DEVELOPMENT OF ROMANIAN COMERCE

11th International Multidisciplinary Scientific GeoConference SGEM2011, www.sgem.org, SGEM2011 Conference Proceedings/ ISSN 1314-2704, June 20-25, 2011, Vol. 3, 1005-1012 pp

ABSTRACT

Exchange in nature named by the people barter, in a haggling, an unwritten contract
between two parties who give each other one thing for another thing. As a human
manifestation, the barter is the ancestor of commerce today that is mediated by money
and the most modern techniques. Ethnographic questionnaires completed in 1970 for
developing the Romanian Ethnographic Atlas recorded it in all the counties. In most
localities Carpathian and Subarpathian investigated in the early twentieth century
echanged was, wood, wood craft objects, animals, animal products, fruit, brandy and
other products that abound on cereals (wheat, corn, barley, oats, rye) from the
Pericarpathian hills lands (plains, low plateaus).

In the absence of cash from the medieval period this form of exchange was used by
Romanian princes: Ştefan Tomşa orderind the Bistriţeni three măji (ox carts) of tin for
which he will send cattle (exchange in nature or barter) or money, and Alexandru
Lăpuşneanu promises the same romanian Bistriţeni wine for cooking oil and other
products, etc. This is why we pursue the manifestation and rules of this interesting
phenomenon as an medieval institution and as common law.

Keywords: exchange in nature, the barter, the commercial roads, pottery road, salting roads