Before Banks
The Making of Credit and Debt in Preindustrial France

Explores the making of credit and debt in preindustrial France, focusing on the financial networks of ordinary men and women.

Elise M. Dermineur (Author)

9781009502641, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 23 January 2025

293 pages
23.5 x 15.8 x 2 cm, 0.57 kg

‘In this compelling empirical study of the world of borrowing and lending in two Alsatian rural communities, Elise Dermineur adds to the rich and widespread body of research on credit and debt. With exceptional clarity, she interweaves a micro-historical cross-analysis of credit transactions between ordinary people with the historiography. This is also essential reading for today and shows we need to rethink our current world of credit and banking, which is completely detached from society.’ Janine Maegraith, Newnham College, Cambridge

This innovative work delves into the world of ordinary early modern women and men and their relationship with credit and debt. Elise Dermineur focuses on the rural seigneuries of Delle and Florimont in the south of Alsace, where rich archival documents allow for a fine cross-analysis of credit transactions and the reconstruction of credit networks from c.1650 to 1790. She examines the various credit instruments at ordinary people's disposal, the role of women in credit markets, and the social, legal, and economic experiences of indebtedness. The book's distinctive focus on peer-to-peer lending sheds light on how and why pre-industrial interpersonal exchanges featured flexibility, diversity, fairness, solidarity and reciprocity, and room for negotiation and renegotiation. Before Banks also offers insight into factors informing our present financial system and suggests that we can learn from the past to create a fairer society and economy.

Introduction
1. The setting: mutual arrangements in small communities in the south of Alsace 1650 – 1790
2. Peer-to-peer lending in non-intermediated credit markets
3. Intermediated credit: notarial contracts
4. Women and credit
5. Insolvency and default
6. The growing institutionalization of credit
Epilogue: the community of advantage.

Subject Areas: Economic history [KCZ]