Humanism, Printing and Reformation — a part of the book Basel as an International Financial Centre by Dr Alexander Ressos.
Part B covers the sixteenth century, the period in which Basel became one of the intellectual capitals of Europe and adopted the Reformation. Its subject may seem remote from a financial centre. Printers, humanists and reformers produced books on theology, philology, law and medicine. Yet the transformations of the sixteenth century shaped the economic and moral order in which banking developed in Basel over the following centuries. Printing was the first industry of the city that required large investments of capital, long periods of pre-financing, distribution networks across Europe and the protection of intellectual work; it trained the merchants of Basel in the management of risk and credit on a new scale. Humanism created a network of scholars, printers and patrons across Europe whose correspondence carried information, reputation and money. The Reformation abolished the monasteries and redistributed their wealth, ended the payments to Rome, changed the moral assessment of interest and work, and made Basel a place of refuge for Protestants persecuted elsewhere, who brought capital and new industries.
Chapter I examines printing as an enterprise. Chapter II is devoted to Erasmus and the humanist network. Chapter III describes the Reformation of 1529 and the new civic order it created. Chapter IV turns to Calvin's Institutio, first printed in Basel in 1536, and to the Reformed ethics of credit that link Basel with Geneva. Chapter V follows the religious refugees who settled in Basel and the new industries they founded.
This part belongs to Basel as an International Financial Centre by Dr Alexander Ressos, published here in full, section by section.
Printing as Capital-Intensive Enterprise: Amerbach, Froben, Petri — conclusion
The printing industry of Basel, which flourished from the 1470s to the middle of the sixteenth century, was the first industry of the city that required capital, credit and international distribution… Read more Basel · Humanism, Printing and ReformationA new industry in an old city
Around 1500, Basel was home to one of the most productive printing industries in Europe. Read more Basel · Humanism, Printing and ReformationThe economics of the printed book
The production of a printed book required a combination of inputs that no single craft provided. Read more Basel · Humanism, Printing and ReformationGutenberg's lesson: the financier and the inventor
The history of printing began with a lawsuit about money. Johannes Gutenberg, who developed the technique of printing with movable metal type in Mainz around 1450, financed his work with loans from… Read more Basel · Humanism, Printing and ReformationJohann Amerbach: the scholar-printer
The first great printer of Basel was Johann Amerbach, born around 1440 in Amorbach in Franconia, from which his name derives. Read more Basel · Humanism, Printing and ReformationThe partnership of the three Johns
Amerbach's most ambitious project was a complete edition of the works of Jerome, the translator of the Latin Bible and one of the four Latin Fathers of the Church. Read more Basel · Humanism, Printing and ReformationJohann Froben and the business of humanism
Johann Froben was a printer of exceptional skill and a publisher of vision. After Amerbach's death, he became the leading printer of Basel. Read more Basel · Humanism, Printing and ReformationAdam and Heinrich Petri: the publishers of the Reformation and of the world
The Petri family formed another dynasty of Basel printers. Johann Petri, Amerbach's partner, was succeeded by his nephew Adam Petri, who became one of the principal printers of the early Reformation. Read more Basel · Humanism, Printing and ReformationJohannes Oporinus: the risks of the trade
Not all Basel printers were as successful as Froben and Petri. Johannes Oporinus, a scholar who had been secretary to Paracelsus and professor of Greek at the university, became a printer in the… Read more Basel · Humanism, Printing and ReformationThe printing workshop: labour, wages and conflict
A printing shop of the sixteenth century was a workshop of a new kind. It gathered, under the direction of a master, workers with different skills who performed different tasks in a coordinated… Read more Basel · Humanism, Printing and ReformationCredit in the book trade
The account books and correspondence of the Basel printers reveal a dense web of credit relationships. Read more Basel · Humanism, Printing and ReformationWomen in the printing business
The history of Basel printing, like that of printing elsewhere, includes women who ran printing houses, usually as widows of printers. Read more Basel · Humanism, Printing and ReformationHans Holbein the Younger and the portrait of a money changer
Among the artists who worked for the Basel printers, one achieved a fame that far exceeds the history of printing. Read more Basel · Humanism, Printing and ReformationThe libraries and collections of Basel
The printing industry and the humanist culture of the sixteenth century left Basel with an exceptional heritage of books and collections. Read more Basel · Humanism, Printing and ReformationCensorship and the regulation of printing
