Large Ravensburger trading company

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Gravestone of the Ravensburg merchant Henggi Humpis († 1429)
Portrait of the Lindau merchant Oswolt Krel by Albrecht Dürer , 1499 ( Alte Pinakothek , Munich )
Branches (wagons at the Rutenfestzug in Ravensburg)

The Große Ravensburger Handelsgesellschaft ( Latin : Magna Societas Alamannorum ) was founded around 1380 by merchants from the Humpis (from Ravensburg ), Mötteli (from Buchhorn ) and Muntprat (from Konstanz ) families . Until the beginning of the 16th century, it was one of the most important European trading companies of the late Middle Ages .

history

Initially, the company probably served primarily to market the domestic cloth (especially linen and fuchsia ). When one of the first paper mills north of the Alps was built in Ravensburg in 1402 , another proprietary product was added; but also one traded with spices from the Orient , wine and oil from the Mediterranean area, ores from Eastern Europe and other things. The large trading company is probably also the reason that local researchers in Ravensburg could not find any historical costume ; those who could afford it wore Italian fashion even then, and those who couldn't afford the original made copies.

With the establishment of branches (so-called Geliegern ) in Spain , France , Italy and Eastern Europe, the trading company soon gained pan-European importance. In addition to the central management located in Ravensburg and the branch in Constance, there were connections to Memmingen , Biberach , Lindau , St. Gallen , Kempten , Ulm and other cities in the area. In its heyday the company had branches , offices and factories in Antwerp , Bruges , Lyon , Avignon , Geneva , Vienna , Venice , Milan , Genoa , Barcelona , Saragossa and Valencia, among others . It was also present in the important trade fair cities of Frankfurt am Main and Nuremberg .

Over 100 families from around 10 cities in the Lake Constance area were involved in this supra-local patrician society. The most important were the Humpis (who also provided most of the rulers of the society), Mötteli, Muntprat, Ankenreute and Holbein.

There are indications that the Fuggers also joined the commercial trains of the large Ravensburger trading company on their first trips to Italy.

From the end of the 15th century, family disputes within the leading families and spin-offs from trading families, the competition of the St. Gallen Diesbach- Watt Society, the Memminger Vöhlin- Welser Society and, above all, the Augsburg-based Fugger and Welser of the Ravensburger Handelsgesellschaft increasingly created problems .

The decline was certainly also accelerated by insufficient adjustment to the economic conditions changed by the rediscovery of the American continent and by the inflation caused by high gold imports .

The sluggishness of the Ravensburger organizations on the one hand and the lack of qualified and risk-taking young talent on the other hand prevented countermeasures. So the Ravensburger also shied away from taking up banking business, which contributed decisively to the later wealth of the competition, for example from the houses of the Fuggers and Welsers. Instead, they used the wealth they had acquired to leave the city and live on country estates, following the example of the nobility, and acquire nobility titles themselves.

In 1530 the trading company went out silently when there were no longer enough shareholders ready to renew the partnership agreements, which were only concluded for a limited period of time.

Research and reception

For a long time, economic historians and local historians knew very little about the exact structure and business of the trading company. Wilhelm Heyd presented the history of the society for the first time in a monograph based on the few preserved files in 1890. The brevity of this monograph symbolizes, as he himself writes, the absolute lack of source papers found and released to the public up to then. In 1909, a surprising number of company files were found in Salem Castle , which - declared as useless trade items - had previously been ignored for centuries. The papers cover the period between 1427 and 1480, as well as from 1497 to 1527, and are of enormous value for research work on the large trading company. The source papers were left to us by the grandson of the last accountant of the trading company by the name of Alexius Hilleson. The sources do not fully describe the history and activities of the trading company from its beginnings to its end, but in places they give deep insights into the work and organization of the company. Aloys Schulte's fundamental three-volume work from 1923 is based on these files and initiated a deeper study of the trading company.

In the historical novel Der Junge Herr Alexius by Otto Rombach , the adventurous life of the Ravensburg merchant Alexius Hilleson on his travels through Europe is described. Although Rombach relies on Schulte in many details, the novel is largely fictional.

In Ravensburg itself, many buildings, coats of arms and street names are reminiscent of the time of the trading company. At the annual rod festival , their businesses are represented by costume groups at the pageant. In addition, an open city museum was built in the city, which consists of seven buildings, the rooms of which date from 1435 to 1508 and in the past formed the living quarters of the Humpis family.

  • Merchants

  • Rulers

  • Transport of goods

  • Paper and linen trade

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Wilhelm Heyd : The great Ravensburger society . Cotta, Stuttgart 1890, p. 3–4 ( full text ).
  2. ^ Aloys Schulte : History of the great Ravensburger trading company . In: German commercial files of the Middle Ages and modern times . Deutsche Verlagsanstalt, 1923, ISSN  0170-3080 , urn : nbn: de: hbz: 061: 1-213383 .
  3. ^ History of the Humpis district. (No longer available online.) In: City of Ravensburg, Museum Humpis-Quartier. Archived from the original on March 13, 2016 ; accessed on February 17, 2016 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.museum-humpis-quartier.de

Web links

Commons : Large Ravensburger Handelsgesellschaft  - collection of images, videos and audio files