Crafts and trade in Krasnystaw. Between prosperity and crisis, mid-sixteenth century – seventeenth century

Abstract

The condition of Krasnystaw’s crafts and trade from the mid-sixteenth until the seventeenth century depended on local, regional, and national factors. Royal privileges, beneficial location on trade routes, and good state of the economy all determined the role of Krasnystaw as an artisan-commercial centre in the sixteenth century, although first harbingers of future crisis could already be noticed in the last decades of the century. In the seventeenth century, Krasnystaw’s status was undermined by an accumulation of natural disasters and wars, growth of jurydykas, competition from newly chartered towns, most importantly Zamość, and structural changes in the Commonwealth’s economy. The crisis saw its peak in the 1670s and the 1680s and went hand in hand with the depopulation of the centre. As a result, Krasnystaw was demoted to an agricultural settlement and its trade and crafts became largely marginalised. This negative trend changed towards the end of the Commonwealth’s “Silver Age.”