The printing industry was, from the outset, a regulated industry. The authorities of the sixteenth century recognised the power of the printed word to spread ideas, both orthodox and heretical, and… Read more Basel · Humanism, Printing and ReformationPaper, type and the supply chain
The printing industry depended on a supply chain that extended beyond the city. The paper mills of the St. Alban valley supplied a large part of the paper used by Basel printers. Read more Basel · Humanism, Printing and ReformationThe fairs of Frankfurt and the distribution of books
The principal market for Basel books was the Frankfurt fair, held twice a year, in spring and autumn. Read more Basel · Humanism, Printing and ReformationThe pamphlet economy of the Reformation
The Reformation transformed the market for printed matter. Alongside the large folio editions of the Church Fathers and the classics, which required years of preparation and large capital, a new… Read more Basel · Humanism, Printing and ReformationBasel's place in the European book trade
By the standards of the sixteenth century, Basel was a leading printing centre of the German-speaking world, alongside Cologne, Strasbourg, Nuremberg, Augsburg, Leipzig and Wittenberg. Read more Basel · Humanism, Printing and ReformationPrinting and the formation of capital
The printing industry of Basel reached its peak in the first half of the sixteenth century and declined in the second half, when religious conflicts, censorship, competition from other centres and… Read more Basel · Humanism, Printing and ReformationThe printer as intermediary
One further aspect of the printing industry deserves attention in a book about a financial centre. The printer was an intermediary. Read more Basel · Humanism, Printing and ReformationErasmus and the Humanist Republic of Letters — conclusion
Erasmus lived in Basel from 1521 to 1529 and again from 1535 until his death in 1536. Read more Basel · Humanism, Printing and ReformationThe most famous resident of Basel
Of all the people who have lived in Basel, none was more famous in his own time than Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam. Read more Basel · Humanism, Printing and ReformationWhy Basel?
Erasmus had lived in Paris, Oxford, Cambridge, London, Venice, Rome, Louvain and other cities before he settled in Basel. His choice of Basel requires explanation. Read more Basel · Humanism, Printing and ReformationThe republic of letters as a network
The humanists of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries called their community the respublica litteraria, the republic of letters. Read more Basel · Humanism, Printing and ReformationErasmus's income
Erasmus had no inherited wealth, no permanent office and no fixed salary for most of his life. Read more Basel · Humanism, Printing and ReformationThe Adagia: a knowledge product and its revisions
Erasmus's most commercially successful work was a collection of classical proverbs with commentary, the Adagia. Read more Basel · Humanism, Printing and ReformationThe Fugger, the indulgence and the price of an election
Erasmus lived in the age of the Fugger. The connection between the great Augsburg banking house and the events that shaped his life shows how deeply finance was intertwined with the politics and… Read more Basel · Humanism, Printing and ReformationTransferring money across borders: Erasmus Schets
The payments that Erasmus received from England, the Low Countries and elsewhere had to be transferred to Basel. Read more Basel · Humanism, Printing and ReformationErasmus on money, war and princes
Erasmus wrote extensively on the duties of rulers. His views on taxation, coinage and war are directly relevant to the history of public finance. Read more Basel · Humanism, Printing and ReformationThe Praise of Folly and the satire of greed
Erasmus's most famous work, the Moriae encomium or Praise of Folly, was written in England in 1509 at the house of Thomas More and first printed in Paris in 1511. Read more Basel · Humanism, Printing and ReformationCouriers, posts and the speed of information
The republic of letters and the world of commerce depended on the same infrastructure: the transport of letters. In the early sixteenth century, letters travelled by several means. Read more Basel · Humanism, Printing and ReformationErasmus's household and the cost of living
Erasmus lived in Basel in the style of a scholar of standing. He rented houses, first in the property of Froben and later a house of his own choosing, maintained servants and secretaries, the famuli,… Read more Basel · Humanism, Printing and ReformationBetween the confessions
The Reformation confronted Erasmus with a choice that he tried to avoid. Many of the early reformers had been his admirers and considered him a precursor. Read more Basel · Humanism, Printing and ReformationErasmus's will and the Erasmus foundation
When Erasmus died in Basel in 1536, he left a considerable estate, the fruit of decades of pensions, gifts and payments. Read more Basel · Humanism, Printing and ReformationThe humanist circle of Basel
