University of Hawai'i Press
  • The Medieval Origin of the Factory or the Institutional Foundations of Overseas Trade:Toward a Model for Global Comparison*

The aim of this article is threefold. First, it argues in favor of continuity into the early modern world overseas of the institutional family of trading stations around the medieval Mediterranean. The Portuguese feitoria represents a "missing link" between the medieval funduq and fondaco and the early modern factory overseas. Second, it puts the supposed "colonialistic" nature of early modern trading stations overseas in perspective by comparing these stations with their medieval counterparts around the Mediterranean and the Black Sea on the one hand and by showing that early modern factories more often than not could be founded and exist only thanks to some sort of recognition by local powers. Finally, it offers a functional model for global comparison of trading stations which allows to cross existing temporal and spatial divides, mainly those between medieval and early modern historiography and between the study of trading stations around the Mediterranean and those in the rest of Africa, Asia, and America.

Keywords

funduq, factory, institutions, overseas trade, colonialism, Mediterranean, global history [End Page 295]

In many premodern commercial centers, communities of foreign merchants sharing the same background, that is sovereign, (city)state and/or language, which became known as nations (nazione, naçaõ), would operate from establishments or trading stations known under a variety of names like funduq, fondaco, feitoria, or factory. These establishments can be considered as the logistic embodiment of nations.1 Olivia Remie Constable has considered these trading stations as a "family of institutions." She has traced the complex evolution, or genealogy, of this institutional family from the Greek pandocheion in the late antiquity to the appearance of the funduq throughout the Muslim Mediterranean following the rise of Islam.2 With the appearance of European merchants at Islamic markets, the funduq evolved into the fondaco, merchant colonies which facilitated trade and travel between Muslim and Christian regions.3 In the thirteenth century, the fondaco also appeared in Italian overseas territories, such as the Venetian holdings in Byzantine lands, and in European cities like the Fondaco dei Tedeschi in Venice.4 [End Page 296]

The funduq originated partly from the pandocheion and partly from the caravanserail5: refreshment stations along caravan routes. Funduqs and fondacos existed around the Mediterranean throughout the Middle Ages, serving the "universal needs" of travelers and cross-cultural long-distance traders. The names and functions of these institutions changed over time, yet some basic elements remained of continuous importance: the lodging of travelers, the provision of space for both commerce and storage, and the intervention of local governments in maintaining the functions of these facilities, including their administration and fiscal policies.6

Constable sees coherence and continuity from the late antiquity throughout the Middle Ages from the evolution of the pandocheion to the funduq and fondaco. The funduq nevertheless differed from the pandocheion "in significant ways."7 While the pandocheion's main function was offering hostelry to travelers in the late antique world, it was never particularly associated with trade. In the medieval Muslim context, the funduq evolved into a commercial and fiscal institution. Besides lodging merchants the funduq also became a tool for government intervention in trade as Muslim rulers used these funduqs "for taxing mercantile transactions, controlling the storage and distribution of certain goods, and, in some cases, regulating the movement of particular groups of merchants."8 Another difference was that pandocheions "were designed for ease of access, while funduqs had thick walls, few windows, storerooms, and a gate that could be locked."9 Because of these differences, in this contribution, the funduq and its medieval successors will be considered as points of departure for a study of the institutional foundations of long-distance or overseas trade.

Constable considers the start of the early modern era as a breach or caesura announcing, "more rigid conceptions of self and 'other' in terms of both politics and religion, […] and diminish[ed] […] [End Page 297] relevance of longstanding Mediterranean ideas and institutions."10 Constable reasoned that

The fondacos were western colonies in Islamic cities, but they were colonies without the apparatus and assumptions of colonialism. Although their presence benefited both foreign Christians and local Muslims, and facilitated commercial interaction between the two, the physical buildings were usually under the control of indigenous authorities and western traders could only reside and do business in the fondacos at the pleasure of local rulers. Overall, this was not a relationship shaped by European military and technological dominance. Even in the Crusader states—a region often cited as an early expression of European colonial ambitions—fondacos did not take a form consistent with what could be dubbed "colonial".11

She concluded that "these two models [– the medieval model of funduqs and fondacos and early modern colonialism –] of economic and political mediation between locals and foreigners may, in fact, have been largely incompatible."12 Before Constable, who did not consider the Portuguese feitoria, historians such as Philip D. Curtin and David Abulafia did not question the continuity between the medieval funduq and fondaco and the early modern factory. According to Curtin the first factories were found in Flanders. These were mostly founded by foreign communities, like Catalans, Genoese, Venetians, and Portuguese.13 According to Abulafia, "The Catalan model for the creation of trading stations (feitorías) (under the authority of a Crown appointee) was adopted by the Portuguese as they sailed down the coast of Africa, creating trading stations in Arguin and Elmina (1481–1482)." Thus, Abulafia, concluded, "the consulate was not a medieval institution that withered away: it continued to provide a model for those who sought to make contact with new worlds around 1500."14 Interestingly, Curtin's [End Page 298] focus is on the southern European communities in Bruges, whereas Abulafia establishes a connection between the Catalans and the Portuguese with a particular focus on the role of consuls and consulates.

This begs the question of whether or not continuity existed between the medieval funduq and fondaco on the one hand and the early modern European factories overseas on the other.15 Did the funduqs and fondacos remain a Mediterranean phenomenon that died out after a long tradition, or did the medieval Mediterranean model of funduqs and fondacos continue in the early modern era through its exportation or diaspora in the wake of European overseas expansion? In order to answer this question, first, the possible connection between the medieval funduqs and fondacos and the Portuguese feitoria in Europe—mainly the one in Bruges—and the ones overseas will be investigated.16 Then, Constable's reservations on continuity of her Mediterranean institutional genealogy with the early modern factories overseas will be reconsidered both from the medieval and the early modern perspective. Finally, a model for global comparison of both medieval funduqs and fondacos and early modern feitorias and factories will be presented.

The Portuguese Contribution: The Feitoria

To determine whether the Portuguese feitoria represents "a missing link" between the medieval funduqs and fondacos and the early modern factories overseas, the focus will first be on Flanders where Portuguese merchants had traded since the twelfth century.17 The county became one of Portugal's main trading partners until the end of the Middle [End Page 299] Ages. In the wake of the presence of other foreign nations in Flanders' "international" metropole, Bruges, the Portuguese gradually developed institutions to support this trade.18 Although the feitoria in Bruges was not the only Portuguese feitoria in Europe—shortly before 1460 a factor of the Portuguese king was active in Andalusia (Seville) who remained there until the relations between Portugal and Castile deteriorated in 147419—the feitoria in Flanders will serve as a point of departure as it has been studied rather well which allows to disentangle the institutions related to long-distance trade.

Ivana Elbl has convincingly reconstructed the development of these institutions. She distinguished the "bolsa" or "nation" and the "feitoria" or "factory."20 Since the divergent views on the relevance of these medieval institutions for the early modern factories overseas may be partly due to misunderstandings about their meaning, it is important to properly clarify the distinctions between these institutions. The bolsa was a voluntary association of merchants involved in foreign trade, which was established under the patronage of the Portuguese Crown and served the individual needs of the Portuguese trading community. The merchant nation comprised merchants from a geographical area speaking a common language. They were often subjects of the same political entity, in this case Portugal. The nation represented the corporate body to the host country's authorities. According to Elbl, bolsa and nation were thus closely connected in their functions as representative bodies of the Portuguese merchants in Flanders. The bolsa, as an internal executive organ of the nation, received legal sanction from the Portuguese Crown; the nation was sanctioned by the host political authority. The latter recognized the Portuguese nation in 1411. In 1438, the Burgundian duke Philip the Good, as Count of Flanders, granted the Portuguese nation the right to elect consuls—which represented the consulate of the nation—amongst the members of the community.21

Other foreign trading communities in Flanders and elsewhere were organized similarly, but the Portuguese case represents an original [End Page 300] characteristic in the sense that the Crown became involved in foreign trade both as protector and regulator on the one hand and as a direct participant on the other. The regulatory role of the king in the trade with Flanders was carried out by a so-called feitor or royal factor, who acted as a business agent of the king. The use of the terms feitor, its plural form feitores, and feitoria, which is derived from feitor, has led to confusion amongst Portuguese historians like Oliveira Marques and Nunes Dias and foreign historians like Philip Curtin, Bailey Diffie, and George Winius. So as to avoid wading into this confusion, suffice it to say it resulted in an overestimation of the role of the Portuguese king in the Portuguese trade with Flanders. Elbl's vision is shared by most historians, including Sanjay Subrahmanyam,22 who has convincingly unraveled this confusion by showing that the factor of the Portuguese king in Flanders was nothing else than the factor or agent of a company branch abroad, distinct from the main office. In other words, the feitoria in Flanders put the Portuguese Crown's direct involvement in the trade with Flanders "on a formal business footing."23

The distinction between the various Portuguese institutions in Bruges is furthermore supported by the location of these institutions in time. Contrary to what some historians, including Elbl, thought, there is no evidence of the existence of a house of the Portuguese nation prior to 1493.24 This corresponds perfectly with the historical reality that Portuguese merchants preferred to stay in their usual local hostels.25 Private brokers-hostellers offered several advantages such as greater flexibility, stronger motivation to provide good service, and insider familiarity with the prevailing market conditions.26 If a "House of [End Page 301] the Portuguese nation" did exist before 1493, which would not have been exceptional,27 Elbl may be right in concluding that it never "fully acquired the function of a funduk or even a merchant hall."28

The political turmoil in Flanders at the end of the fifteenth century allows us to distinguish more clearly between the Portuguese nation and the royal feitor. As a consequence of the Flemish Revolt against Maximilian of Austria who was not recognized by the States of Flanders as regent of the young Philip the Fair, most foreign nations left Bruges for Antwerp, which was to become the new international metropole of the Netherlands. This development was stimulated by Maximilian of Austria, who supported Antwerp in attracting the foreign nations with extensive privileges.29 Some nations, amongst whom were the Portuguese, were invited to return to Bruges. To attract the Portuguese, Bruges offered them privileges and a residence that the city had bought for them in 1493 in the Ridderstraat to hold their meetings and to stock their merchandise. Interestingly, the royal feitoria moved from Bruges to Antwerp in 1499, while the small Portuguese nation split up in 1510–1511. Following which, most of the Portuguese merchants then also moved to Antwerp, leaving but a few Portuguese families to remain in Bruges until 1518.30 All this points to the feitoria and the nation being different institutions.

