Bases of Trade

GEOGRAPHIC BASES of trade are places established for the trade or exchange of commodities and/or the transshipment or warehousing of goods. While a base of trade may develop into a multifunctional administrative and/or ceremonial center, its original function as a nodal point at the intersection of at least two discreet networks remains the center’s primary reason for existence, until that intersection ceases to be of importance for the trading partners.

Scholars of premodern trade (to the early 1800s in industrialized countries) have identified several categories of trading bases, most prominently ENTREPOTS or emporia, fairs, solar central places, ports of trade, and gateway communities. While these categories often denote similar sites, they were created by different disciplines to describe the role of the trading base in different disciplinary contexts.

Entrepots/emporia and fairs are terms used in historical sources and, therefore, by historians. Entrepots/emporia were permanent trading bases, located either in a town’s harbor, but physically separated from the town, or as a free-standing colonial trading settlement situated at the border between two distinct ethnocultural zones. Both types were permanent bases administered by port officials to collect tariffs and maintain a peaceful and fair trading zone through special laws for foreign merchants. Although entrepots could operate on a seasonal basis, their primary purpose was trade.

Fairs, in contrast, were generally of short duration, were held at multifunctional centers, and could move cyclically among several such centers over the course of a year. There were three types of fairs, serving local, regional, and interregional trade. Local fairs lasted one to two days, had a small catchment area (30-mi or 48-km radius), transacted a low volume of goods (cattle and salt), and saw small-scale traders selling directly to the locals. Regional fairs could last up to two weeks, had a larger catchment area (up to a 200-mi or 321-km radius), had a higher turnover of goods, and saw merchants buying or selling to specialized producers. Interregional fairs had durations of three to eight weeks, a large catchment area (up to a 600-mi or 965-km radius), and specialized in the sale of luxury items that were carried directly to the fair over long distances.

The Champagne fairs of FRANCE are the best-known example of a circulating fair, which began as local fairs, grew into regional fairs for Flemish cloth agents, and eventually became Europe’s largest fair circuit for the exchange of cloth and other goods for spices and luxuries brought by Italian merchants from the East. Economic geographers and anthropologists use other categories to explain premodern exchange systems.

The solar central place is used by geographers to describe a site that serves as the center of an interlocking system of lower hierarchical centers. Administered by elites, the central place maximized the exchange of goods by shortening the distance between more distantly dispersed centers in the region. While central place theory stresses spatial relationships, the anthropological model of the port of trade, developed by Karl Polanyi, places focus on institutional factors. Ports of trade bordered two distinct economic, environmental or ethnocultural zones and operated as “neutrality devices” to facilitate trade between foreign merchants and the host population. Like the entrepot/emporium, a port of trade was founded by a tacit or explicit agreement between foreign traders and the local elites. In order to sustain peaceful trade, however, the long-distance trade occurring at the segregated port of trade could not interfere with the local trade of the hinterland, a criterion that is often impossible to demonstrate with archaeological evidence.