The Danish trading companies of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries

Abstract

The great trading companies form one of the characteristic features of the economic history of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. This is true of Europe generally, and of Denmark in particular. The charter for the first Danish trading company, the East India Company, was issued by king Christian IV on 17 March 1616. And on 21 March 1792, king Christian VII appended his signature to the last company charter, that for the Asiatic Company. The seventeenth and eighteenth centuries thus form a well-defined period with regard to the trading companies as far as Denmark is concerned. There were simply no companies prior to 1600. And when the Asiatic Company was wound up in 1843 after a death struggle which had lasted for more than a generation, the last of the companies vanished. But within this 200-year period there had existed at least twenty Danish trading companies - depending on how trading companies are defined and how their founding and reconstruction are interpreted. At all events the number of them is large by European standards. In fact the concentration of companies in Denmark is even more pronounced, for of the twenty companies, eighteen were founded within a period of only 125 years, between 1656 and 1782. A comparison with the concentration of companies in other European countries during this period is not easy. The literature is diffuse, and the problems of classifying the individual companies as solely or predominantly trading companies are great. But there is scarcely any doubt that Denmark would occupy a high position on any comparative list during this 125-year period — and it is not unlikely that this marginal region of the European economy might come highest on the list.

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Ole FeldbæK

Ole Feldbæk, born 1936, professor at the Institute of Economic History, University of Copenhagen. Professor Feldbæk has just published an edition of the charters and by-laws of the Danish trading companies: Danske handelskompagnier 1616–1843. Oktrojer og interne ledelsesregler. 1986.