Les historiens ont longtemps pensé que, dans la draperie de laine médiévale, la manufacture dispersée, le Verlagssystem, dominait. Le grand marchand entrepreneur pouvait seul contrôler l’ensemble des opérations, réduisant les artisans au rang de salariés. L’Italie servait de modèle. Mais elle est sans doute une exception. Ailleurs, on demande souvent au tisserand de choisir, ou travailler pour un marchand ou se faire lui-même drapier : l’artisan entrepreneur existe. Il vend alors son drap à un marchand : c’est le Kaufsystem. La région rouennaise permet d’approcher la réalité du contrôle négociant, le financement des entreprises, le côté éclaté de la production et le rôle des pauvres gens de la draperie, qui vont d’un drap à l’autre. La question posée est alors celle de la taille des entreprises. Cette small commodity production semble bien être la forme dominante. Confronter ce modèle avec celui de « l’économie du bazar » permet d’en éclairer davantage son fonctionnement : omniprésence du crédit, inversion des hiérarchies, multiplicité des transactions, formes particulièrement flexibles de l’organisation du travail qui mêlent crédit et salariat. La manufacture dispersée n’était pas le seul chemin, ni le tout du chemin, vers la révolution industrielle.
Historians have been thinkink for years that, in the medieval wool-drapery, the putting out system or Verlagssystem dominated. The great merchant entrepreneur could alone control all the operations, reducing the artisans to the statut of wage earners. The Italy was a model. But it is probably an exception. Elsewhere the weaver is often asked to choose, either to work for a merchant or become a draper: the craftsman entrepreneur exists. He then sells his cloth to a merchant: it is called the Kaufsystem. So there was an alternative to the putting out system. We will shed light on its importance and its functioning using the example of the Rouen region, without neglecting the sources of northern France, nor the research done in Verona. More precisely we’ll explore this alternative through three models of interpretation, the Kaufsystem, the small commodity production presented by Robert Duplessis and Martha Howell, and the economy of the bazaar described by Clifford Geertz. The example of the Rouen région helps us clarify the role of merchants, their involvement in the production and their influence on the rural drapery business in general; it also allows us to look at the reality of the control by the traders, the financing of the businesses, the dispersion of the production, and the role played by the poor people of the drapery, who lived from cloth to cloth. An important point to look at is the size of the businesses. This “small commodity production” seems to be the dominant form. To compare this model with the “bazaar economy” gives a better picture of how it functioned: availability of credit, inversion of hierarchies, multiplicity of transactions, particularly good flexibility in the organization of the work, which involved credit and wage system. The putting out system was not the only way to the industrial revolution.