Erasmus was the centre of a circle of scholars who lived in Basel or passed through the city. Read more Basel · Humanism, Printing and ReformationManners, schooling and the education of merchants' sons
Erasmus was also an educator, who wrote several of his most successful books for the instruction of the young. Read more Basel · Humanism, Printing and ReformationAuthor and publisher: a relationship without a contract
The relationship between Erasmus and Froben was never formalised in a written contract that has survived. It rested on mutual interest, personal trust and the customs of the book trade. Read more Basel · Humanism, Printing and ReformationErasmus in the memory of Basel
Basel has kept the memory of Erasmus in many forms. His tomb in the Minster is visited by admirers from all over the world. The house in which he died, zum Luft, on the Bäumleingasse, bears a plaque. Read more Basel · Humanism, Printing and ReformationLegal humanism and the renewal of jurisprudence
The humanist movement transformed the study of law. The medieval jurists had studied Roman law through the glosses and commentaries accumulated since the twelfth century. Read more Basel · Humanism, Printing and ReformationThe Reformation of 1529: Oecolampadius and the New Civic Order — conclusion
The Reformation of 1529 was imposed on the council of Basel by the armed guilds, after years of hesitation. Read more Basel · Humanism, Printing and ReformationA revolution by the guilds
On 9 February 1529, armed members of the guilds of Basel gathered on the market square, forced the council to accept their demands and then went through the churches of the city, tearing down images,… Read more Basel · Humanism, Printing and ReformationThe path to reform
The ideas of the Reformation reached Basel early. The printing houses of the city, as Chapter I showed, reprinted Luther's writings from 1519 onwards and spread them throughout the Upper German and… Read more Basel · Humanism, Printing and ReformationJohannes Oecolampadius
The leader of the Reformation in Basel was Johannes Oecolampadius, whose name is a Greek rendering of his German name Hausschein, or perhaps Heussgen. Read more Basel · Humanism, Printing and ReformationFebruary 1529
The decisive crisis came in the winter of 1528 to 1529. The adoption of the Reformation by Bern in 1528 changed the balance of power in the Confederation and encouraged the reform party in Basel. Read more Basel · Humanism, Printing and ReformationThe Reformation Ordinance of 1 April 1529
The council gave the new order a legal form in the Reformation Ordinance of 1 April 1529. Read more Basel · Humanism, Printing and ReformationConstitutional consequences
The Reformation changed the constitution of Basel. The exclusion of the Catholic councillors and the pressure of the guilds strengthened the role of the guilds in the government of the city. Read more Basel · Humanism, Printing and ReformationThe secularisation of church property
The most important economic consequence of the Reformation was the transfer of church property to the city. Read more Basel · Humanism, Printing and ReformationThe end of payments to Rome
The Reformation also ended the financial flows between Basel and Rome. Before 1529, the clergy of Basel paid annates, fees for dispensations and other charges to the papal curia, while the citizens… Read more Basel · Humanism, Printing and ReformationPoor relief and the new social order
The reformers attached great importance to the care of the poor. They criticised the medieval system of charity, which relied on alms given by individuals to beggars, on the charitable activities of… Read more Basel · Humanism, Printing and ReformationMoral discipline and economic life
The Reformation Ordinance and the subsequent moral mandates regulated the private lives of the citizens in detail. Read more Basel · Humanism, Printing and ReformationAnabaptists and the limits of reform
The Reformation in Basel, as in Zurich and Bern, had a radical wing that the authorities suppressed. Read more Basel · Humanism, Printing and ReformationThe marriage court and the law of family property
One of the most lasting institutions created by the Reformation was the marriage court, the Ehegericht. Before 1529, marriage was a sacrament. Read more Basel · Humanism, Printing and ReformationSchools and the investment in education
The reformers believed that every Christian should be able to read the Bible, and that the church needed educated pastors capable of interpreting it. Read more Basel · Humanism, Printing and ReformationThe Reformed alliance
The Reformation created new alliances between the Protestant cities. In 1528 and 1529, Zurich, Bern, Basel, St Gallen, Schaffhausen, Biel, Mulhouse and the Imperial city of Constance concluded a… Read more Basel · Humanism, Printing and ReformationTithes, rents and the countryside after 1529
The Reformation changed the religious life of the countryside of Basel, but it did not free the peasants from the dues they owed. Read more Basel · Humanism, Printing and ReformationThe Confessions of Basel
The Reformed church of Basel defined its doctrine in a confession of faith. The First Basel Confession was drafted by Oecolampadius, completed after his death by his successor Oswald Myconius and… Read more Basel · Humanism, Printing and ReformationBasel, Zurich and Geneva: three Reformations compared