A recent suggestion that the feitoria and the nation merged into one was based on the fact that in 1470 Álvaro Dinis, who appears as Portugal's most important merchant in Bruges, combined the functions [End Page 302] of royal feitor and consul.31 As in 1470 no less than four consuls were active,32 it is hard to believe that Dinis was able to control the nation on behalf of the king. This may have been the first time these functions were combined, but not the last. Around the middle of the sixteenth century, the feitor occasionally acted as one of the consuls of the Portuguese nation, which was then based in Antwerp, but this did not imply that the royal factor controlled the nation.33 In light of this, the idea that the feitor and the nation became one and the same must be dismissed.

Three phases can be distinguished in the interference of the kings of Portugal in the trade with Flanders. First, at least as early as the thirteenth century, the Portuguese kings stimulated and protected the trade of their subjects in Flanders. Second, in the late fourteenth century the Crown began trading with Flanders directly. This trade was carried out by the 1390s by royal envoys, shipmasters, or agents on a venture basis. Third, in the fifteenth century, as the Portuguese expanded along the coast of Africa, the involvement of the Crown with the Portuguese trade in Flanders increased dramatically. African gold and valuable African commodities like ivory and sugar from Madeira were sold in Flanders.34 How does the development of the Portuguese feitoria in Flanders fit into these phases? As the royal trade grew in the first half of the fifteenth century, the need for permanent representation became acute. The first feitor or royal factor in Bruges, Vasco Afonso, is mentioned in 1416–1417, who, according to Jacques Paviot—having more refined data at this disposal than Elbl35—resided there permanently, which corresponds with the start of the third phase.36 As Flavio Miranda has [End Page 303] observed, in 1415, not a single merchant or ship from Portugal was recorded in Flanders, a result of all the ships having been chartered to transport troops to Africa for the assault on Ceuta in that year.37 Is it a coincidence that a feitor was appointed in Flanders in 1416? He may have been appointed to relaunch the Portuguese trade with Flanders, which had come to a standstill.

Pedro Eanes, who had been responsible for delivering the dowry of Isabel of Portugal to Philip the Good after their marriage in 1430, was appointed feitor in 1441. Despite leaving office in 1443, possibly due to internal political problems in Portugal, he was involved in several business and financial transactions of the king. Besides acquiring luxury goods for the Portuguese court, he became involved in massive purchases of war materials, which could reflect a shift in the orientation of the Crown's interest in the trade with Flanders.38 Perhaps from 1451, but surely from 1456 onwards, a royal feitor again resided permanently in Bruges.39 From the middle of the fifteenth century onwards the rise of the African overseas trade changed the nature of the Crown's trade with Flanders, which now became strongly oriented towards the purchase of products for the manufacture of armaments and of merchandise for the African trade.40 This increased the importance of the feitoria in Flanders in the second half of the fifteenth century.41

It was this institution, the feitoria, that was exported to Africa. The first one was located at Arguin island, off the coast of present day Mauretania, where the Portuguese went as early as 1441 or 1442.42 Between 1445 and 1455 a fortress was built, which is considered the [End Page 304] starting point of the feitoria.43 In 1433 Prince Henry "the Navigator" was granted a monopoly over the trade and territories in West Africa, including the Atlantic islands, which remained in his hands until his death in 1460.44 By the 1450s the management of commercial monopolies was leased to private companies, like Prince Henry had done in 1455 with the trade at the Arguin feitoria over a ten-year period. The factors of the leaseholders of the Arguin trade resided in the fortress and traded with Arabs and Africans from the African mainland,45 which implies that the trading station originally must have had some of the characteristics of a Mediterranean fondaco. After Prince Henry's death in 1460 the Portuguese feitoria was brought under direct or indirect control of the Crown.46 The main "commodity" traded at Arguin were slaves from Guinea imported by the trans-Saharan caravans. After attempts to acquire slaves by seaborne razias yielded meagre results, peaceful trading soon turned the island into the main center for the Portuguese slave trade between 1450 and 1464 and was responsible for several hundred slaves annually in the fifteenth century and up to 1340 per year in the 1517–1520 period.47

A second feitoria in Africa was founded in 1482 at São Jorge da Mina (Elmina) on the Gold Coast. By now, the new king, João II (1481–1495), who, while still a prince, had taken control of the entire African enterprise by 1474, combined "the Crown as business entity [that is the feitoria!], and the Crown as imperial monopolist." The new installation was housed in a castle built partially from stones precut in [End Page 305] Portugal. Its walls served both to protect the feitoria from local attack and "to serve notice on would-be traders."48 The king's own employees were the only personnel authorized to trade there (until the late sixteenth century), which supports the argument in favor of the continuity between the feitoria in Flanders and those in Africa and Asia. The king also took control of the feitoria at Arguin.49 While the first feitoria founded in Africa, the one in Arguin, resembled the Mediterranean fondaco, after 1460 the Crown took over control and it was thus the feitoria in its narrow "royal" sense that was to multiply and evolve in Africa and Asia. In this respect one can agree with Diffie and Winius that these first African feitorias were "modeled to a large degree upon the one at Bruges."50

The government of both Arguin and Elmina had a similar structure: a captain, appointed by the king, was responsible for all matters, including administration, defense, justice, trade, and finance. His duties extended to diplomatic responsibilities; namely establishing and maintaining relations with local rulers and serving as an intermediary in conflicts. Some of the captain's functions are comparable to those carried out by consuls of merchant nations. In West Africa the captain often held the posts of feitor and ouvidor or high judicial official. The feitor was not only responsible for the trade on behalf of the Crown but also for controlling the private merchants holding royal licenses allowing them to trade. The royal monopoly was thus not completely closed to private entrepreneurship.51

As the Portuguese moved down the African coast and rounded the Cape of Good Hope, they founded feitorias in São Tomé in 1509, in the Cape Verde Islands of Santiago and Fogo in 1520 and 1535, respectively. The Guinea-Bissau region got a floating feitoria at the mouth of the São Domingos River in 1534. Feitorias were opened on the Swahili coast (at Sofala, Mozambique, and Malindi), and in India at Calicut in 1500 (although the latter turned out to be short-lived), at Cochin in 1503 and later on at several trading centers like Goa, Malacca, Ormuze, Ceylon, and Ternate. In Brazil too a feitoria was established during the visit by Goncalo Coelho and Amerigo Vespucci [End Page 306] in 1502–1503, but it completely depended on service to the crown.52 Filipa Ribeiro da Silva has argued that from the late fifteenth century onward, "the commercial and fiscal organization of the Portuguese Atlantic Empire shifted from a monopoly operated by commercial agents of the Portuguese Crown [i.e., feitores] to a trading framework controlled by private merchants and supervised by royal officials."53 The Crown gave highest priority to India, although even here the royal monopoly was somewhat relaxed with regard to the trade of some spices in the course of the sixteenth century. In all the Crown transformed from a "mercantile monarchy to a bureaucratic entity."54

At the same time the feitoria was adapted to fit African, Asian, and American circumstances which were different from those in Europe: a different climate and environment, different peoples and cultures and related problems, conflicts, and hostilities. In order to create conditions to foster trade and to acquire local riches and products and to sell European products, military, and naval support was often indispensable. Furthermore, the feitorias differed according to local society. In the more complex markets, in India for example, feitorias resembled their Mediterranean predecessors, the fondacos, but in uninhabited, more remote, or hostile places, additional safety measures were necessary.55 In this respect, it is interesting to note that when a Portuguese feitoria was reestablished in Andalusia in 1509, the nature of its activities became more military and logistic than commercial in character (as they had been in the 1460s). It was therefore different from other Portuguese feitorias.56 This does not contradict Constable's approach of institutional genealogy as she recognized that alongside common features, the institutional group she investigated is also "filled with diversity and variation."57 [End Page 307]

An indirect argument in favor of continuity is also offered by Elbl's more recent observation that many historians tend to consider "the overseas enterprise of the Portuguese Crown as a substantial innovation in commercial capitalism." She argues instead that, in connection with its African enterprise, the decisions and strategies of the Crown "were based on continuity with preexisting practices and administrative methods, rather than on innovation and change."58 This evidence, along with Constable's point on terminology59 which can be applied to the use of the term feitoria—derived from feitor in the Portuguese language and context and used in other languages like Dutch (factorij)60 and English (factory) for overseas factories—does imply that an institution was meant with some functional continuity.

Having argued in favor of continuity between the Portuguese feitoria in Bruges and the ones founded by the Portuguese in West Africa, East Africa, Asia, and America, the next step will be to reconsider more generally Constable's view of a divide between the institutions of medieval international trade around the Mediterranean and those of early modern trade networks overseas.

In Support of Continuity: "Colonialism" in Perspective

This reconsideration will be undertaken both from a medieval and an early modern perspective, but three general remarks must first be made. First, Europe is a medieval concept which covers the western cape of Eurasia where Latin Christianity or Roman Catholicism became dominant.61 To both late medieval and sixteenth century Europeans, "Latin Christendom" or "Europe" constituted a cultural unity and reality.62 Second, European colonial history was of medieval origin. As [End Page 308] Robert Bartlett has shown, medieval Europe was shaped by conquest, colonization, and evangelization. "The European Christians who sailed to the coasts of the Americas, Asia and Africa in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries came from a society that was already a colonizing society."63 The existing historiography emphasizing continuity between medieval and early modern European expansion is currently undergoing a revival within the context of global history.64 Third, a great variety existed among the trading stations within medieval Europe and on and beyond its frontiers, among those of the Portuguese known as feitorias and among the early modern overseas factories of other European empires of trade, amongst whom the Dutch and the English.

