For centuries European artisans had operated in small, autonomous handcraft businesses, but by the sixteenth century an evolving economic system—moving toward modern capitalism, with its free-market pricing, new organization of production, investments, and so on—had started to erode their stable and relatively prosperous position. What forces contributed to the decline of the artisan?

In a few industries there appeared technological innovations that cost more to install and operate than artisans—even associations of artisans—could afford. For example, in iron production, such specialized equipment as blast furnaces, tilt hammers, wire-drawing machines, and stamping, rolling, and slitting mills became more familiar components of the industry. Thus the need for fixed capital (equipment and buildings used in production) soared. Besides these items, expensive in their own right, facilities for water, storage, and deliveries were needed. In addition, pig (raw) iron turned out by blast furnaces could not be forged until refined further in a new intermediate stage. In late sixteenth-century Antwerp, where a skilled worker earned 125 to 250 guilders a year, a large blast furnace alone cost 3,000 guilders, and other industrial equipment was equally or more expensive.

Raw materials, not equipment, constituted artisans’ major expense in most traders, however. Whereas in 1583 an Antwerp silk weaver paid 12 guilders for a loom (and made small payments over many years to pay off the debt for purchasing the loom), every six weeks he or she had to lay out 24 guilders for the 2 pounds of raw silk required to make a piece of cloth. Thus access to cheap and plentiful primary materials was a constant preoccupation for independent producers. Using local materials might allow even the poorest among them to avoid reliance on merchant suppliers. The loss of nearby sources could therefore be devastating. As silk cultivation waned around the Spanish cities of Cordoba and Toledo, weavers in these cities were forced to become employees of merchants who put out raw silk from Valencia and Murcia provinces. In the Dutch Republic, merchants who imported unprocessed salt from France, Portugal, and Spain gained control of the salt-refining industry once exploitation of local salt marshes was halted for fear that dikes (which held back the sea from the low-lying Dutch land) would be undermined.

Credit was necessary for production but created additional vulnerabilities for artisans. Prices for industrial products lagged behind those of raw materials and foodstuffs, and this, coupled with rising taxes, made it difficult for many producers to repay their creditors. Periodic downturns, when food prices shot up and demand for manufactures fell off, drove them further into debt or even into bankruptcy, from which they might emerge only by agreeing to sell their products exclusively to merchants or fellow artisans who extended them loans. Frequent enough during periods of growth, such credit crises became deeper and lasted longer after about 1570, as did war-related disruptions of raw-material supplies and markets.

Artisans’ autonomy was imperiled, too, by restrictions on their access to markets. During the sixteenth century, a situation like this often resulted from the concentration of export trade in a few great storage and distribution centers. The disappearance of regional markets where weavers in Flanders (what is now northern Belgium) had previously bought flax and sold linen left them at the mercy of big-city middlemen, who quickly turned them into domestic workers. In a similar fashion, formerly independent producers in southern Wiltshire in England, who had bought yarn from spinners or local brokers and sold their cloth to merchants in nearby Salisbury, became subject to London merchants who monopolized both wool supplies and woolens exports.

With good reason, finally, urban artisans feared the growth of industries in the countryside. For one thing, they worried that the spread of village crafts would reduce their supply of raw materials, driving up prices. City producers also knew that rural locations enjoyed lower living costs, wages, and taxes, and often employed fewer or simplified processes. These advantages became a major preoccupation as competition intensified in the 1570s and 1580s

几个世纪以来，欧洲的工匠都经营着小型的自主手工业，但到了十六世纪，一个不断发展的经济体系向现代资本主义迈进，它包括自由市场定价，新的生产组织和投资等。这一经济体系已经开始侵蚀他们稳定和相对繁荣的地位。什么力量促成了工匠的衰落？ 少数几个行业中出现了技术创新，其安装和运行成本要高于工匠，甚至工匠协会都负担得起。例如，在炼铁生产中，高炉，倾斜锤，拉丝机，冲压，轧制和分切机等专业设备成为业内较为熟悉的工具。因此，固定资本（生产中使用的设备和建筑物）的需求迅速上升。除了这些物品外，还需要昂贵运输设施、储存设施和传送设备来运水。此外，高炉生产的生铁（生铁）直到在新的中间阶段进一步精炼后才能被锻造。在十六世纪后期，熟练操作的工人安特卫普每年能赚125到250荷兰盾，一个大型高炉单独需要3000荷兰盾，而其他工业设备价格不便宜。 然而，设备不是大多数贸易商中工匠的主要开支，而是原材料。而在1583年，安特卫普丝织工为织布机支付了12把荷兰盾（并且多年来为购买织机的债务而支付小额款项），但每六周他/她都必须为制作衣服的2磅生丝支付24荷兰盾。因此，获得廉价而丰富的原材料是独立生产者一直关注的问题。使用当地材料可以让甚至是最贫穷的人去避免依赖供应商。因此，附近资源可能会有毁灭性的损失。随着西班牙城市科尔多瓦和托莱多的丝绸种植减少，这些城市的织布工被迫成为从瓦伦西亚和穆尔西亚省出口生丝的商人们的雇员。在荷兰共和国，因为担心堤防（其阻碍了荷兰低洼地的海洋）会被破坏，当地的盐沼开采停止了，从法国，葡萄牙和西班牙进口未经加工的盐的商人立刻就控制了盐炼制业。 生产中信贷是必要的组成部分，但为工匠创造了额外的缺陷。工业产品价格远不及原材料和食品价格，加上税收上涨，许多生产商难以偿还债权人。当食品价格暴涨和对制成品的需求下降时，经济开始周期性下滑，便将其进一步推入债务甚至破产，只有同意将商品销售给商人或向其提供贷款的工匠，才可能延期还款。在经济增长时期，这一现象频繁出现，这种信贷危机，在1570年后变得更加严重，持续时间更加漫长，原材料供应和市场也因战争而中断。 工匠的自主权也因他们被限制进入市场二受到限制。十六世纪期间，这种情况往往是由于出口贸易集中由少数大型仓储和配送中心所致。法兰德斯（现在是比利时北部地区）的织布商以前曾购买过亚麻和亚麻布的区域市场消失了，这使得他们受到大城市中间商的支配，后者很快将他们变成了家庭工人。以类似的方式，曾经英格兰南部威尔特郡的独立生产商从纺纱厂或当地经纪商那里购买纱线，并将其布料卖给附近的索尔兹伯里的商人，后来垄断了伦敦的商业，包括羊毛供应和羊毛出口。 最后，城市工匠们有理由担心乡村工业的发展。一方面，他们担心乡村工艺的普及会减少原材料的供应，抬高价格。城市生产者也知道农村地区的生活成本，工资和税收较低，而且通常采用的工艺较少或简化。随着竞争在十七世纪七十年代和十五世纪八十年代愈演愈烈，这些优势成为了一个主要的关注点