Religious Refugees and the Silk Ribbon Industry — conclusion

Conclusion of the chapter

In the second half of the sixteenth century and the first half of the seventeenth, Basel received refugees from Italy, France and the Low Countries. The Italian refugees included scholars and printers such as Curione and Perna, and merchants who brought experience of the silk industry. The refugees from France and the Low Countries, among them the families Bernoulli, de Bary, Sarasin, Battier, Passavant and Miville, brought capital, skills and connections with the Protestant merchant networks of Europe. The Bernoulli family turned from the spice trade to mathematics and produced the theory of probability on which insurance and modern risk management rest. The case of David Joris, the Anabaptist leader who lived in Basel for twelve years under a false identity, shows the risks of accepting wealthy strangers on the basis of appearances.

The refugees introduced the silk industry, above all silk ribbon weaving. The engine loom, introduced around 1667 and associated with Emanuel Hoffmann, provoked a conflict with the guilds that the council resolved by allowing the merchants to have ribbons woven in the countryside under the putting-out system. The ribbon industry, controlled by merchant-manufacturers and based on rural home work, became the leading industry of Basel until the nineteenth century.

Conclusion of Part B

Part B has followed Basel through the sixteenth century and into the seventeenth, the period in which the city became a capital of European printing and humanism, adopted the Reformation and received the refugees who founded its new industries. The printing industry, the first capital-intensive industry of the city, trained merchants in the management of large investments, long production cycles, distant markets and credit, and connected Basel with the fairs of Frankfurt and Lyon. Erasmus, who lived in Basel for the printing house of Froben, animated a European network of information and reputation, managed a portfolio of pensions and gifts through an Antwerp merchant banker and left a charitable foundation that the university still administers. The Reformation of 1529 transferred the property of the Church to civic administration, ended the payments to Rome, established a moral discipline that encouraged work, thrift and discretion, and made Basel part of the Reformed world. Calvin's Institutio, printed in Basel in 1536, and his later letter on usury legitimated moderate interest subject to regulation, an ethics of credit that Basel and Geneva translated into maximum rates and that survives in the modern law of credit. Bringing capital, skills and networks, the refugees founded the silk ribbon industry that dominated the Basel economy for two centuries.

The century of printing, humanism and Reformation left Basel with an economic culture that combined learning, commerce and civic responsibility; with a merchant elite, many of whose families were of refugee origin; with a tradition of discretion and moderation; and with connections to the Protestant networks of trade and finance that would shape its banking in the following centuries. Part C turns to the seventeenth, eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, when the silk ribbon manufacturers and the patrician families of the Daig built the fortunes and the institutions from which private banking in Basel emerged, and when the city's merchants, through the Atlantic economy and the Basel Mission, became connected with the wider world, including Africa.

In five sentences

1.The printing industry of Basel, led by Amerbach, Froben and the Petri family, was the city's first capital-intensive industry and trained its merchants in the management of large investments, long production cycles, distant markets and cross-border credit.

2.Erasmus lived in Basel for its printers, its independence and its quality of life, managed his income through an Antwerp merchant banker in an early form of cross-border wealth management, and left a charitable foundation that illustrates the use of the foundation in wealth planning.

3.The Reformation of 1529 transferred the property of the Church to civic administration for pastors, schools and the poor, ended the payments to Rome, and imposed a moral discipline that encouraged work, thrift and the discretion that became the hallmark of the Basel merchant and banker.

4.Calvin's Institutio, first printed in Basel in 1536, and his letter on usury legitimated moderate interest under public regulation, an ethics of credit that Basel and Geneva translated into maximum rates and that survives in the modern Swiss law of credit.

5.Religious refugees from Italy, France and the Low Countries brought capital, skills and networks to Basel, produced the Bernoulli mathematicians whose theory of probability underlies insurance and banking regulation, and founded the silk ribbon industry that dominated the city's economy for two centuries.

For general information only. This article does not constitute legal or tax advice, does not replace advice on an individual case and creates no lawyer-client relationship. It reflects the legal position as of August 2025.