In medieval Christian Europe a distinction can be made between institutions supporting cross-cultural trade on the one hand and inter-Christian trade on the other. Whereas the former included a wide variety of institutions, around the Mediterranean often but not always indicated as fondaco, the latter fostered more flexible, open, and less restrictive commercial institutions, notably the loggia.65 After the Christian Reconquest of Valencia and of other cities of Aragon so-called fondechs were established there for Muslim merchants (from the late thirteenth into the early sixteenth century). These institutions were Christian counterparts of the fondacos for foreign traders in Muslim cities.66 European traders, while speaking different languages or being from different realms, could be integrated within the broader physical and social infrastructure of Christian or—in the context of Reconquista Spain—Christianized cities, buying houses and inhabiting whole neighborhoods, to a degree that was impossible in [End Page 309] a non-Christian urban setting.67 An obvious example offers late medieval Bruges, where foreign nations were founded represented by consuls, but without something like a fondaco. Indeed, the houses of the Italian nations at Bruges were called loggie, which were part of an open system in which foreign merchants lived amongst the local urban population.68

It was on and beyond the southern and eastern European medieval frontiers, border zones or peripheries that trading stations were found that may be most fruitfully compared with early modern overseas factories.69 In what follows attention will be paid to three different aspects of medieval long-distance trading networks or maritime empires relating to the southern and eastern Mediterranean and the Black Sea region respectively: the fiscal interference with the fondacos of both the ruler of the home city and the local ruler, the naval dimension of overseas trade, and finally the defense of the fondacos or factories overseas.

First, as to fiscal interference with fondacos on the southern seaboard of the Mediterranean, the Catalan example of Jaume I, King of Aragon, Count of Barcelona (1213–1276), is of particular interest. It is analyzed by Constable on which the following is based. Most fondacos in Muslim cities belonged to the Muslim government, just like ordinary funduqs. The Catalan fondacos in Tunis and Bougie were functionally similar to other fondacos in the thirteenth century, providing a commercial base and safe lodging for Catalan merchants. Yet, they were administratively unique as Jaume I considered these fondacos as part of his own royal fisc and administered them in a similar fashion as those in mainland Valencia and Catalonia. He referred to them as "his" fondacos ("fondaci nostri"). Interestingly, Constable admits that Jaume I's fondacos "were, perhaps, among the first examples of the early modern model of foreign merchants' colonies, not only inhabited but also controlled by Europeans." It should be noted though that the Catalan fondacos in other North African cities like Tlemcen, Ceuta, and Oran were [End Page 310] administered along lines similar to those of other European facilities, that is, the revenues from these fondacos were split between the king of Aragon and the local Muslim rulers.70

Until the end of the thirteenth century the Catalan (and Sicilian) fondacos in Tunis continued to be of great strategic and monetary value for the king, now Jaume II (1291–1327).71 As Constable recognized, the Catalan fondacos of Jaume I's time represent a clear example or precedent of an institution comparable to the early modern European factory overseas. Later Catalan princes do not seem to have been able to continue their influence to the extent of Jaume I and II. Although therefor continuity with early modern developments cannot be taken for granted, at the same time the example makes clear that variety was a reality: in North African fondacos a variety of fiscal relations existed differing both in time and depending on the specific fondaco.72

Second, the "naval dimension" of medieval Europe's overseas trade is not fully appreciated by Constable. According to Robert Bartlett the "preponderant position of Italian shipping in the Mediterranean in the high Middle Ages" linked Europe with the Near East and North Africa. As the Ayyūbid ruler Saladin observed, "as long as the seas bring reinforcements to the enemy … our country will continue to suffer at their hands." Or in the words of Bartlett: "Without western naval superiority the establishments of colonial bridgeheads and bastions in the eleventh, twelfth and thirteenth centuries would have been impossible."73 In other words, medieval European naval power and technology should not be underestimated. It also played an important role in supporting the long-distance trade of the maritime empires of Venice and Genoa. Several historians have emphasized the logistic role of the maritime republics of Venice and Genoa in sustaining the crusader states.74 S. P. Karpov has pointed to the importance of the [End Page 311] "highest naval technology of the time" which the Italians brought across the Black Sea.75 Military power, albeit mainly but not exclusively under sail, would continue to be of crucial importance for the establishment of overseas trading networks and empires in the early modern period.76

Third, as to the defense of the trading stations, let us turn to the Black Sea where Genoa and, to a lesser extent, Venice established overseas colonies in the thirteenth century which have been extensively studied by Michel Balard, S. P. Karpov, and others.77 As to the terminology used in Italian sources relating to these trading stations around the Black Sea, they were originally mostly referred to as caravanserail, representing an oriental notion. After all, from Tana at the Sea of Azov, the Italians connected with the silk routes to the far east. The other term used in Italian sources is castrum, which emphasizes the importance of defense.78

The establishment of a Venetian settlement at Tana, situated at the Sea of Azov at the mouth of the Don in the fourteenth century and its subsequent development in the fifteenth century, offers several elements for comparison with Elmina and other early modern factories [End Page 312] overseas.79 A Venetian merchant community and consul were present at Tana since 1333. In 1374, at the initiative of the Venetian Senate the consul and the merchants present asked the local ruler, the khan of the Golden Horde, to acquire a terrain to fortify and to safeguard their trade. The Venetians were allowed to do so in exchange for a tax to be paid to the khan, the so-called terraticum. This was a temporary lease concession which could be revoked at any moment. Venetian commercial exchanges were also subjected to a tax, the so-called commerchium. The Venetian consul was responsible for its levy and had to transfer a part of it to the khan.80

After the destruction of Tana by Tamerlane at the end of the fourteenth century, whereby amongst others the Venetian consul and many Venetian merchants lost their lives, security became a high priority. Between 1419 and 1428 the walls surrounding the Venetian settlement were rebuilt with precut stones and sturdy wooden frames from Dalmatia transported on vessels equipped by the Venetian state. A castle at a nearby hill, also under Venetian control, was used in cases of emergency. The khan had agreed with this fortified enclave as he wished to reassure the Venetians whose trade was indispensable for the regional economy. AVenetian garrison sent to the factory in 1429 had to assure its security. The majority amongst the military of the garrison consisted of masons, ironworkers, and carpenters with a special responsibility to maintain the buildings and the wall of defense.81

Seen from this perspective the construction and development of Elmina, which may be considered as an early example of an overseas factory in a more or less hostile environment, does not represent anything new from a European perspective, apart from its location. The combination of a factory and a fortress—J. Bato'ora Ballong-Wen-Mewuda uses the expression "factorerie-forteresse" for Elmina82—did exist at Tana and at other locations around the Black Sea and the Mediterranean in the Middle Ages. The Venetians and Genoese for instance each fortified their fondacos in Trebizond on the Black Sea in [End Page 313] the fourteenth century.83 Moreover, Christian fondacos in Muslim territories were often surrounded by walls to offer protection, but also to make sure their goods were properly traded and taxed and to allow the inhabitants to keep their own way of life and religion without trespassing "unsupervised into the local social or economic sphere."84 As we have seen, Elmina castle too, besides offering protection, served to keep unwanted traders out.

A final point that needs attention from the medieval perspective is the "colonial" dimension of European medieval expansion, which finds its most explicit expressions in the Crusader states and the Venetian and Genoese empires in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Black Sea. Sandra Origone, writing on medieval Genoa, recently distinguished between settlement colonies and commercial bases—that is, the loggia or the fondaco—as a binary division but recognizes that individual settlements represent a much larger variety.85 As we will see below, a similar division can be found in early modern overseas expansion, most explicitly in the Americas, while at the same time variety was king. Before we turn our attention to the early modern perspective lets ascertain that one-sided exploitation or colonialism did already exist in medieval Europe and the medieval Mediterranean. Even though it does not concern a trading station in the proper sense, the island of Chios in the eastern Mediterranean was a Genoese colony for more than two centuries (1346–1566), managed by a joint stock company (mahone), which traded and employed slaves, where agriculture was so concentrated on the production of silk and mastic for commercial benefit that food had to be imported to feed the local population, where surplus mastic was burnt to keep up prices, where a Catholic minority ruled over a Greek Orthodox population.86

From an early modern perspective, European presence overseas cannot be exclusively characterized by one-sided exploitation or colonialism. One of the main reasons is that European presence overseas was often possible only by the grace of local rulers, which has [End Page 314] been shown by numerous historians focusing on the local situation overseas.87 Rather, as around the medieval Mediterranean, a great variety existed in both the powers and privileges of the European merchant communities, or companies in the early modern factories overseas and the nature of their relations with local rulers. Mostly, in Asia, Africa and in the first years after the discovery of America early modern trading communities were far from dominant vis-à-vis the local rulers and their population.

In Asia, European presence was often determined by local powers. The legal position of the European factories differed according to their location. In India for example there were factories located on land that was leased from a prince—for instance the Dutch factory in Palakolu (modern Palikol) on India's Coromandel coast until 1674. There were also some factories for which the building had been rented as the Dutch did in Surat. Yet other factories were located on land which had been donated, which was the case in Palakolu in 1674.88 Generally the Dutch were allowed to legally try their compatriots in mutual disputes and crimes. When both Indians and Europeans were involved in a conflict the case had to be tried by a local court or prince.89 This corresponds with the jurisdiction and functions of consuls in the medieval Mediterranean.90 [End Page 315]

Often the situation was complex as the example of the English factory of Fort St. George in Chennapatnam (modern Chennai) on the Coromandel coast illustrates. A military and fiscal agent (nayaka), responsible to the Vijayanagar dynasty ruling from Chandragiri and Vellore, invited the English to settle and build a fortress at the port of Madraspatam, south of what was to become the town of Chennapatnam. The nayaka would bear the cost until the English would move in. In 1645 the Vijayanagar king confirmed and extended the privileges of the English at Fort St. George. These privileges included the right to the revue of Madraspatam. The government and justice of the town was also granted to the English. Gijs Kruijtzer has shown that Chennapatnam was neither "founded by the English, nor was it founded on ground that the English held the revenue rights to, let alone possessed outright." The English did receive "freedom from customs on their own goods and half of the customs that were paid in the town by others, Chennapatnam was not then a colonial town."91 Both the local ruler and the English benefited from the arrangements. Although not entirely the same, there are clear similarities with the arrangements made between the khan of the Golden Horde and the Venetians at late medieval Tana, which were also beneficial to both.

