Retail, monopoly, and privilege: The dissolution of the Fishmongers' Guild of Venice, 1599

Journal of Early Modern History

Volumn 6, Issue 4, 2002, Pages 396-427

  Shaw, James E ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD   (United Kingdom)

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EID: 65849272315     PISSN: 13853783     EISSN: 15700658     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1163/157006502X00202     Document Type: Review

References (44)

1. The only other important works are A. Parenzo, "Un'inchiesta sulla pesca in Istria e Dalmazia," Nuovo Archivio Veneto 8 (1894),
2. Cecchetti, "Il vitto dei Veneziani nel sec. XIV," Archivio Veneto 29-30 (1885): 40, refers to price controls from 1173.
3. For details of the eighteenth-century trade in fish from Istria, see A. Parenzo, "Un'inchiesta sulla pesca."
4. Cecchetti, "Il vitto dei Veneziani nel sec. XIV," 51;
5. Zago, Nicolotti, 144.
6. The best general study of Venetian guilds is R. Mackenney, Tradesmen and Traders: The World of the Guilds in Venice and Europe, c. 1250-c. 1650 (New York, 1987).
7. For an excellent survey of the Venetian economy in this period, see D. Sella, "L'economia," in Storia di Venezia, vol. VI, Dal Rinascimento al Barocco, ed. G. Cozzi and P. Prodi (Rome, 1994).
8. Valli, see La Pesca nella laguna di Venezia, 167.
9. For an environmental analysis, see S. Perini, "La laguna come risorsa economica: dalle saline all'itticoltura," Studi Veneziani n.s. 39 (2000): 15-46.
10. BNM, Capitolari, "Pesce," 18 Aug 1579, lists exile and galley service among the penalties for the illegal retail of fish.
11. Interestingly, La Pesca nella Laguna di Venezia (15 Dec 1595), 22-25, notes that some people bought up fish in order to hold lotteries where the fish was presumably the prize. This was also illegal.
12. The Giustizia Vecchia was one of the oldest magistracies in the city, founded in 1173 with competence over the whole foodstuffs sector. But the importance of the food market and the expanding volume of business meant that over the years responsibility for various individual food sectors was handed over to specialist magistracies for bread, meat, wine, etc. The Giustizia Vecchia retained competence over the guilds in general and also over some food sectors, most importantly fish (despite the rival claims of other bodies, as will be seen below). For the early history of the court see G. Monticolo, L'ufficio della Giustizia Vecchia a Venezia dalle origini sino al 1330. Monumenti della Deputazione Veneta di Storia Patria, Miscellanea, vol. 12 (Venice, 1892).
13. Local fishermen and licensed traders probably gathered at these locations. At times, official fishmongers might also be present- GV, b.5, r.12, fol.91r, 20 Feb 1577 (m.v.), conceded them temporary licence to sell "sul Campo de S Pantalon, al ponte de Canaregio et sopra la fondamenta de Castello, dal Sepulero fino a S Domenego, et alle Zatere" during Lent, so that people would not be forced to trek to the central markets. Illegal fish traders were often arrested at these locations - GV, b.76, 21 May 1607, 20 May 1607, for the Cannaregio bridge, and GV, b.31, 9 Jan 1600 (m.v.), for San Pantalon. GV, b.2, r.5, fol.91r, 15 Feb 1601 (m.v.), complains about the activities of fish hucksters at "S Pantalon, Canaregio et Castelo." By the late seventeenth century, these markets appear to have received official recognition: Senato, Terra, f. 1256, 27 Aug 1699, a report of 20 Aug 1699 refers to the "pescarie di S. Marco, Rialto, Castello, Canareggio, SS.ti Apostoli, et S. Pantalon." GV, b.23, 10 Mar 1706, fixed prices for the "six fish markets" of the city, while GV, b.25, 10 Mar 1706, lists these as the two central markets plus "le Pescarie di Castello, Santi Appostoli, S Pantalon, et Canareggio."
14. BNM, Capitolari, "Compravendi," 13 Jul 1577 and GV, b.5, r.12, 13 Jul 1577.
15. On fish marketing in England, see W. M. Stern, "Fish marketing in London in the first half of the eighteenth century," in Trade, Government, and Economy in Pre-Industrial England: Essays presented to F. J. Fisher, ed. D. C. Coleman and A. H. John (London, 1976),
16. which shows interesting parallels to the Venetian situation, and Geoffrey R. Elton, "Piscatorial politics in the early Parliaments of Elizabeth I," in Business Life and Public Policy: Essays in Honour of D. C. Coleman, ed. N. McKendrick and R. B. Outhwaite (Cambridge, 1986), which shows how the regulation of the food trades reflected complex configurations of private interest groups.
