Spain's Golden Fleece: Wool Production and the Wool Trade from the Middle Ages to the Nineteenth Century.

Carla Rahn Phillips and William D. Phillips, Jr., Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997. xviii + 441 pp. $49.95. ISBN: 0-8018-5518-7.

These two studies on economic and social history represent the best current work in the field. Both books, resting on massive amounts of archival research, will define their fields and shape scholarship for years to come.

The Phillips have brought together decades of their own research, as well as the best of contemporary Spanish work, to provide the first modern, thorough history of the Mesta. This institution functioned in Castile as a public mechanism for settling disputes between herders and farmers, and it lasted from the late thirteenth century until 1836. The authors decided they should not study wool production without the wool trade, so they broadened their book to include wool exports and the domestic textile industry. The main argument of this book is that herding and the wool trade were ideal for Spain because they used lands and resources that would not sustain agriculture. The older literature assumed that the Mesta and pastoralism were bad for the ecology and economy of Spain. The ecological context of transhumance reveals that the great flocks of migrating Merino sheep employed thousands of Spaniards in most periods, yielding enough wool for valuable exports and for local industrial needs. Pastoralism helped to preserve marginal lands but at times population pressures caused land to be farmed, where especially on the high plains it would be quickly exhausted.

The authors have raised the level of debate about Spain's relative failure in the race to sustained economic development. The buoyant economy during most of the sixteenth century eventually failed to keep pace with Spain's main rivals - England, France, and the Netherlands. Many explanations, ranging from pointless, extravagant wars to the misuse of the New World, to the favoring of pastoralism and the Mesta over farming have been advanced to account for Spain's relative stagnation. By pointing out just how little statistical information we have about the Spanish economy, the Phillips have raised serious doubts about previous economic assumptions. New data on wool production proves that in every period there was enough fine Merino wool for domestic manufactures, and that high levels of exports continued into the eighteenth century. Only then, with the enlightened Physiocrats' emphasis on farming at the expense of everything else, did the crown abandon its traditional role as mediator between herding and farming interests in favor of blatant preferences for agriculture. At the same time, enough Merino sheep were exported to enable herds elsewhere to deprive Spain of its comparative advantage in producing the best wool in Europe. Although the Phillips might have provided more information on the state's overall economic policies, there is enough here to discredit the older view of the Mesta as bad policy and economics.

One of the most impressive features of this book is the seamless collaboration between the authors, who provide a model on how joint writing can shine. Several chapters discuss in detail the cycles of transhumance and the many stages in taking wool from the backs of sheep and transforming it into cloth for people. At times there is evident sympathy for the shivering sheep who experienced the yearly loss of their fleece, but this renewable resource taught people how to maintain and improve the breed, the sheepwalks, and pastures. Many groups of skilled people participated in herding sheep, shearing their wool, washing it, transporting the wool sacks over tough roads to the ports and cities where it was exported or woven. Along the way the authors provide a fine sketch of Burgos and a wider view of the Spanish merchant class. This book is one of the best on the Spanish economy in any period, and whatever Spain's economic ills may have been, they cannot be placed at the feet of the Merino sheep.

In this second volume on the Venetian money market, Reinhold C. Mueller completes by himself the project started with Frederic Lane in 1985 on coins and moneys of account. This study caps the distinguished scholarship on the Venetian economy, now making that city's economy the best understood in Italy. Before the founding of the public Rialto Bank in 1587, Venice relied on a series of private banks and money changers to provide financial services. In the fourteenth century the Grain Office, charged with maintaining the food supply, also took deposits and supplied credit. Because of Venice's pivotal role in Mediterranean trade, the city became an important financial center. Venice's stable government and predictable state convoys also created orderly and trustworthy markets that attracted foreign merchants, notably the Germans, and international bankers, especially the Florentines. Because Venice was also an important bullion market with regular trading cycles, it became an ideal center for bills of exchange and rechange. One of the most important findings of this book is that the Florentine bankers made Venice a more significant exchange center than was Florence itself. No local bank ever matched the expertise and reach of the Florentines, nor did any have branches outside Venice. The Venetian merchants specialized in what they knew best, long distance trade, and left much of local finance in the hands of capable foreigners.

The chapters on bills of exchange provide the most lucid explanation in any language of these complex financial instruments. Mueller shows how these bills, in addition to financing trade, also served as a reliable source of local short-term credit. Venice's position as one of the main centers for bills and for setting exchange rates enabled local people to borrow money with bills of rechange, intended for local payment. Venetian banks, dominated by nobles, did not compete well in the exchange business. Since its banks usually failed because of famines and high prices, miscalculated seasonal demands for cash, and collapses in commodity prices, banking was a risky business. Also, Venetian law did not recognize limited liability, so losses to bankers could be staggering. Mueller also presents an excellent overview of the public debt and the early market in debt shares, which provided a haven for savings and the chance to speculate on share prices. By the sixteenth century, however, the city's debt was so large and interest payments were in such arrears that the 1503 interest was not paid until 1576.

Mueller concludes that the distinctive feature of Venice's money markets was that the state took a strong role in creating what became an exceptionally trustworthy set of market institutions. This book provides the most sophisticated analysis of banks and the money market for any medieval or early modern state, and Venetian historians are fortunate to have such a solid foundation on which to base other studies. Anyone needing a comparative study on banking, public debt, exchange, and taxes can now look to Venice as scholars look to Florence for demography and Genoa on trade. Early modern Italy, unlike Spain, remains the realm of local studies.

STEVEN A. EPSTEIN University of Colorado