In the Americas, originally Europeans set out to establish trading posts "patterned closely after the Portuguese model."92 As Abulafia noted, "Ferdinand and Isabella provided Christopher Columbus with letters addressed to the Great Khan, whom he hoped to find on his voyage across the Atlantic in 1492" with the idea in mind of creating a trading station "perched on the edge of an alien empire."93 Or, in the words of J. H. Elliott, "he [Columbus] saw his task essentially in terms of the establishment of trading bases and commercial outposts […]."94 However, the Spanish conquest and the development of several colonies with European settlers soon became dominant features of what [End Page 316] can indeed be called "colonialism" even though this did not exclude the establishment of trading stations, sometimes with permission of the local population.95 These stations often started as military posts. Interestingly, the terminology the English used for their settlements in America was the same as used for those in Ireland which was conquered at the same time as Europeans explored the Americas.96 The military character of these settlements is expressed in the early names attributed to them. For instance, Jamestown was originally referred to as "James fort" in early English sources. Present-day Charlestown started as the French Charlesfort.97 Many Dutch stations, both on the Wild Coast between the Amazon and Orinoco rivers, and in the area which came to be known as "New Netherland," were also forts, and were indicated as such.98 They were used to exchange goods with the native population while offering security both against local American and rival European attacks. Originally these fortresses were made of wood. They offered protection while they allowed to trade in a hostile environment. The hostilities between Europeans and local Americans mainly originated from misunderstanding or difference of opinion over property rights and the use of land,99 which were closely linked to the nature of European expansion in the Americas: not trade but conquest and colonization were the main characteristics.100

Whereas the Europeans extended their influence in the Americas using the factories-fortresses on or near the coast as points of departure for expansion further inland, in Africa—with the major exception of South Africa, which developed from a refreshing station into a settler colony—European influence remained limited to the coast. For example, the factories along the African West Coast were depending [End Page 317] on the great kingdoms in the interior for the supply of commodities like gold, fabrics, or slaves. Factors on the spot tried to maintain good relations with their African neighbors, or actually hosts: for the use of the forts rent was paid to the African rulers.101 This is perfectly corresponding with the fondaco concept as Constable explained it: A trading colony rents or borrows from the ruler of the guest city or country some buildings to settle. Both the (representatives of the) merchants and the local rulers made arrangements about sharing the advantages of the fondaco.102

The Anglo-Dutch exchange of "possessions" on the Gold Coast which was concluded by the two European powers in 1867, which aimed at realizing two contiguous spheres under English and Dutch administration, offers a telling example of the reality of the local power relations. The local African peoples, amongst whom the Ashanti, had not been consulted on the exchange of the fortresses. The leader of the Ashanti, the Ashantehene Kofi Kakari responded by claiming Elmina on the basis of the "coutumes" that the Elminans had always paid him. Traditionally, the Dutch also paid "coutumes," "kostgeld" in Dutch, to the Ashanti, who had been their allies since the early eighteenth century. Although discussion exists on the exact natures of these dues, both the Ashanti and their African enemies considered the payment of dues by the Dutch to the Ashantehene as a sort of rent for the territory on which the Dutch were established, including the fortress of Elmina.103 The Africans thus saw the Dutch as tributaries of the Ashantehene.104 This reflects the reality of the power relations between the Europeans and the Africans on the Gold Coast: European presence, limited to the fortresses along the coast, was tolerated by the [End Page 318] Africans, as late as 1870, when European modern imperialism started.105

In sum, European presence overseas, whether in the medieval Mediterranean and the Black Sea or in the early modern factories in Africa and Asia, was seldom determined on European terms only. Even in the Americas, Europeans initially aimed at introducing the factory-system. This means that the argument of globalization of the institutions indicated as funduq, fondaco, and feitoria remains valid for Asia, Africa and for the short initial phase of European presence in the Americas. Both the defense of the trading stations and the agreements between Europeans and the local rulers or populations upon which several of these trading stations were based, were returning features even though they were not always present. The features of several early modern factories in Africa, including the one in Elmina, Asia and in the Americas do correspond with the factory-fortresses that existed around the medieval Mediterranean and the Black Sea. Even in the Americas some trading stations originally did materialize after an agreement with the local population. Variety characterized early modern factories whether they were situated in Asia, Africa, or America. As around the medieval Mediterranean and the Black Sea, the differences between these factories were the result of both European and local policies, and local circumstances. If one wishes to distinguish between the continents, the Americas may be set apart as the New World soon after its discovery offered a different picture as to the role of trading stations, whose importance was overturned by conquest, colonization, and urbanization.106

Towards a Model of Functional Comparison

The French historian Fernand Braudel was the first to study the Mediterranean as an economic unity while the surrounding areas were [End Page 319] politically, religiously, culturally, and economically divided.107 His approach is currently undergoing a revival thanks to the popularity of global history and the so-called "new thalassology."108 François Gipouloux, a French specialist of the economy of China, has recently considered the commercial networks between Vladivostok and Singapore as an "Asian Mediterranean." He compared the medieval Mediterranean, and the Hanseatic League of the Baltic, which might be seen as a northern counterpart of the Middle Sea, with this "Asian Mediterranean." All three are examples of economic integration without territorial boundaries. According to Gipouloux "a Mediterranean sea" is not so much a geographical or historical model but mostly an "institutional model."109 It is a polycentric model of "global cities" with four characteristics: first, autonomy at hubs where different, competing jurisdictions meet, second, management of commerce is more important than territorial control or taxation, third, development of original judicial instruments outside the state: such as maritime law, lex mercatoria, fourth, sea power serves to secure maritime spaces and connections; territorial ambitions are absent.110

When combining Gipouloux model with the continuous functions of Constable's institutional family and the institution of the consulate, a new functional model appears with the following characteristic elements: first, lodging of merchants, second, exchange and storage of merchandise, third, representation (by e.g., a consul) of (A.) foreign merchants and/or (B.) their political entity with both inward—for example, separate jurisdiction, fiscal policies—and outward responsibilities, including relations with (C.) local rulers who might intervene (e.g., by fiscal policies), fourth, naval support at the service of commerce. One of the main parameters in this model are the power relations between A, B, and C which could differ enormously in time and space and which were determined to a great extent by military [End Page 320] strength, including the number and quality of available weapons, defensive walls and fortifications, and naval strength. This allows for a functional comparison of the medieval and early modern institutions which are the topic of this article and which are known as funduqs, fondacos, feitorias, and factories but also under other names which have not all been discussed here.

Two elements in this model may be most promising for further comparative research: first, the role of military strength, and second, that of the representation of the trading station or its community—the nation—by a consul or consulate or a similar function or institution with a different name. The role of military force in European expansion overseas has already attracted a lot of attention, including important contributions by Frederic Lane, Niels Steensgaard, and Geoffrey Parker. The latter, amongst other things, has emphasized the changing military balance between the West and the rest, distinguishing between the Americas where Europeans caused the collapse of the mighty Inca and Aztec empires in less than half century, India, where Europeans "made virtually no impact on even the minor states" until around 1740, and Africa where Europeans remained largely confined to forts along the coast.111 This great variety in impact allows for further comparisons with the medieval Genoese and Venetian empires whose impact overseas did also differ greatly, from fondacos recognized by local rulers to colonial possessions resembling early modern colonies overseas. The role of force was crucial for the establishment and conquest of these medieval maritime empires in the eastern Mediterranean and the Black Sea, resulting amongst other things in the Genoese mastery of Chios until 1566 and Venetian control of Crete until 1669.112

Second, three distinct parties—the foreign merchants or companies, their overlord at home and the local ruler—all had different perspectives, needs, and interests concerning the consul or consulate.113 As said the resulting role of this institution differed in time and space. It depended to a great extent on the power relations between these three parties. This seems to have been the case not only in the [End Page 321] regions which have been at the center of this paper but also in late medieval Northern Europe where the Hanseatic League is most known for its four so-called Kontore in London, Bruges, Bergen, and Novgorod, which have been well studied.114 These four Kontors both had similar and distinct features. The Novgorod Kontor for example distinguished itself by a high wooden wall separating it from the local population. Less well known in international, that is non-German historiography are the so-called "vitten" at the small Scania peninsula in Southwestern Sweden, then under Danish authority, which was one of the main international markets of Northern Europe thanks to the important herring fisheries that were located there. Vitten were seasonal settlements of Hanseatic towns with their own separate jurisdictions.115 Each vitte, around 1400 there were about thirty of them, had its own "vogt" or governor, who had the same functions as a consul: inward responsibilities towards the merchants in the vitte, including justice, and outward responsibilities like representing the merchant community towards the Danish king. In the case of the vitten of the towns of Holland and Zealand the Count of Holland and Zealand tried to interfere by nominating some of the governors.116 This Northern European example is mentioned to illustrate that besides the approach of institutional genealogy the comparative approach may be more fruitful in that it allows to include examples of institutions of long-distance trade for which no "genealogical" origin may be detected. The "consular" aspect of the proposed model is not exclusively Mediterranean or European as numerous cities in medieval and early modern Asia too had colonies of foreigners sometimes enjoying considerable juridical autonomy.117

Foreign communities of merchants—nations—and their logistic embodiment—factories, often with a governor or consul—continued [End Page 322] to exist into the nineteenth century. Canton/Guangzhou, China's maritime gateway situated on the Pearl River, which had become the port of call for foreign merchants in the Qing empire in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, contained on the northern bank of the river "a riverfront block of thirteen two-story wooden structures, some with a national flag in front." These factories, depicted by an anonymous Chinese artist ca. 1820, were situated next to one another. They formed part of the so-called Canton system which allowed for trade between Chinese and foreign merchants to flourish. The first consul of the United States of America appointed at Canton at the end of the eighteenth century recognized the efficiency of the system.118

The indication of foreign communities of merchants as "nations" became problematic in the nineteenth century when this term got a more political meaning. A telling example offer the Austrian authorities of Trieste who in 1824 forbade the Greek community in the city to use the term "nation" any longer.119 Those who represented the merchant nations, the consuls, continued to exist as well, and often continued being indicated as such. However, with the change of economic, legal, and political patterns, the consular institution changed with them. As has been recently observed in a short overview of consular history "rather than signaling the clear domination of one party to the other, relations between consuls and local rulers were open to interpretations of superiority or equality to both parties."120