17. S. L. Kaplan, Provisioning Paris: Merchants and Millers in the Grain and Flour Trade during the Eighteenth Century (Ithaca & London, 1984), 26-27, argues that a perpetual tension existed between the "market principle" of unregulated negotiation, and the "market-place," in which trade was forced to pass through publicly-regulated channels. Free market tendencies were therefore similarly mistrusted by the French authorities as leading to monopoly, or, as Kaplan puts it, "Monopoly . was not at bottom a distortion of the market principle but its most complete expression."
18. Foreign visitor Sir Dudley Carleton offered a further explanation for such measures in 1612 quoted in David Chambers and Brian Pullan, Venice: A Documentary History, 1450-1630 (Oxford, 1992), 30 - "There is a law that all fruterers and herb-men (for woemen sell nothing abroad) must have no covert in theyr shops because the Sun must not be kept from them. The like for such as sell fish; the reason is because such as sell these commodities must be forced to come the sooner in the morning to avoyde the heat, and so sell the cheaper, because if they doe not make quick marketts theyr ware will be mared."
19. There is a mass of legislation on these themes. See Monticolo, L'ufficio della Giustizia Vecchia, 161, law of 11 Aug 1321;
20. Bids at the palo were not written (as was standard practice in most government auctions) but appear to have been communicated orally - "all'orecchio" to the public official presiding over the auction. B. Cecchetti, Il mercato delle erbe e del pesce in Venezia (Venice, 1889), 16, notes that these bids were made in secret, but since there is clear evidence that public officials set retail price limits on the basis of the wholesale price, his statement must refer to confidentiality between buyers during the auction, rather than prices being kept secret from the authorities.
21. Similarly, in contemporary London, the city authorities were suspicious of urban traders who established supply contracts with rural producers, extending the tentacles of capitalist control deep into the provinces. See F. J. Fisher, "The Development of the London Food Market, 1540-1640" Economic History Review 5 (1935): esp. 61-64. However, in England, attempts to regulate such relations were increasingly abandoned in the seventeenth century.
22. and BNM, Capitolari, "Pesce," 12 Mar 1569.
23. La Pesca nella Laguna di Venezia, 22-25.
24. In setting price controls, the government made some allowance for shifts in consumer demand. For example, higher limits were set at times of peak demand, such as Lent and Christmas. BNM, Capitolari, "Pesce," 10 Jun 1586, for prices during Lent; GV, b.5, r.13, 11 Dec 1578, for eel prices at Christmas; GV, b.23, 26 Jul 1618, for complaints that fish farmers hoarded seafood to sell at these times of peak demand. Senato, Terra, r.79, fol.143r, 14 Jan 1609 (m.v.), shows that in 1610 there was an attempt to shift to a price limit that was set on a weekly basis, since the major difficulty with regulating fish prices was their high variability. GV, b.91, 15 Feb 1580 (m.v.), also notes this problem, describing how fishmongers were often unwilling to buy because price controls prevented them from making a profit. On this theme see also, GV, b.91, 28 Jan 1580 (m.v.).
25. La Pesca nella Laguna di Venezia, 10, quotes a law of 1618.
26. BNM, Capitolari, "Pesce," 7 Jun 1503, 17 Dec 1578.
27. For similar functions exercised by guilds in London, see Ian Archer, Social Relations in Elizabethan London (Cambridge, 1991), 125-26.
28. BNM, Capitolari, "Pesce," 1 Feb 1433 (m.v.).
29. For London, see Hugh Alley's "Caveat": the London Markets in 1598, ed. I. Archer, C. Barron and V. Harding (London Topographical Society, 1988).
30. Zago, Nicolotti, 135, describes a 1583 petition of the Nicolotti to abolish the law that excluded fishmongers from being involved in fishing. In response, the Nicolotti were exempted from this law.
31. CL, ser.2, b.24, cod.250, 24 Sep 1612, it was decided that fishmongers must wear a circular badge "with black letters reading Fishmonger." BNM, Capitolari, "Pesce," 17 Mar 1614 - this legislation was approved by the Collegio delle Arti. GV, b.25, 17 Mar 1707, the form of the badge was later described as "a St. Mark in copper attached to the chest." Similarly, GV, b.3, r.8, fol.4v, 11 Jul 1629, the poulterers had to wear a special badge of red cloth in the form of a moon.
