Village shops and Global Goods in Germany and England, c.1650-1810

Changes in retailing have been accepted as a key component of the emergence of modern consumer societies. Yet, the history of the transformation of retailing between 1600 and 1850 has been predominantly written as one of either urban shops or peddlers, mostly neglecting the existence and development, regional dispersion, stock, sales techniques, customers and supply networks, and gender of village shopkeepers. Such research as exists on early modern retailing has also been most extensive with respect to Britain and the Netherlands, with the number of studies on other European regions, especially Germany, being very limited, whilst robust international comparisons are practically non-existent. In addition, for European colonial powers, the integration of new global goods into everyday life has been connected tightly with the contemporaries’ interpretations of their Empires. These ideas require critical appraisal and leave unanswered how such goods were interpreted by people in countries without colonies.

This project seeks to address these issues by focusing on village shops, comparing their number and development in the English East Midlands and the German territories of Württemberg and Schleswig-Holstein. Focusing on the period 1650-1810, the effects of large scale transformations like colonialism and industrialization can be tested. The project will identify factors in the regional development of village shopkeepers and the role of gender and secondary-occupations. It will study the stock these businesses offered, especially in terms of potential specialization and of global/colonial goods. It will thus be able to critically assess the importance of empire for the availability and interpretation of global products by consumers in both regions. Finally, it will analyse changing sales techniques as well as supply and customer networks of village shops.

Studying village stores in an internationally comparative perspective will not only put a neglected player on the field, but it will enhance our understanding of the range and speed of the transformation of shopkeeping in the early modern period more generally and it will shed light on the sources of supplies of rural dwellers, who after all constituted a large proportion/the majority of the population in both regions. It will thus contribute significantly to our understanding of local and regional economies, the relationship between protoindustrialization and the marketisation of the household, and the impact of pan-European/global transformations on village communities and consumer cultures in the early modern period. It will also allow us to test the extent to which small/rural businesses were active agents in economic and social change.