Conclusion

The aim of this paper was to determine whether or not a continuity existed between the medieval institutional family of funduqs and fondacos found in the Mediterranean and the Black Sea, and overseas factories characteristic of the early modern period. Using Constable's model of institutional genealogy, I argued that the Portuguese feitoria should be considered the missing link between these institutions, thus confirming the visions expressed by Abulafia, Curtin, Diffie, and Winius and others. The participation of the Portuguese Crown in [End Page 323] long-distance or overseas trade, both with Flanders and West Africa, via feitors, complicated the argument. The royal feitor in Bruges was after all distinct from the Portuguese nation and consuls there. Nevertheless, it is clear that in the time of Henry the Navigator, the feitoria at Arguin possessed the characteristics of a fondaco, because private merchants used the feitoria to trade with locals from the African mainland. Following Constable's method, the use of the term feitoria further supports the argument of continuity. The Portuguese feitorias subsequently founded in Africa and Asia developed further according to diverse circumstances. In Asia, several resembled the funduqs and fondacos of the Mediterranean, that is, they shared more or less the same functions. Furthermore, it is evident that the interference of the Portuguese Crown with long-distance or overseas trade is of medieval origin while medieval methods continued to be used overseas. To what extent the Portuguese were inspired by the Catalans in the Mediterranean—as suggested by Abulafia121—has not been discussed here but remains an intriguing question.122 The Italians may also have served as inspiration for the Portuguese in the numerous locations where Italian nations could be found, Bruges not being the only example. Italians present in Portugal may also have been of importance in this respect.123

Besides the Portuguese contribution in exporting an important institution of overseas trade to Africa and Asia, attention has been paid to the question of the colonialistic character of early modern European presence overseas, which made Constable to distinguish between the housing of the stranger in the medieval Mediterranean and the housing of the European in the early modern world overseas. As we have seen, Europeans did negotiate with local rulers about the ways and conditions according to which they could settle and trade in the lands of these rulers. It is true that, as the early eighteenth century Ajnapatra—a treatise on politics written by a courtier of the Maratha king who represented a rising power on the west coast of India in the eighteenth century—mentions, Europeans distinguished themselves from other merchants in their use of "navy, guns and ammunition."124 Navies and [End Page 324] arms had also been European means to support overseas trade in the medieval Mediterranean and the Black Sea. Before the age of gunpowder weapons Saladin and others had already been impressed by European naval superiority, which puts early modern European maritime violence supporting trade in perspective. The same is true for colonies overseas: Chios and Crete were examples of colonies of medieval origin which resembled early modern colonies in more than one respect.

Whereas continuity was dominant in Europe, Asia, and Africa—the oikumene—from the medieval into the early modern era from the point of view of trading stations, which goes against Constable's reasoning, the term "colonialism" does seem fit indeed for European presence in the early modern Americas, which does support her line of argument. "Colonialism" may soon have become the dominant feature of European presence in the Americas; here too European presence started with the medieval way of establishing trading stations. If Catalan royal influence in some North African fondacos has been exceptionally great at the time of Jaume I and II, it adds to the argument of variety of the nature of power relations between the local rulers and those of the mother country or city from which the merchant communities originated. This variety, including among other things the level of fortification, was a historical reality both in the medieval funduqs and fondacos as well as in the early modern factories overseas. The proposed model consisting of four characteristics, including the use of force as one of the main parameters, allows for a global comparison of overseas trading stations. The elements of military strength and of representation by a consul or governor seem most promising for further comparative research.

Merchants operating at long distances from their hometown or country, their rulers, and the rulers of the places where they traded, pursued their own interests in the trading stations known under a variety of names. In most cases at least two—the foreign merchants or companies and the local ruler—and in many cases all three parties benefited from these stations. This puts the notion of one-sided or "colonialistic" exploitation from these stations in perspective. Together funduqs, fondacos, feitorias, and factories represent the globalization of institutions of overseas trade, a process to which the Portuguese made a significant contribution. Other Europeans followed the Portuguese example of founding trading stations, even in the Americas. Although developments here turned out differently, the establishment of factories clearly represents an image of continuity from the medieval Mediterranean to the early modern world. If European trading stations [End Page 325] and colonies on the southern and eastern boards of the Mediterranean and at the coasts of the Black Sea in the Middle Ages differed from their European counterparts in the rest of the world, it seems this was more a difference in number, scale, and scope than in the nature of these trading stations and colonies. [End Page 326]

Louis SickingLink to Orcid

Louis Sicking is the Aemilius Papinianus Professor of History of Public International Law at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam and Lecturer in Medieval and Early Modern History at the University of Leiden. He is director of the research project Maritime Conflict Management in Atlantic Europe, 1200–1600, financed by the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO) and the universities of Cantabria, La Laguna, La Rochelle, and Nova Lisbon. His books include Neptune and the Netherlands (2004), Colonial Borderlands (2008), and La naissance dúne thalassocratie (2015). Together with Alain Wijffels, he is currently preparing Conflict Management in the Mediterranean and the Atlantic, 1000–1800. Actors, Institutions and Strategies of Dispute Settlement, an edited volume to appear at Brill in 2020. His main research interests are maritime and colonial history and the history of diplomacy and international law. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9694-0536

Footnotes

* Research for this article was carried out within the context of the international research project Maritime Conflict Management in Atlantic Europe, 1200–1600 financed by the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO) and the universities of Cantabria in Santander, La Laguna, La Rochelle, and Nova in Lisbon (https://www.universiteitleiden.nl/en/research/research-projects/humanities/maritime-conflict-management-in-atlantic-europe) and which is directed by the author. Earlier versions of this article were presented at "Law's Empire or Empire's Law?: Legal Discourses of Colonies and Commonwealths," 33rd Conference of the Australia-New Zealand Law and History Society, at the University of New England, Coffs Harbour, Australia, December 10–13, 2014 and at Money, Power and Profit. A Conference on the Economy of Medieval Portugal and Europe, held at the Nova University of Lisbon and the University of Porto, April 26–29, 2016. I thank Filipa Ribeiro da Silva for her help, and Gijs Kruijtzer, Marianne Roobol, and the anonymous reviewers for their comments on an earlier version of this paper. The usual disclaimer applies.

1. I. Elbl, "Nation, Bolsa, and Factory: Three Institutions of Late-Medieval Portuguese Trade with Flanders," The International History Review 14, no. 1 (1992): 1–22.

2. The meaning of the ancient Greek word пανδ∘χεí∘, still existing in the present Greek language, is the same as that of fondaco. Funduq is an Arabic word. Both words are of Greek origin. The Latin transliteration of the word пανδ∘χεí∘ to Latin guides to fondaco. The words пράκτωρ and пρακτ∘ρεí∘ are ancient Greek words, but the new meaning of the пρακτ∘ρεí∘ as an agency or factory is a neologism. Kind remark of Olga Katsiardi-Hering. See P. Moukarzel, "The Latin Traders in Egypt and Syria during the XIVth and the XVth Centuries: Privileged Communities under a Strict Control," in Mediterráneos: An Interdisciplinary Approach to the Cultures of the Mediterranean Sea, ed. S. Carro Martin et al. (Newcastle upon Tyne, 2013), 339–354, 341–342.

3. O. Constable, Housing the Stranger in the Mediterranean World: Lodging, Trade, and Travel in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages (Cambridge, 2003). See also G. Jehel, L'Italie et le Maghreb au Moyen Age: Conflits et échanges du VIIe au XVe siècle (Paris, 2001), 120. Compare P. Horden and N. Purcell, The Corrupting Sea: A Study of Mediterranean History (Oxford and Malden, MA, 2000), 397, 399 and R. S. Lopez, "Du marché temporaire à la colonie permanente: l'évolution de la politique commerciale au moyen âge," Annales. Économies – Sociétés – Civilisations 4, no. 4 (1949): 389–405, 404–405.

4. Constable, Housing, 153–157; P. Spufford, Power and Profit: The Merchant in Medieval Europe (London, 2002), 352.

5. Caravanserail, representing an oriental notion, is the term originally most used in Italian sources concerning the medieval settlements around the Black Sea. See for example S. P. Karpov, "Grecs et Latins à Trébizonde (XIIIe–XVe siècle) Collaboration économique, rapports politiques," in État et colonisation au Moyen Age et à la Renaissance, ed. M. Balard (Lyon, 1989), 413–424, 415; Constable, Housing, hardly paid attention to the Black Sea.

6. Constable, Housing, 6–7. For an example of the fiscal intervention in case of the fondaco for the Germans in Venice: R. S. Lopez and I. W. Raymond, eds., Medieval Trade in the Mediterranean World: Illustrative Documents (New York, 2001), 85–86.

7. Constable, Housing, 39.

8. Ibid., 18, 64 (citation).

9. Ibid., 35.

10. Ibid., 10.

11. Ibid., 357.

12. Ibid., 110–111, 357.

13. P. D. Curtin, Cross-Cultural Trade in World History (Cambridge, 1984), 4, 38. See for instance on the Genoese nation in Bruges B. Lambert, De Genuese aanwezigheid in laatmiddeleeuws Brugge (1435–1495) Een laboratorium voor de studie van instellingen en hun rol in de economische geschiedenis (PhD, Gent University, 2011), 25–30.

14. "It was probably with the same idea in mind, of creating a trading station perched on the edge of an alien empire, that Ferdinand and Isabella provided Christopher Columbus with letters addressed to the Great Khan, whom he hoped to find on his voyage across the Atlantic in 1492." D. Abulafia, "The Consular Networks in the Mediterranean: Function, Origins and Development," in Mediterraneum: Splendour of the Medieval Mediterranean, 13th15th Centuries (Barcelona, 2004), 339–351, 351.

15. Examples of literature stressing continuity: G. V. Scammell, The World Encompassed: The First European Maritime Empires, c. 800–1650 (London, 1981); F. Fernández-Armesto, Pathfinders: A Global History of Exploration (New York and London, 2006).