The Reformation of Basel can be compared with those of Zurich and Geneva, the two other Swiss cities whose Reformations shaped their later role as financial centres. Read more Basel · Humanism, Printing and ReformationThe Reformation and the guild economy
The Reformation strengthened the guilds politically, but it did not change their economic role. Read more Basel · Humanism, Printing and ReformationThe Minster after the Reformation
The Minster of Basel, stripped of its images and altars in 1529, became the principal church of the Reformed city. Read more Basel · Humanism, Printing and ReformationFrom state church to public-law church
The integration of church and state that the Reformation created in Basel lasted for almost four centuries. Read more Basel · Humanism, Printing and ReformationThe Reformation and the economic culture of Basel
The Reformation of 1529 left a lasting imprint on the economic culture of Basel. It transferred church property to civic administration and established a tradition of public endowments for education… Read more Basel · Humanism, Printing and ReformationCalvin's Institutio (Basel 1536) and the Reformed Ethics of Credit — conclusion
Jean Calvin, a French refugee, wrote the first edition of his Institutio in Basel, where it was printed in March 1536 by Thomas Platter and Balthasar Lasius. Read more Basel · Humanism, Printing and ReformationA refugee writes a book
In January 1535, a young French lawyer and theologian arrived in Basel as a refugee. Jean Calvin, born in 1509 in Noyon in Picardy, had studied law at Orléans and Bourges and humanities in Paris. Read more Basel · Humanism, Printing and ReformationThe Institutio as a Basel product
The Institutio of 1536 was a product of the Basel printing industry and of the refugee culture of the city. Read more Basel · Humanism, Printing and ReformationThe lawyer as theologian
Calvin was trained as a lawyer before he became a theologian, a training that shaped his thought. Read more Basel · Humanism, Printing and ReformationThe career of a book
The Institutio of 1536 was the first stage of a book that grew with its author. Calvin revised and expanded it throughout his life. Read more Basel · Humanism, Printing and ReformationThe problem of interest
To understand the significance of Calvin's ethics of credit, it is necessary to recall the doctrine he inherited. The prohibition of usury, which Part A has already mentioned, had deep roots. Read more Basel · Humanism, Printing and ReformationLuther, Zwingli and the reformers on interest
The first generation of reformers did not abolish the prohibition of usury. Martin Luther condemned usury in several writings, among them his Sermon on Usury of 1519 and 1520 and his treatise On… Read more Basel · Humanism, Printing and ReformationCalvin's letter on usury
Calvin's most important statement on interest is a letter written around 1545, probably to his friend Claude de Sachins, who had asked his opinion on the lawfulness of lending at interest. Read more Basel · Humanism, Printing and ReformationGeneva's legislation on interest
Calvin's views were translated into law in Geneva. The companion volume describes how the Genevan authorities fixed a maximum rate of interest, which was set at five per cent in the 1530s and raised… Read more Basel · Humanism, Printing and ReformationBasel's practice between Zurich and Geneva
The practice of Basel in matters of interest in the sixteenth century was close to that of Geneva and Zurich, but with its own emphasis. Read more Basel · Humanism, Printing and ReformationThe instruments of the Reformed merchant
The acceptance of moderate interest by the reformers did not change the instruments of credit overnight. Read more Basel · Humanism, Printing and ReformationThe price of money through the centuries
The five per cent that the councils of Basel and Geneva fixed as the normal rate for rents and loans in the sixteenth century was the price of money in a world of scarce capital, high risk and… Read more Basel · Humanism, Printing and ReformationComparative ethics of interest: the Islamic prohibition
The debate on interest is not limited to the Christian tradition. Islamic law prohibits riba, a term that covers interest on loans and certain forms of unjust enrichment in exchange. Read more Basel · Humanism, Printing and ReformationFrom Calvin to Weber
In 1904 and 1905, the German sociologist Max Weber published an essay that has shaped the discussion of the relationship between religion and economic life ever since: The Protestant Ethic and the… Read more Basel · Humanism, Printing and ReformationSebastian Castellio and the question of tolerance
The Reformed world was not a world of tolerance. Calvin's Geneva executed the Spanish physician and theologian Michael Servetus for heresy in October 1553. Read more Basel · Humanism, Printing and ReformationExit, voice and the mobility of capital
The Institutio was written by a refugee and addressed to a king who persecuted his fellow believers. Read more Basel · Humanism, Printing and ReformationNotaries, courts and the documentation of credit
