When did Antwerp replace Bruges as the commercial and financial centre of north‐western Europe? The evidence of the Borromei ledger for 14381

The rise of Antwerp and the decline of Bruges are often seen in terms of a timetable of significant events: the establishment of the English cloth staple in Antwerp in 1421; the arrival of the south German merchants with their silver in the 1460s; and finally the transfer of the Portuguese spice market to the city in 1498. The 1438 ledger of a Milanese bank in Bruges suggests that by then the south Germans were well established at Antwerp and the Scheldt fairs, exporting large quantitites of fustian. It also shows the bank’s integrated commercial and financial operation based on Bruges, Antwerp, Bergen, and Middleburg.