PODATKI O CENAH V PRVI POLOVICI 16. STOLETJA: ISTRA – KRANJSKA – EVROPA
DATA ON PRICES IN THE FIRST HALF OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY: ISTRIA – CARNIOLA – EUROPE

Summary/Abstract: Prices are one of the most illustrative indicators of economic developments and trends in the immediate and wider environment. Before the nineteenth century, different environments used different monetary and measurement units, which were not constant, but rather changed with time. The value – and hence the price – of merchandise was subject to fluctuations as well. Concrete data on prices are primarily presented in written historical sources. The contribution at hand brings forth a few examples of written sources that are relevant for conducting research on the history of prices in Istrian and central Slovenian areas as well as in Europe, within a short time span from the middle of the second decade to the middle of the sixteenth century. The aim of the presentation is to assess the explanatory utility or applicability of the said data for documenting prices of various kinds of merchandise. Concrete data on prices are summarised in tabular form. The selected sources from which the data on prices have been taken include: an inventory of possessions belonging to two orphans from an unpublished vicedominus’ manuscript codex from the northern Istrian littoral (Piran), a published notary book from central Istria (Labin), two published fascicles of merchant account books from the centre of the continental Slovenian territory (Ljubljana), and an accounting manual for merchants printed in Vienna. Records contained in vicedominus’, notary and merchant books are essential to conducting research on prices; however, they mainly offer locally and temporally limited sets of data. With regard to sources used, special mention ought to be made of accounting manuals for merchants, which have been unjustly neglected in research on the history of prices as much in Slovenia as elsewhere in Europe.

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