The Reformed ethics of credit was applied in practice through the institutions of the civic legal order: the notaries who drew up contracts, the registers in which rents and pledges were recorded,… Read more Basel · Humanism, Printing and ReformationStewardship and the ethics of wealth
Calvin's ethics of wealth went beyond the question of interest. In the Institutio and in his commentaries and sermons, he developed a doctrine of stewardship: wealth was a gift of God, entrusted to… Read more Basel · Humanism, Printing and ReformationThe Basel that Calvin knew
When Calvin arrived in Basel in January 1535, the city had been Reformed for six years. The images had been removed from the churches, the mass abolished, the monasteries dissolved. Read more Basel · Humanism, Printing and ReformationThe ethics of credit in modern corporate governance
The Reformed ethics of credit, with its emphasis on moderation, fairness and the common good, has echoes in the modern debates on the governance of financial institutions. Read more Basel · Humanism, Printing and ReformationBasel and Geneva: two paths from the Institutio
The Institutio was printed in Basel and applied in Geneva. The two cities followed different paths in the following centuries, although both remained Reformed. Read more Basel · Humanism, Printing and ReformationReligious Refugees and the Silk Ribbon Industry — conclusion
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. Read more Basel · Humanism, Printing and ReformationA city of refuge
In the second half of the sixteenth century and the first half of the seventeenth, Basel received waves of religious refugees. Read more Basel · Humanism, Printing and ReformationThe Italian refugees
The first significant group of refugees came from Italy. In the 1540s, the reorganisation of the Roman Inquisition and the failure of attempts at reconciliation with the Protestants led many Italians… Read more Basel · Humanism, Printing and ReformationThe Huguenots and the Netherlanders
The second and larger wave of refugees came from France and the Low Countries in the second half of the sixteenth century. Read more Basel · Humanism, Printing and ReformationThe Bernoulli family
The Bernoulli family illustrates the path of a refugee family from commerce to learning. Read more Basel · Humanism, Printing and ReformationThe admission of refugees: a selective policy
The city of Basel did not admit refugees without conditions. Its policy combined humanitarian and religious motives, the duty to help persecuted fellow believers, with economic calculation and the… Read more Basel · Humanism, Printing and ReformationDavid Joris: the wealthy stranger
The story of the most famous refugee of sixteenth-century Basel is a cautionary tale about identity, wealth and trust. Read more Basel · Humanism, Printing and ReformationThe origins of the silk industry
The most important economic contribution of the refugees was the silk industry. Silk had been a luxury good in medieval Europe, imported from the Byzantine Empire and the Islamic world and later… Read more Basel · Humanism, Printing and ReformationThe engine loom and the conflict with the guilds
The decisive innovation in the ribbon industry was the engine loom, known in German as the Bandmühle or Kunststuhl. Read more Basel · Humanism, Printing and ReformationThe ribbon weavers' villages
The putting-out system transformed the countryside of Basel. In the villages of the rural territory, in particular in the valleys of the Jura that today form the districts of Waldenburg, Sissach and… Read more Basel · Humanism, Printing and ReformationCapital, skills and networks: what the refugees brought
The contribution of the refugees to the economy of Basel can be summarised in three words: capital, skills and networks. Read more Basel · Humanism, Printing and ReformationThe Thirty Years' War and the neutrality of Basel
The refugees of the early seventeenth century arrived in a Europe that was sliding into the most destructive war of its early modern history. Read more Basel · Humanism, Printing and ReformationJohann Rudolf Wettstein and the Peace of Westphalia
The Thirty Years' War ended with the Peace of Westphalia, concluded at Münster and Osnabrück in 1648. Read more Basel · Humanism, Printing and ReformationSilk waste and the long life of an industry
The silk ribbon industry was the most prominent but not the only branch of the silk industry that the refugees brought to Basel. Read more Basel · Humanism, Printing and ReformationRefugee capital and the culture of discretion
The refugees who came to Basel with their wealth had good reasons to be discreet. They had fled from rulers who had confiscated or threatened to confiscate their property, often after transferring… Read more Basel · Humanism, Printing and ReformationRefugee families and the origins of Basel banking
Several of the refugee families of Basel would, in the following centuries, move from trade and industry into banking. The path was gradual. Read more Basel · Humanism, Printing and ReformationThe modern city of immigrants
Basel has remained a city of immigrants. In the nineteenth century, workers from the Black Forest, Alsace and the Swiss countryside came to work in its factories, while entrepreneurs from Germany and… Read more