World-System (1300-1450): The German Economy

 

One of the most important points to understand about Germany is that until 1871 Unification, Germany was a collection states and part of the Holy Roman Empire. Cities were connected by crude trading routes and the size of the cities was limited by the difficulties of long term trade. Urbanization (DE3=(U-N) above) was a strong limiting factor in economic development for the period prior to 1450 (see the graphic above). Growth did not begin accelerating until 1409. And the period prior to 1409 was a long-developing Malthusian Crisis (U-N) that limited expansion.

The period from 1300-1400 is sometimes called the Crisis of the Middle Ages: demographic collapse, political instability and religious upheaval. The Great Famine of 1315–1317 and the Black Death of 1347–1351 potentially reduced the European population by half or more as the Medieval Warm Period came to a close and the first century of the Little Ice Age began and unity of the Catholic Church was threatened by the Western Schism. In Germany between 1336 and 1525 there was widespread and militant peasant unrest.   Both the Urbanization ECC and the Malthusian ECC worked together to limit growth up to 1409. 

Economically, the period after 1300 in the graphic above was dominated by the  Hanseatic League which declined after 1450. Hanseatic trade involved both maritime, in-land waterway and overland trade.

State Space Models for the period (1300-1450) can be found here.  A discussion of the period after 1450 can be found here.

Notes

The measurement matrix for the state space model is presented above. DE1=(Growth), DE2=(Q-N-U) and DE3=(U-N), that is Growth, the Urban-Malthusian Controller and the Urbanization Controller (A discussion of Error Correcting Controllers, ECCs, can be found here).