32. Zago, Nicolotti, 173, n. 52, quotes Goldoni, Baruffe chiozzotte, who contrasts the plight of the fisherman with that of the huckster or bazariotto. As Toni says "Magari lo podessimo vende tutto a bordo el pesse, che lo vendaria volentiera. Se andemo in man de sti bazariotti, no i vuol dar gnente; i vuol tutto per lori. Nualtri poverazzi, andemo a rischiare la vita in mare, e sti marcanti col baretton de veludo i se fa ricchi co le nostre fadighe."
33. For example, compare BNM, Capitolari, "Compravendi," 7 Jul 1638,
34. to the fourteenth- and fifteenth-century legislation listed in BNM, Capitolari, "Pesce."
35. Ugo Tucci, "L'Ungheria e gli approvvigionamenti veneziani di bovini nel cinquecento," in Rapporti veneto-ungheresi all'epoca del rinascimento, ed. T. Klaniczay (Budapest, 1975), 170.
36. BNM, Capitolari, "Pesce," 6 Jul 1602.
37. BNM, Capitolari, "Pesce," 27 Mar 1605, it was forbidden for fishmongers or their relatives to become policemen at the Giustizia Vecchia, either as the owners of the office or as the substitutes who actually served. GV, b.76, 16 Feb 1621 (m.v.), for Barbazza's ownership of a police office, when he was accused of renting it out for an excessive sum. GV, b.3, r.7, fol.115r, 1 Mar 1622, for the subsequent removal of this office by the Giustizia Vecchia. GV, b.76, 22 Dec 1620, for his involvement in fish retail, when he was accused of giving false measure. An undated loose document in GV, b.21, also describes him as a retailer of freshwater fish. GV, b.48, 26 Apr 1616, for his involvement in fish production, where he is described as renting a valle from the community of Cavarzere. GV, b.87, r.105, 9 Jan 1615, for confiscation of one of his fishing boats by the Giustizia Vecchia.
38. BNM, Capitolari, "Pesce," 27 Feb 1566 (m.v.), describes how whenever sturgeon were sold at the palo, the government clerk had the responsibility of recording the quantity and weight of fish and the name of the buyer, and reporting this information to the Giustizia Vecchia. Sturgeon were highly prized and hence subject to tight controls.
39. Similar remarks can be found in Antonio Barbaro, Pratica Criminale (Venice, 1739), 200, which blames hucksters for provoking food shortages, often with the connivance of the police.
40. Comments from London in 1598 also blamed high prices and scarcity of foodstuffs on the operations of hucksters, "a sorte, of like greedie people, inhabitinge in and about the citty, & suburbs of the same, called Haglers, Hawkers, Huxters, and wanderers, uppe and downe the streetes, in buyenge into their owne handes, to rayse the prices, for their owne luker, and pryvate gayne, all kinde of provisions, and victualls, used and exercised, in the same Cittie, to be bought, or solde, and presently sellinge the same agayne to others in the same marketts, the inconvenyenc[e] whereof, in these fewe late yeares, hath bred this greate dearth and scarcety .," quoted in Hugh Alley's "Caveat", ed. Archer, Barron and Harding, 35.
41. Luigi Dal Pane, Il tramonto delle corporazioni in Italia, (secoli XVIII e XIX), Documenti di storia e di pensiero politico (Milan, 1940), 47, quotes a document of 1752 (that expresses similar patrician frustration at the sharp practices of middlemen in the eighteenth century) on the dissolution of the guild of poulterers, who in this case were mak-ing a huge mark-up on the price of butter.
42. Dal Pane, Il tramonto delle corporazioni in Italia, 98, quotes a document of 1772 that describes the abandonment of the experiment, "fu d'uopo allo stesso Ecc[ellentissi]mo Inquisitor Dolfin portarsi di nuovo all'Ecc[ellentissi]mo Senato, confessando nobilmente ed ingenuamente l'error delle propria inesperienza in proposito di viveri, e la necessità di rimetter l'arte assoggettando come prima la vittuaria medesima ai soliti comparti. ."
43. Eighteenth-century analysts of the Venetian guild system commonly divided the trades up into three groups: commerce, manufactures, and foodstuffs, for example, see Marco Ferro, Dizionario del diritto comune e veneto (first published 1778-1781; all references to the facsimile copy of the 1845 edition in the Venetian State Archive), vol.2i, 41-44.
44. Brian Pullan, "The Roles of the State and the Town in the General Crisis of the 1590s," in Poverty and Charity: Europe, Italy, Venice, 1400-1700, ed. Brian Pullan (Aldershot, 1994), 288.