Instructor: Jan Deleater

Considers major financial operations, transactions and flows of money in the history of the Low Countries, such as the funding of warfare, commercial ventures and (marriage) alliances by top elites such as governments, (high) nobility, great merchants and firms. We will consider the political economy of (high) finance, such as the role and effects of in- and outflows of moneys, luxury consumption, urbanization, conjuncture and crisis. Specific attention will be paid to questions of power, coercion and consent in the participation of elites and non-elites in taxation, public debt, and in the financial regulations and monetary policies which seek to alter or redistribute monetary flows.