of the promoters of economic recovery and its representative in Europe during World War II.
Post a Comment
Read more

Edouard Manet Biography

Édouard Manet (Paris, 1832-id., 1883) French painter and printmaker.Son of an important civil servant of the Ministry of Justice, Édouard Manet was a mediocre student interested only in drawing.Faced with paternal resistance to starting an artistic career, he tried unsuccessfully to enter the Naval Academy until, after a second failed attempt, his family reluctantly agreed to finance his artistic studies, which began in 1850 in the workshop of the classical painter Thomas Couture. Édouard Manet After six years of apprenticeship, Édouard Manet established himself in his own studio.In those early days he established a relationship with artists and writers such as Henri Fantin-Latour, Edgar Degas and Charles Baudelaire.At the beginning of 1860 some of his works began to be recognized, which deserved, among others, the warm reception of the critic and writer Théophile Gautier. In his production at the end of the 1870s he accentuated the naturalism of his subject matter, to give th...
Post a Comment
Read more

José Sarmiento and Valladares Biography

José Sarmiento y Valladares (17th-18th centuries) Spanish colonial administrator.He was viceroy of New Spain (1696-1701), a position he left after the death of Carlos II and the change of dynasty.During his tenure, he managed to reactivate mining activity, suspended for lack of quicksilver, and trade in the colony.He held the titles of Count of Moctezuma and Tula.
Post a Comment
Read more

Edward fitzgerald Biography

Edward Fitzgerald (Edward Purcell; Bredfield, 1809-Merton Rectory, Norfolk, 1883) English poet and translator.He is the author of the philosophical dialogue Euphranor (1851) and a Collection of apothegms and axioms (1852), but he is known, above all, for his adaptation of the Rubaiyat by the Persian poet Omar Jayyam (1859). Edward Fitzgerald Of aristocratic lineage, Edward Fitzgerald was educated at Trinity Cambridge College, where he befriended Alfred Tennyson (who dedicated his poem Tiresias to him), William Makepeace Thackeray, James Spedding and WB Donne, graduating in 1830; later he would study Spanish and Persian privately.He lived a lonely country lord existence in Suffolk, Woodbridge, or the surrounding area; He only moved from there on the occasion of a few periodic trips to London and alternated literary activity with gardening and yachting.An eccentric character, he was a brilliant correspondent and maintained a close literary relationship with Thomas Carlyle ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Angel Fole Biography

Ánxel Fole (Ánxel Fole Sánchez; Lugo, 1903-1986) Spanish narrator and playwright in Galician language.Belonging, along with Álvaro Cunqueiro and Rafael Dieste, to a generation of Galician writers trained before the Civil War, Fole chose not to go into exile after the war and was subjected to a total internal ostracism. Ánxel Fole He began studies of philosophy and letters and law in Valladolid and Madrid, but abandoned both careers.He began to publish in the Lugo newspaper La Provincia (1927) and later collaborated in El Pueblo Gallego, in which his first article in Galician (1934) would appear and began his journalistic series Andar y ver .During the Second Republic he intervened in politics; He was vice president of the Lugo Grouping of the Republican Party and later militated in the Galician Party.At the same time he directed the literary page of Guión, wrote in Resol and founded Yunque, magazines that disappeared at the beginning of the Civil War (1936-1939). In...
Post a Comment
Read more

Edouard Balladur Biography

Édouard Balladur (Smyrna, 1929) French politician.Born in Smyrna into a family of bankers of Armenian origin, Édouard Balladur studied law at the University of Aix-en-Provence and graduated from the Institute of Political Studies in Paris. His political career began in the early 1960s.Technical adviser in Pompidou's cabinet from 1966 to 1968, the Prime Minister entrusted him with relations with the unions.Between 1969 and 1974 he was Secretary General to President Pompidou.Considered the shadow mastermind of that government, Balladur served as de facto president during Pompidou's long agony. After his death, he rejected the post of ambassador to the Vatican proposed by Valery Giscard d'Estaing and went on to work for a private company.In 1977 he was appointed president-director of General de Servicios Informáticos and in 1980, president of the European Accumulator Company.In 1984 he was appointed Councilor of State, and in the legislative elections of March 16, 198...
Post a Comment
Read more

Álvaro de Albornoz Liminiana Biography

Álvaro de Albornoz Liminiana (Luarca, 1879-Mexico, 1954) Spanish politician and writer.In 1929, together with Marcelino Domingo, he intervened in the founding of the Radical Socialist Party.He was Minister of Development and Justice of the Second Republic and President of the Republican Government in exile (1945-1946).
Post a Comment
Read more

Joseph plateau Biography

Joseph Plateau (Brussels, 1801-Ghent, 1883) Belgian physicist.Professor at the University of Ghent, he carried out research work on static and fluid dynamics phenomena.He devised a strobe system for the study of vibratory movements.
Post a Comment
Read more