16. The possible Italian and Catalan contributions to the transfer of the Mediterranean institutions to the Atlantic will not be discussed within the limited space of this paper. The Italian and wider Mediterranean contribution to Portuguese and Spanish overseas expansion is widely accepted. Fernández-Armesto, Pathfinders, 119; V. M. Godinho, "La Méditerranée dans l'horizon des Européens de l'Atlantique," Revista de História Económica e Social 17 (1986): 21–51, 29, 31–33, 46; P. Russell, Prince Henry 'the Navigator'. A life (New Haven and London, 2000), 58–59. For the transfer of the Portuguese fiscal system see Filipa Ribeiro da Silva, "Transferring European Fiscal System Overseas: A Comparison between the Portuguese Home and Colonial Fiscal Systems," in La fiscalità nell'economia europea secc. XIII–XVIII = Fiscal Systems in the European Economy from the 13th to the 18th centuries: Atti della "Trentanovesima settimana di studi", 22–26 aprile 2007, ed. S. Cavaciocchi (Florence: Firenze University Press, 2008), 545–567.

17. F. Miranda, "Before the Empire: Portugal and the Atlantic Trade in the late Middle Ages," Journal of Medieval Iberian Studies (2013): 1–17, 6, 9.

18. A convenient schematic diagram of their presence is offered by O. Gelderblom, Cities of Commerce: The Institutional Foundations of International Trade in the Low Countries, 1250–1650 (Princeton, 2013), 110.

19. V. Rau, "Note sur les facteurs portugais en Andalusie au XVe siècle," Jahrbuch für Geschichte Lateinamerikas 4, no. 1 (1967): 122–127.

20. Elbl, "Nation."

21. Elbl, "Nation," 1, 12–15, 20–21 (citation). J. Paviot, "Les Portugais à Bruges," in International Trade in the Low Countries (14th–16th Centuries). Merchants, Organisation, Infrastructure. Proceedings of the International Conference Ghent-Antwerp, 12th–13th January 1997, ed. P. Stabel, B. Blondé, and A. Greve (Leuven and Apeldoorn, 1997), 55–74, 56–58.

22. S. Subrahmanyam, The Portuguese Empire in Asia, 1500–1700 (Chichester, 2012), 49–50.

23. See Elbl, "Nation," 3–6 for further details.

24. A. Vandewalle, "Het natiehuis van de Portugezen te Brugge op het einde van de vijftiende eeuw," in Getuigen in de polderklei. Huldeboek dr. Hist. Godgaf Dalle, d. J. Herregat, F. Becuwe, J. van Acker (Veurne, 1990), 171–180, 171, 173, 176. Former municipal archivist of Bruges, Vandewalle is most familiar with the sources relating to Bruges' local topography.

25. Some of the older literature has wrongly related houses of private Portuguese individuals in Bruges with institutions like the Portuguese nation or feitor. Elbl, "Nation," 16–18 based her arguments concerning the successive locations of "the Portuguese House" partly on this literature and therefore is incorrect on this point. On these legendary locations see A. Vandewalle, "Het natiehuis," 171–180, 177–178. J. Everaert, "De Portugese factorijen in Vlaanderen," in Feitorias. Kunst in Portugal ten tijde van de Grote Ontdekkingen (eind 14de eeuw tot 1548) (Antwerp, 1991), 42–52, 43. See also A. Vandewalle, "Introduction au colloque Flandre-Portugal 15e-18e siècle," Handelingen voor het genootschap voor geschiedenis gesticht onder de benaming Sociëté d'Émulation te Brugge 132, no. 3 (1995): 221–230, 227–229 and A. Vandewalle, "De huizen 'Poorteghale' en 'den Schilt van Portugael'," Archiefleven 2, no. 4 (1995): 6–7.

26. Elbl, "Nation," 16–17.

27. Most Italian nations (Venice, Genoa, Lucca, Florence) did have proper houses in Bruges in the fourteenth century. P. Stabel, "De gewenste vreemdeling. Italiaanse kooplieden en stedelijke maatschappij in het laat-middeleeuwse Brugge," Jaarboek voor middeleeuwse Geschiedenis 4 (2001): 189–221, 212–213.

28. Elbl, "Nation," 16–17.

29. J. Maréchal, "Le départ de Bruges des marchands étrangers (XVe et XVIe siècles)," in Idem, Europese aanwezigheid te Brugge. De vreemde kolonies (XIVde-XVIde eeuw). Vlaamse historische studies 3 (Bruges, 1985), 180–210. W. P. Blockmans, Metropolen aan de Noordzee. De geschiedenis van Nederland, 1100–1560 (Amsterdam, 2010), 555–556. Gelderblom, Cities of Commerce, 28–29. B. Willems, "Militaire organisatie en staatsvorming aan de vooravond van de Nieuwe Tijd. Een analyse van het conflict tussen Brabant en Maximiliaan van Oostenrijk (1488–1489)," in Jaarboek voor middeleeuwse geschiedenis 1 (1998), 260–286, 265. For the wider context see J. Haemers, For the Common Good: State Power and Urban Revolts in the Reign of Mary of Burgundy (1477–1482) (Turnhout, 2009) and Idem, De strijd om het regentschap over Filips de Schone. Opstand, facties en geweld in Brugge, Gent en Ieper (1482–1488) (Turnhout, 2015).

30. Paviot, "Les Portugais," 55–74, 57. Vandewalle, "Het natiehuis," 173, 177.

31. F. Miranda, Portugal and the Medieval Atlantic. Commercial Diplomacy, Merchants, and Trade, 1143–1488 (PhD, University of Porto, 2012), 196. Compare Paviot, "Les Portugais," 69, 71, 73–74 who does indicate Álvaro Dinis as consul and feitor in 1470, but considers both as separate institutions and doubts whether the latter played a role as protector of the Portuguese nation. Elbl, "Nation," 19, was thus incorrect that a royal factor never served as elected consul of the Portuguese in Bruges, but her argument that they were separate institutions remains valid.

32. Miranda, Portugal, 191.

33. J. A. Goris, Étude sur les colonies marchandes méridionales (Portugais, Espagnols, Italiens) à Anvers de 1488 à 1567 Contribution à l'histoire des débuts du capitalisme moderne (Leuven, 1925), 39, 41–42, 49, 51, 53–54. L. Sicking, "Los grupos de intereses marítimos de la Península Ibérica en la ciudad de Amberes: la gestión de riesgos y la navegación en el siglo XVI," in Gentes de mar en la ciudad Atlántica medieval, ed. J. Solórzano Telechea, M. Bochaca, and A. Aguiar Andrade (Logroño, 2012), 167–199, 175–176.

34. Elbl, "Nation," 2, 6. Miranda, "Before the Empire," 11–12.

35. See the source publication J. Paviot, ed., Portugal et Bourgogne au XVe siècle. Recueil de documents extraits des archives bourguignonnes (1384–1482) (Lisbon and Paris, 1995), 181 (doc. n. 52).

36. Paviot, "Les Portugais," 71.

37. Miranda, "Before the Empire," 10.

38. Elbl, "Nation," 7. Paviot, "Les Portugais," 71. Pedro Eanes also acted as secretary in the household of Isabel of Portugal. M. Sommé, Isabelle de Portugal, duchesse de Bourgogne. Une femme au pouvoir au XVe siècle (Villeneuve d'Ascq, 1998), 30, 102.

39. Paviot, "Les Portugais," 71. Elbl, "Nation," 8.

40. Elbl, "Nation," 9. Paviot, "Les Portugais," 70–71. Paviot, "Bruges et le Portugal," in Les marchands de la Hanse et la banque des Médicis. Bruges, marché d'échanges culturels en Europe, ed. A. Vandewalle (Bruges, 2002), 45–49, 45.

41. Paviot, "Les Portugais," 70–71.

42. Chronique de Guinée (1453) de Gomes Eanes de Zurara, L. Bourdon and J. Paviot, eds. (Dijon, 1994), 304, 310, n. 1. On the importance of the island and its feitoria for the Portuguese see A. R. Disney, A History of Portugal and the Portuguese Empire, vol. 2. The Portuguese Empire (Cambridge, 2009), 31–32, 45–47. Iván Armenteros Martínez, Cataluña en la primera economía atlántica (c. 1470–1540) (Barcelona and Lleida, 2012), 69, n. 132.

43. Chronique de Guinée, 295, 310, n. 12. Filipa Ribeiro da Silva, Dutch and Portuguese in Western Africa. Empires, Merchants and the Atlantic System, 1580–1674 (Leiden and Boston, 2011), 84. Russell, Prince Henry, 206–207, 210. J.A.M. Torres, "Politics and Colonial Discourse in the Spanish Empire: The African Atlantic Possessions, 1575–1630," Jahrbuch für Geschichte Lateinamerikas – Anuario de Historia de America Latina 51 (2014): 113–149, 122. Godinho dated the beginning of the feitoria between 1455 and 1461. See B. W. Diffie and G. D. Winius, Foundations of the Portuguese Empire, 1415–1580 (Minneapolis, 1977), 98, n. 7. An example of a reference to "feitoria de Arguim" in a primary source in 1508: I. Elbl, "The Volume of the Early Atlantic Slave Trade, 1450–1521," Journal of African History 38 (1997): 36, n. 15.

44. By his brother Duarte I according to Diffie and Winius, Foundations, 65 and Russell, Prince Henry, 92–93. By his father, King João I (1385–1433) according to Da Silva, Dutch and Portuguese, 82.

45. Da Silva, Dutch and Portuguese, 85, n. 139. Russell, Prince Henry, 206–207.

46. Russell, Prince Henry, 210.

47. Disney, A History of Portugal, 46. For a detailed analysis Elbl, "The Volume," 42–44, 63–66. Russell, Prince Henry, 210–211. T. Lester, The Fourth Part of the World. An Astonishing Epic of Global Discovery, Imperial Ambition, and the Birth of America (New York etc, 2009), 193–194.

48. Diffie and Winius, Foundations, 314–315 (citations). Disney, A History of Portugal, 57. For the construction and its local context J. Bato'ora Ballong-Wen-Mewuda, São Jorge da Mina, 1482–1637 I (Lisbon and Paris, 1993), 64–70.

49. Elbl, "The volume," 62. Armenteros Martínez, Cataluña, 100.

50. Diffie and Winius, Foundations, 314–315.

51. Da Silva, Dutch and Portuguese, 39–40, 82–83, 85, n. 139. Diffie and Winius, Foundations, 310. Elbl, "The Volume," 55–56. Bato'ora Ballong-Wen-Mewuda, São Jorge da Mina, 163, 170–171, 174.

