Ars Vendendi: Rhetorik und Praktiken von Verkauf und Werbung im Mittelalter

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Thomas Ertl
• Subject Area: Medieval History
• Term: since 2024
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 542316486

Trade in goods and services forms a central theme in the economic and social history of the Middle Ages. Due to the availability of sources, research has often focused on the legal, socio economic and financial aspects of transactions, on traders, trade routes and trade goods, with a clear concentration on wholesale and long-distance trade. In contrast, the concrete conduct of buying and selling, the commercial infrastructure and all forms of sales-promoting practices have been little studied for the Middle Ages. However, the "art of selling" was already important in medieval markets, as goods and services were not only produced or provided in a demand-driven manner, but providers and sellers of goods and services were already competing with each other in the Middle Ages. Therefore, archaeological, written and pictorial sources contain numerous references to the rhetoric and practices of selling even before 1500: goods displayed on market tables, craft and inn signs, market criers and wine callers as well as brand names, samples of goods, book catalogues and much more served both to inform consumers and to increase sales. As early as the Middle Ages, tracts and sermons reflected on these techniques theoretically, critically or satirically. The authors of the collection "Ars Vendendi" discuss the rhetoric and practices of selling in the Middle Ages, focusing specifically on all forms of advertising (in the broadest sense). The topics covered range from rhetoric to the infrastructure of selling and from ecclesiastical advertising strategies to the promotion of selected goods and services. The result is twelve excellent contributions on different facets of the topic, which are placed in a broad and systematic context by an introduction and a summary. Together, however, the contributions add up to more than the sum of their parts, for the collection offers for the first time a multifaceted panorama of medieval sales strategies. This diversity of commercial strategies is an instructive topic per se. Beyond that, however, the contributions form an innovative interpretation of pre-modern economic history from a cultural-historical perspective. Hopefully, this will stimulate further studies on the beginnings 3 of commodity advertising, but also studies on the functioning of "markets", consumption and related topics.

• DFG Programme: Publication Grants