By Germán Jiménez Montes, Universidad de Sevilla/Rijksuniversiteit Groningen

(g.jimenez.montes@rug.nl)

The following paper was presented during the Cost Action IS1301 – Training School “Production and Use of Religious Texts in Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe”, Antwerp 29^th-31^st October 2014. It represents a social and economic approach to the ‘production and use of religious texts’, the topic of the Antwerp Training School. However, the analysis will neither focus on the production nor on the use of religious texts, but rather on the process in between: the distribution.

The following is based on my Master’s thesis, defended at the beginning of October 2014 at the University of Sevilla under the title “Flemish merchants in Seville during the beginning of the Dutch Revolt (1565-1585)”. In this study I dealt with the commercial relations between Andalusia and Flanders, and especially between their two economic capitals, Seville and Antwerp, during the second half of the sixteenth century, when two phenomena took place simultaneously:

–                     On the one hand, the consolidation of Seville as a primary trade and financial center in Europe, thanks to its monopoly in the Spanish colonial trade.

–                     On the other, the beginning of Antwerp’s commercial decline.

In more general terms, the beginning of the Eighty Years’ War, in the context of the European expansion, was a critical moment for Europe, because the economic, political and cultural conditions of the continent dramatically changed. Attending to this framework, the following text will analyse the Flemish mercantile network that made possible the importation of books from Antwerp to counter-reformist Spain, and its redistribution from Seville to soon-to-be-evangelised America.

It should be noted that I cannot present advanced research so far – what it is being presented here is merely a hypothesis. This hypothesis was generated by comparing extant historiography on the book trade between Flanders and Spain[1] with the outcome of my Master’s thesis.

 

Antwerp-Seville-America

In order to comprehend a social network we have to understand that, in the end, we are not talking about something abstract. On the contrary, we deal with places (namely nodes), people (namely agents) and the connections between them. Some information about the geography of the network we are interested in is thus necessary first.

In times of Charles V the booming Flemish provinces were inserted in the scheme of a monarchy that was expanding towards America and Asia, and the colonial activity derived from this process was organized as a monopoly in Seville. In other words, with the ascension of Charles V, Flanders and Andalusia built a symbiotic system in which one of the most urbanized and economically developed regions of Europe became linked with one of the leading vectors of the European expansion. Beyond this political context, we have to take the cultural and religious momentum of the period into consideration. As Vicente Bécares Botas states, Spain brought a new spirit to its Empire based on the Tridentine postulates opposing the new religious movements. In the second half of the sixteenth century, an axis was thus created between Antwerp, Madrid-Salamanca and Rome promoting the counter-reformist culture, which had one of its pillars in the book industry of Antwerp[2].

However, it seems important to ask if this cultural axis had a correlation with economic networks. This is not a simple question since two different distribution circuits can be distinguished for the distribution of religious books from Flanders to Spain: First, a specific book market, which had its main center in Spain in Salamanca and its University. Secondly, there was a more general circuit: the commercial Atlantic system, that is, the general circuit of Euro-American trade, in which Seville played a major role. In the latter case, books were only one of numerous goods that were being exchanged.

We thus find two different ways of book distribution, though it must be admitted that they were both parts of the same economic network, connecting the north and the south of Europe and having Antwerp and Seville as its principal economic nodes. A next question must therefore concern the axis built between Antwerp and Seville in the context of the Flemish trade network.

 

The axis Antwerp-Seville and the Flemish trade network

Flemish merchants are already documented in Seville at the end of the Middle Ages, but their presence in Andalusia grew exponentially with the beginning of the colonization of America. The beginning of the commercial and financial axis between Seville and Antwerp should be tied to this moment.

It is vital to understand the dynamics of the economic system developed between Andalusia and Flanders, as they formed the framework in which the greatest part of books produced in Antwerp were going to be distributed. On the one hand, sixteenth-century Antwerp was the greatest financial and trade center in Europe, and worked as a redistribution center, importing colonial products from Lisbon and Seville and sending them to central and northern Europe and vice-versa. On the other hand, Seville was the main commercial center for the exchanges between Europe and America. Manufactured products from the North of Europe were imported to Seville and then exported to America, while colonial goods, including silver, were received from America and later spread to the rest of the European continent. Following this general dynamic, religious texts from the North of Europe circulated through the Spanish Monarchy within the commercial network that connected Antwerp, Seville and America[3].

Seville and America, land of opportunity

The fact that Early Modern Spain was a ‘land of opportunity’ explains why more and more Flemish businessmen settled down in its kingdoms during the sixteenth century, including merchants and producers dedicated to the book industry. Some of them simply worked as employees of the Spanish printing houses, and frequently moved from one to another peninsular city looking for a better life. But others – with enough money and influence within the Flemish network – managed to found their own shop or printing house[4]. The first German and Flemish businessmen founding their own printing houses in America can be found in the sixteenth century already[5].

That Spain was a land of opportunity held especially true for the religious book industry: with given the counter-reformist moment and the Christian colonization of America, two simultaneous processes caused large-scale growth in the demand for religious texts.

It is thus not surprising that we find more and more agents from the Flemish commercial and printing houses working in Spain: for instance, agents of Plantin, Nutius, Steelsius or Bellère were active in the main economic centers of the Iberian Peninsula. They were attracted by Spain because of its lack of printing productivity, or in other words, the incapacity of the Spanish printing industry to meet the growing demand[6].

