| In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries large changes occurred in the Western-European retail sector which ultimately resulted in the rise of modern retailing. In this period, not only the number of shops increased, but also the types of products for sale. Both new consumables as well as more fashionable goods appeared on the scene in large numbers. Nevertheless, these changes did not take place everywhere at the same time and at an equal pace. This project, which will result in three papers and two articles, analyses the impact retail guilds had on early modern commercialization processes. From research on craft guilds we know that guilds could play a decisive role in the occurrence of innovation, and that within Europe large difference existed in how guilds reacted to changing economic circumstances. Remarkably, until now retail guilds received only little attention in the debates on pre-industrial commercialization. By assessing the role of retail guilds in early modern commercialization processes, this project aims to explain why in some parts of North-Western Europe by 1750 a true consumer society had arisen, whereas in other parts retail had hardly developed and was still quite traditional with few shops and hardly any new commodities for sale. |
