The monograph is published in connection with the 70th anniversary of the author and reflects the results of his almost half-century work on the history of the formation of the German bourgeoisie into the social class at the initial stage of the transition of Western Europe from the Middle Ages to the New Age, from feudalism to capitalism. The fate of this bourgeoisie is considered on the field of its professional activity based on materials from sources of merchant and commercial and industrial companies in southern Germany of the 10th-16th centuries.