Kryzys gospodarczy późnego średniowiecza czy kryzys historiografii?

• Authors: Piotr Guzowski

Title variants

EN

AN ECONOMIC CRISIS IN THE LATE MIDDLE AGES OR A CRISIS OF HISTORIOGRAPHY?

• Languages of publication: PL

Abstracts

EN

The presented text is a voice in a discussion on the economic crisis affecting Polish territory during the Late Middle Ages. The author proposed a polemic with the theses contained in the chapter entitled The East and the West. European economy in the fourteenth-fifteenth centuries, published in: Polish Lands and the West. Studies on the Growth of Mediaeval Europe, edited by S. Gawlas. The hypothesis formulated by M. Dygo about a crisis of grain farming, animal husbandry and some of the crafts is based on an analysis of fifteenth-century prices. The author maintains that the present-day state of research makes it impossible to accept the suggested thesis. A comparison of fifteenth-century prices from Cracow, issued in 1935 by J. Pelc, contains fragmentary data, and all conclusions drawn upon this basis give rise to serious methodological doubts. Furthermore, studies dealing with the Polish economy during the Late Middle Ages (in contrast to the early modern era) were never part of a popular current of research, and our knowledge remains slight. In addition, during the past decades economic historiography has been experiencing a profound crisis of its own and has not offered new monographs which would entitle building justified hypotheses about the state of the late mediaeval economy as a whole. This is the reason why all theses validating or toppling the conception of an economic crisis in Polish lands during the twilight of the Middle Ages remain mere theoretical constructions.

Keywords

EN

ECONOMY; CRISIS

• Publisher: Polska Akademia Nauk. Instytut Historii im. Tadeusza Manteuffla PAN w Warszawie
• Journal: Roczniki Dziejów Społecznych i Gospodarczych
• Year: 2008
• Volume: 68
• Pages: 173-192

Contributors

author

Piotr Guzowski

• Instytut Historii Uniwersytetu w Bialymstoku