Commercial Revolution - Factors of Commercial Revolution

Factors of Commercial Revolution

For more details on this topic, see Age of Discovery.

A combination of factors drove the Age of Discovery. Among these were geopolitical, monetary, and technological factors. The Europeans involved in the Age of Discovery were mainly from Britain, France, the Netherlands, Spain, and Portugal. During this period (1450-17th century), the European economic center shifted from the Islamic Mediterranean to Western Europe (Portugal, Spain, France, the Netherlands, and to some extent England). This shift was caused by the successful circumnavigation of Africa opening up sea-trade with the east: after Portugal's Vasco da Gama rounded the Cape of Good Hope and landed in Calicut, India in May 1498, a new path of eastern trade was possible ending the monopoly of the Ottoman Turks and their European allies, the Italian city-states. The wealth of the Indies was now open for the Europeans to explore; the Portuguese Empire was one of the early European empires to grow from spice trade. Following this, Portugal became the controlling state for trade between east and west, followed later by the Dutch city of Antwerp. Direct maritime trade between Europe and China started in the 16th century, after the Portuguese established the settlement of Goa, India in December 1510, and thereafter that of Macau in southern China in 1557. Since the English came late to the transatlantic trade, their commercial revolution was later as well.