In the early fourteenth century, there was a relatively dense pattern of towns in the southern part of Scandinavia, which were concentrated in the coastal areas and linked by the traditional sailing-routes. What really happened to Scandinavian towns in the second half of the fourteenth century is obscured by the shortage of contemporaneous evidence, particularly sources on which quantitative valuations may be based. As for written evidence, there is a general decrease in Scandinavian narrative sources; historical sagas were no longer produced and ecclesiastical annal writing was waning. Scandinavian towns were small by contemporary European standards. None of them exceeded 10,000 inhabitants. The chapter also discusses the import and export of goods in medieval Scandinavia that took place mainly through merchants, guests and immigrants, the laws to regulate medieval town life, and town administration. Crafts and local trade in Scandinavian towns were similar to those in other towns of northern and western Europe.

This chapter discusses all forms of market exchange including everything from local trade in which very little transport of goods might be involved to trade over long distances, both inside and outside the Roman empire. It talks about what is now known about patterns of trade in various commodities, about the social and institutional mechanisms by which trade was conducted, and about the role of governments. The main geographical patterns of long-distance trade were determined by the location of these markets and of the centres of production or supply. Many merchants avoided specialization, and for this reason among others it is artificial to discuss Roman trade commodity by commodity. It remains true that reasons of technology and of social structure prevented the Romans from replacing their agrarian economy, in which the mass of the population lived not much above subsistence level, with a more dynamic system.

This chapter outlines economic organization and activity in late-eighteenth-century north India. One way to penetrate the diverse historical experience of various parts of north India in the period is to get a sense of how the economy was organized in the middle of the eighteenth century in terms of different types of trade. By distinguishing between trade in luxury goods, wholesale commodity trade, and localized exchanges around towns and cities and within complexes of related villages, one can obtain a rough picture of economic organization applicable to north India in general. The chapter also emphasizes the pivotal role of the state of transportation in the Mughal period. It shows that the expansion of the commodity trade down the Ganges river, a consequence of peace and security and the connection to the world economy via Calcutta, is the key factor for the economic history of the region. The chapter also reviews the changes in north Indian agriculture in the nineteenth century.