Virtus, Merkur und Moneten

The nobility of the pre-modern era did not seem to be familiar with the logic and rationalities of economic life. Noble families’ lives were assumed to revolve around luxury, tend towards excessive expenditure and be permanently threatened with ruin. Nevertheless, that is only one side of the complex spectrum of economic activities in which nobles all over Europe were engaged. Their entrepreneurship adapted to economic developments and thus massively influenced economic structures over the centuries. In competition and, of course, in coalition with non-noble participants in diverse markets, European nobles transformed the former feudal society, which led to the emergence of capitalism. This study not only shows the different fields nobles all over Europe were engaged in, but also explains the connection between noble self-fashioning and self-reliance on the one hand, and the ideas and understanding of the social environment and of the position of the individual within it from the 13th to the 19th century on the other. Hence, it also considers why and how the negative perception and evaluation of nobles’ economic activities in parts of Europe developed and what influenced these negative opinions.