At the centre of the debate on pre-industrial economic growth is the study of market integration, a topic that has increasingly been the focus of intense scientific interest in recent decades. However, this has remained limited to the early modern and modern periods, mainly due to the availability of relevant data. New grain price series have been constructed for several Flemish cities dating back to the early fourteenth century. As one of the most populated regions in the late Middle Ages, the case of Flanders shows that the extraordinary sequence of price shocks in the mid-fourteenth century had a positive impact on the degree of price integration in the grain market. The Flemish grain market functioned better in times of crisis, but caused prices to rise steadily across the entire integrated system during the prolonged crisis period. Whereas many studies have labelled the late Middle Ages – particularly the fifteenth century – as an age of economic contraction with more isolated trade networks, this study shows that Flanders remained a highly economically integrated region.

中文翻译：

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危机驱动：中世纪晚期佛兰德斯粮食市场的价格一体化

关于前工业化经济增长的争论的中心是对市场一体化的研究，这个话题在近几十年来日益成为科学界广泛关注的焦点。然而，这仍然仅限于近代早期和现代时期，主要是由于相关数据的可用性。佛兰德斯的几个城市已经为十四世纪初建立了新的粮食价格系列。作为中世纪晚期人口最多的地区之一，佛兰德斯的案例表明，14世纪中叶一系列非同寻常的价格冲击对粮食市场的价格一体化程度产生了积极的影响。佛兰德斯粮食市场在危机时期表现较好，但在长期危机期间导致整个综合系统的价格稳步上涨。尽管许多研究将中世纪晚期（尤其是十五世纪）标记为经济萎缩、贸易网络更加孤立的时代，但这项研究表明，法兰德斯仍然是一个经济高度一体化的地区。