 

The case of Juan Lippeo

As mentioned above, Klaus Wagner has studied one of these Flemish agents dedicated to the book trade in Seville: Juan Lippeo, an agent in Seville of the Antwerp printer Jean Bellère, who had his own book shop in Seville. According to his death inventory, Wagner concludes that out of 736 different books, 162 were produced in Spain, 230 in France, 146 in Germany and 108 in Flanders. However, thanks to a letter written by Juan Lippeo, we know that all the European books of his shop were sent via Antwerp:

“… declaro diziendo verdad que todos los libros e herramientas y adereços del dicho oficio que a el presente tengo en mi tienda, que es todo de Pedro Belero [Bellère], vecino de la ciudad de Amberes, el qual me lo dio e entregó e envió para que lo vendiesse e beneficiasse por su cuenta e yo no tengo ninguna cosa en ello más de solamente el salario” [7].

This reinforces the idea that Antwerp not only played a role in production, but was also the main redistribution center for the European book trade.

 

Merchants, companies and networks

Before drawing conclusions, a brief profile of the merchants integrated into the Flemish trade network may be helpful. So far, connections appeared fairly impersonal, but the reality is that exchanges were only possible because of the initiative of individual agents. These individual agents were organized in broader structures: the company and the network.

The commercial companies created at the end of the Middle Ages were the basic units of the European economic expansion. Thanks to the development of new financial and commercial techniques and the trust built among the members of an economic network, these commercial companies were active internationally, and the share of risks and profits allowed them to increase their activity. While we are speaking of a Flemish network here, due to initiatives coming from Flanders, we are speaking also about transnational networks, whose activities took place in different countries.

The nuclear structure of the Flemish commercial companies, and thus of the network, was based on family ties. To distinguish the interests of the family from those of the company is therefore rather difficult. The book industry also shows familial organization as a main principle – for example, the Flemish printing houses in Flanders or Spain were run by different generations of the same family. In the new context of transnational trade, trust was essential, and using family was the best way to establish trustworthy connections. This is why Antwerp commercial families typically sent younger relatives (a son, a brother in law, etc.) to commercial cities like Seville.

The main responsibilities of the agents sent to Seville by the commercial firms were to import and sell Flemish goods in Andalusia, and to try to introduce their products into the “Carrera de Indias”, to buy American and Andalusian products and to send them to their companies in Flanders; finally, to administrate the transactions of these businesses, balancing the exchanges and the bills of exchanges in order to solve their personal account with their Flemish commercial houses. Once residing in Seville, these agents, even the ones dedicated to the book trade, tried to diversify their business, which was another way of reducing trade risks. For instance, Juan Lippeo – and the following generations of Lippeos in Seville – invested not only in their bookshop, but also in Andalusian agricultural products or Flemish cloth importation.

More and more Flemish merchants settled down permanently in Seville during the 16^th century. They formed a well-defined and autonomous group that behaved as a lobby, increasing its influence in the local society and economy. Altogether, they integrated into Catholic Andalusia without signficant problems. As they were afraid of being confused with rebel Dutch or German merchants, and wished to maintain their social status individually and as a group, they reaffirmed their Catholic condition and their loyalty to the Spanish Crown repeatedly. Despite this far-reaching integration, they cultivated their membership of and ties to the Flemish trade network during the following centuries.

Conclusions

As the work presented here can only be called a hypothesis, it will finish with two reflections rather than definite conclusions. As it appears, printed texts became an essential tool for the European expansion – an expansion in which the Spanish Monarchy played a major role with the colonization of America and the Philippines. However, this economic and cultural colonization would not have been possible without the Flemish industry, and especially Antwerp’s book production. The city of Seville served as an intermediary for the book distribution from Antwerp to America. It therefore seems likely that the greatest part of the book trade followed the same routes and dynamics than the general Atlantic trade moving between Flanders, Andalusia and America. Books were exchanged within the Flemish mercantile networks together with a larger variety of products.

A second thought is that merchants were an essential factor for the new political and religious tensions within the European continent. As they connected different European regions with their exchanges and travels, they were not only responsible for the distribution of books, texts and other goods, but also for the transmission of new social and cultural behaviors. The circulation and distribution of religious texts and beliefs within European merchant networks should therefore be taken seriously as a factor of cultural, religious and economic history.

Bibliography

Vicente Bécares Botas: Arias Montano y Plantino: el libro flamenco en la España de Felipe II, León, Universidad de León, 1999.

Clive Griffin: Los Cromberger: la historia de una imprenta del siglo XVI en Sevilla y Méjico, Madrid, Ediciones Cultura Hispánica, 1991.

Germán Jiménez Montes: Mercaderes flamencos en Sevilla durante los inicios de la revuelta neerlandesa, 1565-1585. (MA thesis).

Marta de la Mano Mercaderes e impresores de libros en la Salamanca del siglo XVI, Salamanca, Universidad de Salamanca, 1998.

Jaime Moll: “Amberes y el mundo hispano del libro”, in Werner Thomas and Robert A. Verdonk (eds.), Encuentros en Flandes: Relaciones e intercambios hispanoflamencos a inicios de la Edad Moderna, Leuven, Leuven University Press, 2000.

Eddy Stols and Werner Thomas (eds.): Un mundo sobre papel. Libros y grabados flamencos en el imperio hispanoportugués (siglos XVI-XVIII), Leuven, Acco, 2009.

Klaus Wagner “Flamencos en el comercio del libro en España: Juan Lippeo, mercader de libros y agente de los Bellère de Amberes” in El libro antiguo español, tomo VI, Salamanca, Universidad de Salamanca, 2002.

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