Introduction

The region under discussion stretches from the Oder and the Bohemian Forest eastwards as far as the Caspian Sea; it is bordered on the north by the Baltic and on the south it extends beyond the Carpathian mountains and Transylvania down to the Black Sea. In the late Middle Ages the various regions making up this territory were not all at the same stage of economic development and there are thus important differences in the timing and pace of the changes which occurred. In common with the rest of Europe at that time the larger economic units had still to make their appearance. Thus, when we wish to find out about the trade of the area, we have to consider disparate regions whose economic contacts were haphazard, for no state in eastern Europe had as yet created a uniform economic organisation even though some such tendencies could already be observed in, e.g. Bohemia and Poland.

The territory can usefully be divided into two main regions – the western, including Bohemia, Poland and the Slovak provinces of Hungary, and the eastern, comprising present-day Russia. The western region had by the thirteenth century already experienced a period of rapid development. In Bohemia this had probably come to an end by the latter part of the fourteenth century, whereas elsewhere it lasted, with some important exceptions, into the following century. On the other hand the Mongol invasion had caused a serious economic setback in a large part of the eastern region during the first half of the thirteenth century.