70. Account of the Hungarian trade of the Fuggers and Thurzo from 1519 to 1526

Fugger Archive
FA 36.3, fols 58–78, opened fols 74v–75.
GENERAL INFORMATION: Original, paper booklet with 11 double sheets. H. 32.2 cm, W. 44.5 cm. Augsburg, undated.

The Fuggers’ trading company worked with very few partners. An early and ultimately very successful partnership began in 1494 with the Thurzos from Krakow. These were mining specialists who had good relations with the royal court. Together they operated the ‘Hungarian trade’ – i.e., copper mining in what is now Slovakia – until 1526. The business relationship was strengthened by two marriages and extended for seven years in 1519. This ‘Libell’ (invoice in booklet form) contains the so-called ‘Ungerische Austailung’, i.e., the settlement of the last lease period: the Thurzo left in 1526 and the Fuggers continued their business alone for 20 years. This document registers the share of ‘Fraw Raymundus Fuggerin’, Raymund Fugger’s wife and Anton’s sister-in-law Katharina Thurzo (†1535). According to the final account of 1519, the Fugger trade owes her 14,346 gulden or florins (fl.) and now in 1526 a sixth part of 1,068 fl. for a total of 15,414 fl. After deducting the mutual liabilities, she is left with a share of 14,642 fl., plus an additional amount of 771 fl. Since she still has goods worth 1,592 fl., her dues total 16,235 florins. The last section deals with payment details about the ‘Salzkammer’ government authority.
The page on the right contains handwritten notes by the accountant Schwarz in the left margin, and by the new head of the company Anton Fugger (last two lines). Schwarz had a lot of work to do to value this trade before the cancellation of Fugger’s sole lease in 1546. This resulted in another merchant’s notebook in 1548, after he had already written his work Venezianische Musterbuchhaltung (On Venetian Bookkeeping) in 1518 – which, however, he could not publish because of the real business figures he had used in it.

(Franz Karg)