Venetian Merchant Galleys, 1300–1334: Private and Communal Operation

Detailed regulation of commerce and industry is more characteristic of the later Middle Ages than of the earlier mediaeval centuries. If we think of the whole Middle Ages as an epoch when such regulation was prevalent, it is largely because more records for the later Middle Ages are preserved. For the earlier centuries the records are less complete but they suggest there was an earlier period of free enterprise centering in the time of most rapid economic growth, the twelfth century. This freedom was not due to any social theory favoring free enterprise and probably not to deliberate intent of any kind. In large part it was due to neglect — to the lack of administrative machinery sufficient to enforce any regulation and to the inability of those claiming authority to know what was going on in time to regulate it. Because European economy was expanding rapidly attention was focused on seizing some of the innumerable opportunities, rather than on denying those opportunities to others or regulating the way they were used. Freedom may have stimulated growth; certainly growth created the opportunities which stimulated freedom.