52. Diffie and Winius, Foundations, 315–316. Da Silva, Dutch and Portuguese, 82, 85, n. 141. F. Bethencourt, "Political Configurations and Local Powers," in Portuguese Oceanic Expansion, 1400–1800, ed. F. Bethencourt and D. R. Curto (Cambridge, 2007), 197–254, 200–201. Disney, A History of Portugal, 127. M. Meuwese, Brothers in Arms, Partners in Trade: Dutch-indigenous Alliances in the Atlantic World, 1595–1674 (Leiden and Boston, 2012), 95. See for an example of the composition of the staff of a feitoria that of Sofala which counted fifteen persons in 1506: V. Rau, "Feitores e feitorias – 'Instrumentos' do comércio internacional portugués no século XVI," Brotéria 81 (1965): 458–478, 463–464.

53. Da Silva, Dutch and Portuguese, 85, 92 (citation).

54. Da Silva, Dutch and Portuguese, 92–93.

55. Rau, "Feitores e feitorias," 458–478, 465–466. For a detailed description of the Portuguese administration of the settlements in West-Africa in the late fifteenth and sixteenth centuries see Da Silva, Dutch and Portuguese, 38–69, 82–93.

56. R. Ricard, Études sur l'histoire des Portugais au Maroc (Coimbra, 1955), 178–180. Rau, "Note," 127.

57. Constable, Housing, 7.

58. I. Elbl, "The Kings Business in Africa: Decisions and Strategies of the Portuguese Crown," in Money, Markets and Trade in Late Medieval Europe, ed. L. Armstrong, I. Elbl, and M. M. Elbl (Leiden and Boston, 2007), 89–118, 90.

59. "[T]he use of a particular word—and especially the adoption of a word from one language and context into another—demonstrates its utility and relevance as reference." Constable, Housing, 5–6.

60. The Dutch word "factorij" is derived from the French "factorie." Although nowadays the French word is "comptoir," in seventeenth-century French sources the word "factorerie" was used.

61. R. Bartlett, The Making of Europe. Conquest. Colonisation and Cultural Change, 950–1350 (London etc, 1993), 1, 253. J. Le Goff, L'Europe est-elle née au Moyen Age? Essai (Paris, 2003), 25. J. Hale, The Civilization of Europe in the Renaissance (London, 1994), 3–50.

62. On the interchangeability of Europe and Latin Christendom see Le Goff, L'Europe, 245. Bartlett, The Making, 269–270. Hale, Europe, 3–5.

63. Bartlett, The Making, 314.

64. See for example Fernández-Armesto, Pathfinders and more recently P. Boucheron a.o. eds., Le monde au XVe siècle (Paris, 2009). The latter work aims to seek the origin of global connectivity in the fifteenth century, thus crossing the divide between medieval and modern. For the existing historiography emphasizing continuity between medieval and early modern European expansion see for example C. Verlinden, "Perspectief-verschuivingen in de vroege geschiedenis der Europese expansie," Mededelingen van de Koninklijke Academie voor wetenschappen, letteren en schone kunsten van België. Klasse der Letteren 42 no. 1 (1980): 3–22. M. Balard, ed., État et colonisation au Moyen Age et à la Renaissance (Lyon, 1989); M. Mollat, Les explorateurs du XIIIe au XVIe siècle. Premier regards sur des mondes nouveaux (Paris, 1992); P. Chaunu, L'expansion européenne du XIIIe au XVe siècle (Paris, 1995); W. D. Philips, The Medieval Origins of European Expansion (Minneapolis, 1996). On the role of the crusades as a colonial movement see for example J. Prawer, The Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem. European Colonialism in the Middle Ages (London, 1972). See for a critical analysis of the colonial approach to the crusades, C. Tyerman, The Debate on the Crusades (Manchester and New York, 2011), 155–181.

65. Constable, Housing, 182, 186–187, 199.

66. Constable, Housing, 190–191.

67. Constable, Housing, 187.

68. Stabel, "De gewenste vreemdeling," 193–194, 198, 205, 207, 210, 212–213. P. Stabel a.o., "Production, Markets and Socio-economic Structures II: c. 1320–c. 1500," in Medieval Bruges, c. 850–1550, ed. A. Brown and J. Dumolyn (Cambridge, 2018), 196–267, 213.

69. On the distinction between a medieval European core and its peripheries, see Bartlett, The Making. M. Balard, "Genuensis civitas in extremo Europae: Caffa from the Fourteenth to the Fifteenth Century," in Medieval Frontiers: Concepts and Practices, ed. D. Abulafia and N. Berend (Aldershot and Burlington, 2002), 143–151, 148 indicated that the Crimean frontier, "under Byzantine dominion and afterwards under Genoa's, played part of a living membrane, of a 'trading frontier' during the two centuries of its colonisation by the Genoese."

70. Constable, Housing, 192–193, 132–133 (citation), 195. See also F. Fernández-Armesto, Before Columbus. Exploration and Colonisation from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic 1229–1492 (London, 1987), 134–140.

71. Constable, Housing, 198.

72. See most recently on Catalan consulates in Northern Africa in the fourteenth century, V. Olcina Pita, "Commercial Litigation across Religious Borders: Rendering Justice for Valencian Merchants in the Fifteenth Century North Africa and Granada," Comparative Legal History 5, no. 1 (2017): 88–106, 95–96.

73. Bartlett, The Making, 190.

74. On the logistic role of the Italian maritime republics in the crusades and their related commercial advantages, see for instance Abulafia, The Great Sea. A Human History of the Mediterranean (London etc, 2012), 289–290, 292–293, 305, 325. M. Balard, La Méditerranée médiévale. Espaces, itinéraires, comptoirs (Paris, 2006), 60. J. Pryor, Logistics of Warfare in the Age of the Crusades: Proceedings of a Workshop Held at the Centre for Medieval Studies, University of Sydney, 30 September to 4 October 2002 (Aldershot and Burlington, 2006).

75. S. P. Karpov, "Encounter of civilizations in the 13th–15th centuries: East meets West on Pontic shores," in Le prospettive europee di apertura all'Europa orientale e ai paisi del Mediterraneo, ed. G. Gozzi (Ravenna, 2003), 17–22, 20. On medieval western naval superiority, see also Balard, La Méditerranée, 48. F. Fernández-Armesto, "Naval Warfare after the Viking Age c. 1100–1500," in Medieval Warfare. A History, ed. M. Keene (Oxford, 1999), 230–252.

76. Amongst the vast literature on this topic see for instance the classic C. M. Cipolla, Guns, Sails and Empires. Technological Innovation and the Early Phases of European Expansion, 1400–1700 (New York, 1965) and more recently, G. Casale, The Ottoman Age of Exploration (Oxford, 2010) which includes Ottoman rivalry with the Portuguese in the Indian Ocean. For the use of oar-powered warships with gunpowder weapons by the Ottomans and the Portuguese in the Indian Ocean see G. Casale, "Ottoman Warships in the Indian Ocean Armada of 1538: A Qualitative and Statistical Analysis," in Seapower, Technology and Trade: Studies in Turkish Maritime History, ed. D. Couto, F Gunergun, and M. P. Pedani (Istanbul, 2014), 89–102.

77. M. Balard, La Romanie génoise (XIIe-début du XVe siècle) I–II (Rome and Genoa, 1978). S. P. Karpov, The Empire of Trebizond and Venice in 1374–75: (a Chrysobull Redated) (Birmingham, 1978) and idem, "I Genovesi nel Mar Nero: alti magistrati di Caffa di fronte alle accuse," in Comuni e memoria storica. Alle origini del comune di Genova. Atti del convegno di studi, Genova, 24–26 settembre 2001) (Genoa, 2002), 583–593. F. Thiriet, La Romanie Vénitienne au Moyen Age. Le développement et l'exploitation du domaine colonial vénitien (XIIe–XVe siècle) (Paris, 1959).

78. The term fondaco appears relatively late in these sources. Kind remark of S. P. Karpov. See for example Karpov, "Grecs et Latins," 415.

79. Venice concluded agreements with local rulers for the establishment of trading stations in the Empire of Trebizond and the Khanate of the Golden Horn since 1319 and the 1320s, respectively. S. Karpov, "Venetian Navigations to the Black Seas Areas, 13th–15th Centuries," The Sea in History: The Medieval World, ed. M. Balard (Wooddbridge and Rochester, 2017), 465–474, 467.

80. B. Doumerc, "La Tana au XVe siècle," in État et colonisation au Moyen Age, ed. M. Balard, 252.

81. Doumerc, "La Tana au XVe siècle," 254.

82. Bato'ora Ballong-Wen-Mewuda, São Jorge da Mina, 65.

83. Karpov, "Grecs et Latins," 415. Constable, Housing, 156, n. 165. Sandra Origone, "Colonies and Colonisation," in A Companion to Medieval Genoa, ed. Carrie E. Beneš (Leiden and Boston, 2018), 496–520.

84. Constable, Housing, 109 (citation), 123–124, 279, and for the security of funduqs 51, 89–90, 93.

85. Origone, "Colonies," 499.

86. Scammell, The World Encompassed, 186–187. See also P. P. Argenti, The Occupation of Chios by the Genoese and their Administration of the Island (1346–1566), 3 vols. (Cambridge, 1958).

87. For example "… on the vast majority of the populations of Africa, Asia and even North America European presence had as yet little or no influence." G. V. Scammell, The World Encompassed. The first European Maritime Empires, c. 800–1650 (London, 1981), 506, discussing the period up to 1650. More recently R. Bertrand, L'histoire à parts égales. Récits dúne rencontre Orient-Occident (XVIe–XVIIe siècle) (Paris, 2011), 445–449. Even though there were clear examples of aggressive European expansion, like the Dutch simply erasing the entire population of the Banda islands and putting in slaves instead in the early phase of the spice monopoly. J. Gommans, "Conclusion. Globalizing Empire: The Dutch Case," in Exploring the Dutch Empire: Agents, Networks and Institutions, 1600–2000, ed. C. Antunes and J. Gommans (London etc, 2015), 267–278, 271, 273. See more in detail M. J. van Ittersum, "Debating Natural Law in the Banda Islands: A Case Study in Anglo–Dutch Imperial Competition in the East Indies, 1609–1621," History of European Ideas 42, no. 2 (2016): 459–501, especially 462–464.

