Les marchands bordelais au temps de Louis XI

As the main economic actors of the city, merchants from Bordeaux are an excellent indicator of the Duchy of Aquitaine’s influence. It is indeed in the 1460s-1480s that the city, recently French, recreated a network of relations troubled by the 14th and 15th-century crises. It is true that even though the network was vast, the traders from Bordeaux kept their ambitions rather modest compared to the proportions of the Atlantic trade.

While they did not overlook products (wines, pastel, sheets) and the great trade’s path (English and Flemish markets), they gladly dealt from Bordeaux with fairground merchants coming by sea (English, Bretons, Labourdins) or from Garonne’s highlands (Agenais, Toulousain). Their predominant area of operation included Bordeaux and its surroundings. Beyond that were spaces with which merchants from Bordeaux traded less frequently and that they did not control – Aquitaine’s hinterland, Atlantic Breton, Norman, Flemish, and English markets.

Based on a thorough study of sources, this book adds a new page to trade’s history in a city where trading has always been an essential source of wealth.