Overview
- Provides a comparative overview of mortgages in pre-modern Europe (c.1200-c.1800)
- Focuses on the similarities and differences in mortgage systems during this period
- Features new original research presented in a number of case studies
Part of the book series: Palgrave Studies in the History of Finance (PSHF)
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Table of contents (12 chapters)
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Front Matter
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Back Matter
Keywords
About this book
This volume investigates the use of mortgages in the European countryside between the thirteenth and eighteenth centuries. A mortgage allowed a loan to be secured with land or other property, and the practice has been linked to the transformation of the agrarian economy that paved the way for modern economic growth.
Historians have viewed the mortgage both positively and negatively: on the one hand, it provided borrowers with opportunities for investment in agriculture; but equally, it exposed them to the risk of losing their mortgaged property. The case studies presented in this volume reveal the variety of forms that the mortgage took, and show how an intricate balance was struck between the interests of the borrower looking for funds, and those of the lender looking for security. It is argued that the character of mortgage law, and the nature of rights in land in operation in any given the place and period, determined the degree to which mortgages were employed.Over time, developments in these factors allowed increasing numbers of peasants to use mortgages more freely, and with a decreasing risk of expropriation. This volume will be appealing to academics and researchers interested in financial history, rural credit and debt, and the economic history of agrarian communities.Editors and Affiliations
About the editors
Chris Briggs, PhD, is a Senior Lecturer in Medieval British Social and Economic History at the University of Cambridge, UK, and affiliated to Selwyn College, Cambridge. Dr Briggs is the author of a number of studies of credit and debt in the medieval economy, including Credit and village society in fourteenth century England (2009).
Jaco Zuijderduijn, PhD, is a Senior Lecturer at the Department of Economic History at Lund University, Sweden. He publishes widely on the financial history of the later Middle Ages, with a particular focus on how individuals made use of financial markets. He is the author of Medieval capital markets. Markets for ‘renten’, state formation and private investment in Holland (1300-1550) (2009).
Bibliographic Information
Book Title: Land and Credit
Book Subtitle: Mortgages in the Medieval and Early Modern European Countryside
Editors: Chris Briggs, Jaco Zuijderduijn
Series Title: Palgrave Studies in the History of Finance
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-66209-1
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan Cham
eBook Packages: Economics and Finance, Economics and Finance (R0)
Copyright Information: The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2018
Hardcover ISBN: 978-3-319-66208-4Published: 08 March 2018
Softcover ISBN: 978-3-030-09763-9Published: 30 January 2019
eBook ISBN: 978-3-319-66209-1Published: 27 February 2018
Series ISSN: 2662-5164
Series E-ISSN: 2662-5172
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: XVIII, 339
Number of Illustrations: 23 b/w illustrations
Topics: Financial History, Investments and Securities, History of Medieval Europe, History of Early Modern Europe