88. Bert G. Fragner, "Ein Privilegium aus Golkonda für die Niederländische Ostindische Kompanie," in Festgabe an Josef Matuz. Islamkundliche Untersuchungen, vol. 150, ed. Christa Fragner and Klaus Schwarz (Berlin, 1992), 57–76.

89. Interesting is the case of Cochin where the local raja stipulated in 1663 that all Roman Catholic Christians would come under the jurisdiction of the Dutch, inheriting this position from their Portuguese predecessors. G. Kruijtzer, "European Migration in the Dutch Sphere," in Dutch Colonialism, Migration and Cultural Heritage, ed. G. Oostindie (Leiden, 2008), 97–155, 132.

90. See for instance N. Jaspert and J. Kolditz, "Christlich-Muslimische Aussenbeziehungen im Mittelmeerraum. Zur räumlichen und religiösen Dimension mittelalterlicher Diplomatie," Zeitschrift für Historische Forschung 41, no. 1 (2014): 1–88, 46–49.

91. Comparable arrangements were made by other local rulers in India with the Dutch. G. Kruijtzer, Xenophobia in Seventeenth Century India (Leiden, 2009), 109–111.

92. F. W. Knight, The Caribbean. The Genesis of a Fragmented Nationalism (New York, 1978), 23 (citation). D. W. Meinig, The Shaping of America. A Geographical Perspective on 500 Years of History 1 Atlantic America, 1492–1800 (New Haven and London, 1986), 66–68. K. G. Davies, The North Atlantic World in the Seventeenth Century (Minneapolis, 1974), 41, 44.

93. D. Abulafia, "The Consular Networks in the Mediterranean: Function, Origins and Development," in Mediterraneum. Splendour of the Medieval Mediterranean, 13th15th Centuries (Barcelona, 2004), 339–351, 351. L. N. McAlister, Spain and Portugal in the New World, 1492–1700 (Minneapolis, 1984), 76. J. Pérez de Tudela, "la quiebra de la factoría y el nuevo poblamiento de la Española," Revista de Indias 15 (1955): 197–252.

94. J. H. Elliott, Imperial Spain, 1469–1716 (London etc, 1963), 61–62.

95. For instance by the Mahicans in case of the establishment of fort Nassau by the Dutch in nearby present day Albany in 1614. Meuwese, Brothers, 118, 123.

96. Meinig, Shaping, 29, 39. B. van Ruymbeke, L'Amérique avant les États-Unis. Une histoire de l'Amérique anglaise, 1497–1776 (Paris, 2013). K. R. Andrews, N. P. Canny, and P.E. H. Hair, eds., The Westward Enterprise: English Activities in Ireland, the Atlantic and America, 1480–1650 (Liverpool, 1978).

97. J. Meyer, J. Tarrade, A. Rey-Goldzeiguer, and J. Thobie, Histoire de la France coloniale. Des origines à 1914 (Paris, 1991), 61.

98. Like Fort Casimir, Fort Nassau, Fort Oranje, and Fort Goede Hoop in the area known by the Dutch as "New Netherland." G. Knaap, H. den Heijer, and M. de Jong, Oorlogen overzee. Militair optreden door compagnie en staat buiten Europa, 1595–1814 (Amsterdam, 2015), 344–345. In New Netherland, these forts developed into towns. E. K. Lyon, "The Transfer of Technology from the Dutch Republic to New Netherlands: Forts, Factories and Cities as a Beginning," in Shipping, Factories and Colonization (Brussels, 24–26 November 1994), ed. J. Everaert and J. Parmentier (Brussels, 1996), 333–342.

99. Knaap, Den Heijer, and De Jong, Oorlogen overzee, 346.

100. See for instance M. Meuwese, Brothers, 95–109.

101. P. Emmer and J. Gommans, Rijk aan de rand van de wereld (Amsterdam, 2012), 237, 239, 257–259. J.A.M. Torres, "Politics and Colonial Discourse in the Spanish Empire: The African Atlantic Possessions, 1575–1630," Jahrbuch für Geschichte Lateinamerikas – Anuario de Historia de America Latina 51 (2014): 113–149, 123–124. Most recently J. K. Osei-Tutu and V. E. Smith, eds., Shadows of Empire in West Africa. New Perspectives on European Fortifications (Cham, 2018), 4–5.

102. Constable, Housing, 140.

103. Although the construction of the castle at Elmina in 1482 took place after an agreement between the Portuguese and the local ruler, the omanhene or king of Eguafo, Nana Kwamena Ansah, no formal transfer of landownership occurred. Disney, A History of Portugal, 57–58. For the construction of Fort Nassau at Mouri in 1612 a plot of land was allocated in an agreement between the local ruler Asebu and the Dutch. Da Silva, Dutch and Portuguese, 47.

104. L. Sicking, Colonial Borderlands. France and the Netherlands in the Atlantic in the Nineteenth Century (Leiden and Boston, 2008), 67–68, 104.

105. The start of European new or modern imperialism is usually dated in 1870. The partition of Africa started in 1881. H. L. Wesseling, Europa's koloniale eeuw (Amsterdam, 2003), 180, 205. Most recently M. van der Linden, The Acquisition of Africa (1870–1914): The Nature of International Law (Leiden and Boston, 2016). For the Gold Coast the destruction of the Ashanti capital Kumasi by the English in 1874 announced the start of modern colonialism or imperialism there. Sicking, Borderlands, 61–62, 107.

106. For a medieval equivalent see the late medieval European discovery and settlement of the Canary islands and the parallells with the Caribbean after 1492 see for instance Abulafia, "Neolithic meets Medieval: First Encounters in the Canary Islands," in Medieval Frontiers, ed. Abulafia and Berend, 255–278. For the medieval origins of how Europeans created political authority in the New World see P. Seed, Ceremonies of Possession in Europe's Conquest of the New World, 1492–1640 (Cambridge, 1995).

107. F. Braudel, La Méditerranée et le monde méditerranéen à l'époque de Philippe II (Paris, 1949).

108. Examples of studies taking a sea as point of departure: P. Horden and N. Purcell, The Corrupting Sea. A Study of Mediterranean History (Oxford, 2000); D. Abulafia, The Great Sea. A Human History of the Mediterranean (London etc, 2011); M. North, Geschichte der Ostsee. Handel und Kulturen (München, 2011). On "new thalassology": P. Horden and N. Purcell, "The Mediterranean and 'the New Thalassology'," American Historical Review 111, no. 3 (2006): 722–740.

109. François Gipouloux, La Méditerranée asiatique. Villes portuaires et réseaux marchands en Chine, au Japon et en Asie du Sud-Est, XVIe–XXIe siècle (Parijs, 2009), 379. The English translation appeared as The Asian Mediterranean: Port Cities and Trading Networks in China, Japan and Southeast Asia, 13th21st century (Cheltenham, 2011).

110. Gipouloux, La Méditerranée asiatique, 20.

111. G. Parker, "Europe and the Wider World, 1500–1700: The Military Balance," in The Political Economy of Merchant Empires, ed. J. D. Tracy (Cambridge, 1991), 161–195, 162, 166.

112. See for example Scammell, The World, 86–224 and F. Lane, Venice: A Maritime Republic (Baltimore, 1973); Balard, La Méditerranée, and more recently Origone, "Colonies."

113. Jaspert and Kolditz, "Christlich-Muslimische Aussenbeziehungen," 48–49. See also Mathieu Grenet, "Consuls et 'nations' étrangères: état des lieux et perspectives de recherche," Cahiers de la Méditerranée 93 (December 2016): 25–34. See for example on French consular jurisdiction E. Matsumoto, La juridiction consulaire dans la justice de l'Ancien Régime. Rivalités et conflits avec les autres juridictions (PhD, Paris II 2002).

114. A. Nedkvitne, The German Hansa and Bergen 1100–1600 (Cologne, 2014). N. Jörn, "With Money and Bloode" Der Londener Stahlhof im Spannungsfeld der englisch-hansischen Beziehungen im 15. Und 16. Jahrhundert (Cologne, 2000). N. Angermann and K. Friedland, eds., Nowgorod. Markt und Kontor der Hanse (Cologne, 2002).

115. C. Jahnke, Das Silber des Meeres. Fang und Vertrieb von Ostseehering zwischen Norwegen und Italien (12.-16. Jahrhundert) (Cologne, Weimar, Vienna, 2000). See also Carsten Jahnke, "The Medieval Herring Fishery in the Western Baltic," in Beyond the Catch: Fisheries of the North Atlantic, the North Sea and the Baltic, 900–1850, ed. L. Sicking and D. Abreu-Ferreira (Leiden and Boston, 2009), 157–186, 176.

116. L. Sicking, "Zuiderzeestädte an der Ostsee. 'Vitten' und 'Vögte' – Raum und städtische Vertreter im spätmittelalterlichen Schonen," Hansische Geschichtsblätter 134 (2016): 39–59.

117. Subrahmanyam, The Portuguese Empire, 49. Kruijtzer, Xenophobia, 61. H. Leira and I. B. Neumann, "The Many Past Lives of the Consul," in Consular Affairs and Diplomacy, ed. J. Melissen and A. M. Fernández (Leiden and Boston, 2011), 225–246, 235.

118. L. Blussé, Visible Cities: Canton, Nagasaki, and Batavia and the Coming of the Americans (Cambridge, MA and London, 2008), 5, 52–53.

119. Olga Katsiardi-Hering, Le presenza dei Greci a Trieste. La Comunità e l'attività economica (1751–1830) (Trieste, 2018), 276.

120. Leira and Neumann, "The Many Past Lives of the Consul," 245. See also Grenet, "Consuls et «nations» étrangères," 25–34.

121. Abulafia, "The Consular Networks," 351.

122. Interestingly the Portuguese had a feitoria at Oran, at least between 1483 and 1487, while the Catalans had been active there too. Ricard, Études, 193–194, 201. Olcina Pita, "Litigation," 99.

123. J. Sequeira and F. Miranda, "'A Port of Two Seas': Lisbon and European Maritime Networks in the Fifteenth Century," in Maritime Networks as a Factor in European Integration, ed. Fondazione F. Datini (Florence, 2019), 339–354.

124. Kruijtzer, Xenophobia, 214.

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