To some, no penance would be sufficient for the sin of attempting to write an economic history of the entirety of Europe, even for a somewhat circumscribed period. To others, however—those perhaps who have felt the need for a synoptic economic history of the era of the Renaissance—it may not seem unreasonable to call upon their charity; first, since the act of compression in itself produces some distortion, not of fact, but of tone; second, since it is inevitable that the selection and exclusion of material and the placing of emphasis are personal decisions and as such bound to diverge from the reader's own special preference. A third demand upon the reader's generosity arises from the obvious and unavoidable dependence upon the work of others which such a project entails. I have included a very limited group of Suggestions for Further Reading at the end of this volume, but a complete bibliography is impractical, since it would outweigh the book itself. On the other hand, the bibliographies contained in the books cited should serve to guide the reader to the wider literature of the field.

Finally, I must offer my gratitude to Robert S. Lopez for his care in reading the manuscript with the continuing honesty of a great teacher and the kindness of a friend, and to Alice S. Miskimin for her wifely patience, her wisdom, and her generosity in offering a multitude of suggestions, both stylistic and substantive. The errors are, of course, mine, but they are fewer because of the assistance of these two scholars.