The expansion of the European economy over the course of the long twelfth century had two consequences of immediate relevance for the theme of this paper. The first of these was an acceleration in habits of luxury consumption, as the kinds of goods formerly monopolized by the clerical and secular elite gradually cascaded down the social hierarchy. The Italian chronicler Galvano Fiamma, writing around 1340, described the transformation in a simple and memorable way: whereas a century earlier, the people of Lombardy had been accustomed to wearing unlined leathers and coarse woolens, today they bedeck themselves with gold, silver, and pearls. By the fourteenth century, luxury goods were routinely found in Mediterranean households, even the households of middling or lower status families, to judge by extant household inventories and other evidence. In these inventories, certain items stand out, notably clothing and fine fabrics as well as personal ornaments and metalwares made of gold silver and studded with gemstones. By the late fourteenth or early fifteenth centuries, households were becoming more colorful, as finely dyed curtains, bedspreads, and cushions made their way into dining halls and bedrooms. How were these goods purchased? Herein lies the second transformation, namely, a dramatic expansion in the mechanisms for extending credit.

We have long known about the banking practices and lending systems that emerged with long-distance trade. What has become increasingly clear in recent research is that the credit available in later medieval and early modern Europe also included small-scale consumer loans and distress loans. In this instance, we are speaking of micro-loans of less than one or two florins or their equivalent in other currencies. This was still a” significant sum, equivalent to perhaps two weeks’ wages for an unskilled laborer, but far smaller than the large commercial loans of hundreds of florins. Some of these micro-loans were guaranteed by a notarial contract, but the costs associated with notarization typically made the process too expensive for micro-lending. Small loans were usually processed in a different way. Shopkeepers, for example, routinely extended credit to their customers and kept track of obligations in shop cartularies.