Nowa synteza historii gospodarczej średniowiecza (Thomas Ertl, Bauer und Banker. Wirtschaft im Mittelalter, wbg Theiss, Darmstadt 2021, ss. 288)

The article is an analysis of a book by the Austrian historian Thomas Ertl. It is a new and original history of the economic life in the Middle Ages. The author not only discusses the main economic phenomena, but also devotes much space to the social and cultural dimension of the history of the medieval economy. The book abounds in a variety of details including those concerning demography or the semiotics of manufacturing and commercial activities. The author skilfully presents the realities of the medieval economy by comparing them with analogous phenomena and figures from the twentieth century. An important part of this comprehensive book is made up of information on economic historiography and its most outstanding representatives in the twentieth century. In this the author demonstrates the differences in the views of scholars from different generations. The geographical scope of the book encompasses mainly the most developed countries of Latin Europe, and, comparatively and complementarily, Byzantium, the Arab world and Rus’. The main shortcoming of this original and valuable work is the almost complete omission of the countries of Central Europe.